A novice's attempt to get 15 percent of his food from his suburban fifth acre
Posted in Uncategorized on May 9th, 2010
A frost-less winter had me ready to write a breathy tribute to my great success in overwintering last season’s tomatoes — a pair of Beefsteaks and a Husky Cherry — despite the fact that I put no effort into the overwintering and had even less to do with whether or not our region had a [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Dec 19th, 2009
In the spirit of the listing that this season entails — the New York Times has no fewer than 11 book lists to guide what readers read and buy — and the good reading weather the cool season brings (though it is 77 degrees in San Diego as I write this), I thought I’d jot [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Nov 17th, 2009
For about $8 you can buy 1,500 ladybugs. Since August, I have released 7,500 in my yard. Despite all of the troubles I’ve had getting things rolling in the garden this year, I have avoided dousing my edibles in chemicals to ward off or kill the pests. It’s felt like a Pyrrhic victory, at times. [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Oct 15th, 2009
When I wrote a few weeks ago about the preponderance of male flowers in my winter squash as the culprit behind the failure my cucurbits to fruit, I had also spent some time researching another symptom that had been plaguing those plants. The fruitlessness is the result of insufficient pollination, as I previously indicated. The [...]
apples avocados bees bio-control calories canning caterpillars chemical fertilizers chicken coop chickens chicks community compost container gardening fungus grafting green living green roof heirloom herbicides industrial food perennial vegetables permaculture pesticides pests pollinators population potatoes powdery mildew rabbits raised beds recipes regional eating seasonal eating seeds soil split orange squash summer crop sustainable varmints water winter crop woodlice worms
WP Cumulus Flash tag cloud by Roy Tanck and Luke Morton requires Flash Player 9 or better.