It’s August and everybody’s vegetable gardens crank out delicious organic food. Yum-oh! But sometimes gardeners find holes in the middle of the leaves of their vegetable crops. Large holes. Many of them. Who’s the culprit? Caterpillars? Grasshoppers? Beetles? Or maybe snails! Snails and slugs both glide through your garden on a ribbon of slime, the shiny, sparkly stuff the snail in the photo above is
Read more →It’s officially summertime. The solstice came and went. We’re tending our gardens, nurturing our vegetables and flowers. We all look forward to an abundant harvest of fantastic, home-grown, organic vegetables. Along the way we might run into beetles. Some beetles, like ladybugs (aka lady beetles), are good partners. Beneficial insects such as these help you achieve your goals by eating insects that damage to your
Read more →On a tour of secret gardens in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Kathryn and I peek behind adobe walls for tantalizing glimpses of hidden treasures. Organized by the Santa Fe Botanical Gardens, the tour provides access to several small urban gardens not normally visible to passersby. A beautifully sophisticated yet rustic fence made of reddish twigs defines the boundary between the garden and the natural environment
Read more →Today we pay tribute to David’s father, Lawrence Edwin Deardorff, who passed away on May 11 at the age of 97. Larry first took David into the garden when he was 6 years old, and he learned about the world of plants at his father’s side. Larry was an avid gardener his entire life, and became our partner when David and I owned Island Biotropix,
Read more →Garden Art means different things to different people. In the vegetable garden it can take the form of a screen to mask the compost bin, or a painting on the side of the tool shed. Some of us – and by us I mean gardeners – take care to lay out our herb gardens to create patterns that please the eye. Then we add decorative
Read more →As many of you may realize by now, while David and I are avid gardeners, our passion is the gateway to nature that the garden provides. As we arrive in New Mexico, so does spring, with all its chaotic and unpredictable weather. Red buds bloom along with plums, lilacs, and cottonwood. And then it snows, and gardeners and farmers worry about their incipient apricots, cherries,
Read more →We’re at the Los Angeles Arboretum in Arcadia, California, giving a presentation to the “Compulsive Gardeners”, a wonderful group of knowledgeable and dedicated gardeners whose enthusiasm is boundless. It’s interesting to be back. I (David) used to work here, in the Research Division, just after finishing my PhD. It was my first professional position and I loved all the exotic plants from Mediterranean climates around the
Read more →Santa Barbara, California – a gardener’s paradise. While it may have heavy, clay soil, and little water, it has perfect temperatures for growing plants from all the “Mediterranean” climates of the world. The flora of South Africa, the west coasts of North and South America, Australia, and, of course, the Med itself make appearances here. The Santa Barbara Botanic Garden displays the amazing diversity of
Read more →It’s time to get started on the vegetable garden for the coming season so you can grow your own healthy, organic food again this year. Many of us have already started seedlings indoors to transplant out to the garden or the cold frames as soon as weather permits. Kathryn and I have come up with a checklist of ten things to consider before you plant.
Read more →