Down and Dirty

Let’s start the new year with some good news! We are constantly bombarded with bad news, most of which we can do little about. So here’s the good news — by using sustainable practices in our gardens we can positively influence the world around us. And whatever we do to reduce the negative impacts of […]

People often hire me to prune their fruit trees this time of year. While I appreciate the work, most basic pruning, especially on young trees that haven’t been previously damaged or badly pruned, can be done by anyone with some basic information. Now that the leaves have fallen and fruit trees are dormant for the […]

No garden is complete without a yummy patch of edible, perennial shrubbery! Even a small garden can squeeze in a few brambles, berries or ‘chokes. To create a low-maintenance food forest with a year-round harvest and multiple layers of plants, a mid-sized perennial understory is an essential piece of the design. Shrubs connect the canopy […]

What are low-maintenance plants? These are plants that are hardy in your region and adapted to local soil and climate conditions (think native plants); plants that thrive without heavy watering or fertilizing; plants that resist or tolerate insect and disease damage (in our area, primarily slugs and snails, deer, and powdery mildew); plants that require […]

I can’t stop eating them. There’s a fig tree at the place where I am staying and I can’t seem to keep them out of my mouth! It’s a huge tree, maybe 50 years old, sprawling across the low wood fence and dropping down into the neighbors’ yard. They don’t mind. Every October, both houses get more figs than […]

In a forest, the plants collaborate. They take turns blooming, share space, distribute different nutrients and succeed each other over generations. In our home gardens, we can create diverse, low-maintenance food forests by mimicking these patterns. In its most basic form, this is called companion planting, and gardeners have been doing it for millennia. You […]

How do we experience a garden? Probably the first thing we notice is the visual aspect — the colors, textures and overall design that appeal to us. We may also enjoy fragrant flowers and plants with aromatic foliage and the scent of newly mown lawn or freshly turned earth. Fruits and vegetables delight our sense […]

There are plenty of good reasons to develop a skill set for growing food in small spaces. Maybe you only have a tiny balcony with sun for half the day? Or a hot, paved driveway but no other yard? Perhaps you’re in student housing? Or maybe it’s more of a time constraint: You’d like to […]

If you’re anything like me, this is the time of year you live for. The garden is popping, flowers are blooming, and there’s more zucchini than you know what to do with. I could make this a very short column and just say: Relax! Take a nap in the sunshine and eat some berries. You […]

I spent almost a year living in Granada, Spain. The whole city is filled with gardens. Figs and pomegranates grow as weeds; Mediterranean climate at its very best. And all summer long, we drank gazpacho made from local ingredients. Gazpacho is often called a “cold soup” by gringos, but in Spain it is served over […]