Planet Veggie Garden

Last Summer Harvest

We’re nearing the end of the ‘08 Summer season. It’s been a so-so growing season – yields have been pretty poor but the quality has been great. I’d say this year’s tomatoes were some of the tastiest in recent years. There’s still some peppers, celery and a few melons yet to pick but [...]

Crop rotation has been on my mind since mid-summer. In our plan to up our production, we are putting into place the time honored practice of crop rotation.  Since we are planning a winter garden this year I had to map out not only our winter garden but our spring and summer as well so [...]

to Rotate or not to Rotate, that is the question…
Rotating is an age old practice dating back to Roman times where a crop family is planted in a different bed each year so that the crop is not planted in the same bed for at least 3 years.
Why do such a thing?
Crops are organized in [...]

One of the local news shows did a feature on urban veggie gardens in Silicon Valley.
While the motivation to DIY these days may be the increasing cost of food or a desire to decrease one’s carbon footprint, as most longer term gardeners like Candace Simpson featured in the video will tell you… it’s a bit [...]

Slow Food Nation ‘08 San Francisco City Hall

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
A beautiful sunny day, we arrived via BART for the first day of the Slow Food Nation ‘08 Celebration to tour the Victory Gardens in front of San Francisco City Hall.

Surreal View of City Hall Through the Victory Garden

 
It seemed almost surreal to see what was once a [...]

The FDA (US Food and Drug Administration) passed regulation last week allowing fresh spinach and iceberg lettuce to be irradiated.
Food irradiation involves zapping the food with ionizing radiation. The radiation damages the DNA of micro-organisms such as E. coli and salmonella and kills them. Hence, no more food-born illness issue.
The FDA has been allowing [...]

We were visiting my brother and his partner R & M yesterday and took a peek at their very compact garden. They rent a lovely home in Hayward and decided to grow a few veggies.

R & M’s Garden

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
In a sunny 8 foot by 3 foot spot they planted: 6 tomatoes, 12 thai basil, 6 thai [...]

Gardening takes commitment…
commitment of time and effort to cultivate plants of course. There’s also commitment to location from a pragmatic sense. I mean you grow plants in the earth. And the earth doesn’t pack up and move… tho people do.
We’re familiar with the typical model used by urban gardeners with limited land: construct a number [...]

…all 197,000 square feet of living roof at the new California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. The entire roof of the new CAS is covered with planting medium and planted with 1.7 million plants. Wow, I want one of those!
How lucky are chef’s Charles Phan and Loretta Keller when they can [...]

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Here is a view of the main part of our (Patti and Sandy’s) back garden. To the left against the fence and not in view is the recycle bins I set up last week. Those have chard and broccoli seedlings.
In the picture on the left is four raised beds. There is rhubarb, sage, romano beans, [...]