The Virtue of Planting on Hill Mounds

Gardener’s Notebook by Joshua Burman Thayer   Some plants have evolved to live on hillsides. They do not generally like to be in constantly wet soils and prefer that storm water pass them by and drain down to the flats below. This can be difficult in clay soils that tend to pool water in winter.…

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Create Moisture Microclimates on Your Property

Gardener’s Notebook by Joshua Burman Thayer | Illustration by Charmaine Koehler-Lodge Microclimates matter when it comes to what will grow well on your property, but did you know that you can manage the moisture diversity around your property by reshaping its topography? Even if you have a small or flat piece of land, you can create…

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Deadhead Your Spring Veggies

Gardener’s Notebook by Joshua Burman Thayer     Spring is big this year. Those of us who ride with the seasonal tide of biomass (and even folks who rarely do more than look at it) are noting that the vertical explosion of spring 2023 is a true wonder. So, let’s talk about deadheading greens. While…

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Sprout Your Summer Veggie Garden Now

Gardener’s Notebook by Joshua Burman Thayer     Although it’s barely spring, summer is right around the corner, at least when it comes to having a garden full of vegetables. Sure, you could wait until May and purchase six packs (I mean squash starts, not beer) or you could plan ahead and sprout your summer…

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Sow, Sow, Sow for Spring Abundance

February in the Garden: Gardener’s Notebook by Joshua Burman Thayer It’s still quite cold outside, too cold, in fact, for seeding summer veggies. But certain crops sprout and grow just fine in the cool, wet Bay Area winter, and you can direct sow them into your raised beds and buckets throughout the month of February.…

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How to Design Microclimates into your Bay Area Garden

Gardener’s Notebook by Joshua Burman Thayer In 2003, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, reported that a simple brick wall can shift the air temperature adjacent to the wall by over 13°F compared to the surrounding area. Walls, berms, pergolas, and other human designs can significantly increase or decrease temperature in various parts of…

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Have You Finished Your Fall Gardening Chores?

Gardener’s Notebook by Joshua Burman Thayer The fall season is nearly done and everything seems to be at a pause, but are those new plants sprouting under those piles of autumn’s fallen leaves? Why not choose what will grow there instead? By sowing cover crops into your growing spaces and fruit tree basins now, your…

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How to Create Moisture Microclimates on Your Property

Gardener’s Notebook by Joshua Burman Thayer   While microclimates might not seem like something you can create on your own property, in fact you can. Even if you have a small or flat piece of land, you can diversify your local topography by reshaping it with mounds that direct the flow and retention of water.…

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Design your Garden in Harmony with Nature

Gardener’s Notebook by Joshua Burman Thayer Out in wild areas, nature supports a wide variety of plants living in close relation to each other. Look up in a forest and you’ll see a canopy of tall trees and a sub-canopy of smaller trees. At eye level, there are bushes and shrubs, and if you crouch…

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Plant a Screen of Edibles and Natives for Food and Habitat

Gardener’s Notebook by Joshua Burman Thayer     Among the advantages of planting food-producing trees in cohabitation with native ecology are food for your table, better pollination, and good habitat for your local wildlife like bees, hummingbirds, and native moths. The dry hedge plants below prefer full sun. If you have drought as part of…

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An Oyster Mushroom Bed For Your Garden

Gardener’s Notebook By Joshua Burman Thayer | Illustration by Charmaine Koehler-lodge     I first got turned on to growing oyster mushrooms years ago when I was installing raised beds at several community gardens. I realized that mushrooms could thrive in dappled shade near trees and other shrubbery, where full-sun lovers like tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant…

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Grow Sunflower Microgreens in a Window Box

Gardener’s Notebook by Joshua Burman Thayer Sunflower microgreens are easy to grow in a window box or in a flat out on your porch. Here’s how to start your patch: Fill a vegetable window box or seeding flat with coconut coir to within a half inch of the top of the container. This fiber is inert,…

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Plant Some Dry Hedges Around Your Home Food Forest

  Gardener’s Notebook by Joshua Burman Thayer Do you have a sunny property line that could use some softening? Here are some sturdy hedge options that will thrive and endure in our Bay Area climate. These trees will build soil and provide food in an interacting ecology known as a food forest. For a dense…

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Organic Home-Grown Cannabis for Food and Medicine

  By Joshua Burman Thayer | Photos by Rachel Stanich Each summer brings an opportunity to grow your own cannabis. Here is my journey from 2021, when I was able to grow two pounds of organic cannabis in one 8-x 4-foot raised bed. To grow the best cannabis, you want sinsemilla, which means “seed free”…

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Winter Gardening for Kids (of All Ages)

January Gardener’s Notebook by Joshua Burman Thayer   Got some mopey kids who are fed up with the rain? Bundle them up and get them started on a project that guarantees both delight and valuable insight. If you have a garden space or raised bed with bare soil, you can take full advantage of growing…

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Evergreen Your Garden in November

Gardener’s Notebook by Joshua Burman Thayer   As the first rains dapple the landscape, there’s new opportunity to expand your home garden with productive food plants. Here in Northern California you get the advantage of continued growth throughout our wet-cool season with the following evergreen plants, which can continue to develop all winter long.   Citrus…

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Grow Garlic in Your Winter Garden

Gardener’s Notebook by Joshua Burman Thayer Why and how to plant garlic in October for winter enjoyment.     Garlic (allium sativum) is a Central Asia native of the onion family. Known as “shumim’ in the Talmud, this sacred medicinal and edible plant was used as currency in ancient Egypt. During college, I lived with…

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Grow Your Soil with Fall Cover Crops

September Gardener’s Notebook by Joshua Burman Thayer Once those winter rains come, the daily pummeling of raindrops can do a number on your soil, which is why some people put their gardens to bed through the winter with a two- to four-inch-thick layer of mulch. You can use straw hay, wood chips, cocoa hulls, or…

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Add a New Crop to your Midsummer Veggie Garden

  Gardener’s Notebook: story and photo by Joshua Burman Thayer August is almost here, and your tomatoes, basil, peppers, melons, and zucchini are in full summer swagger, ready to yield food for your kitchen well into September and October. That means it’s prime time to assess your garden for open spaces and unused corners where…

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Create an Oyster Mushroom Patch

Gardener’s Notebook by Joshua Burman Thayer This easy garden project lets you explore the magic of mycelium while you grow a valuable source of vegan protein for your table. I first got turned on to growing oyster mushrooms years ago while I was running several community gardens in San Francisco. Installing a 3- x 10-foot…

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Feed It Through the Leaves

Photos by Joshua Burman Thayer Gardener’s Notebook by Joshua Burman Thayer In spite of challenges like poor soil and drought, the Bay Area is a great place to grow your own food. Organic gardening practitioners like me are constantly working to build our soil by amending with organic matter and green mulch from nitrogen-fixing cover…

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Sow Some Spring Seeds: a gardening activity for kids

  Gardener’s Notebook by Joshua Burman Thayer Nature is a great teacher, and there is so much that kids can learn out in the garden while helping produce food for the family table. Sowing seeds for spring crops directly in the ground is fun and a perfect place to start. Spring crops add richness to the…

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Sprout Your Summer Veggie Seeds Now

Gardener’s Notebook by Joshua Burman Thayer DON’T WAIT! Sow your summer seeds now to ensure they are ready for your garden, come April and May. Coco Coir is Cash:  When sprouting seeds, an inert non-soil medium is best. My favorite is coconut coir. This is the brown fiber at the palm frond’s base, which has been…

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Arugula: an Easy Choice to Plant Now in Your Home Garden

Gardener’s Notebook by Joshua Burman Thayer In this time of the winter solstice, we’re inclined to move slower and spend more time close to home. Thanks to our wonderfully mild Bay Area winters, we can continue to cultivate our soil and plant cool-season crops. December brings optimal planting conditions for arugula. Eruca vesicaria sativa (or…

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Planting Perennials in the Fall

Gardener’s Notebook by Joshua Burman Thayer Each year in February, I sprout out a bunch of summer crops like corn, squash, cucumber, tomato, and peppers. In about 10 weeks, they are large enough to sell to my home garden clients who are planning their summer gardens. In 2020, instead of selling my sprouts, I decided…

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Catch Crops and Cover Crops for Your November Garden

Gardener’s Notebook by Joshua Burman Thayer Sitting in the early dusk, sipping tea, and looking out the window at the now dry tomato and squash vines in our summer garden, we can’t help but recall with longing the daily gifts they gave to our tables. But now is not the time for nostalgia! The seasonal…

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Plant a Pomegranate Tree

Gardener’s Notebook by Joshua Burman Thayer Photos by Cheryl Angelina Koehler Photo by Joshua Burman Thayer The myth and the lore of the ancient Silk Road is saturated in the bright red of the lush pomegranate. Originating in the Caucasus mountains, Punica granatum has been in cultivation at least since the 5th millennium BCE. It…

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Your Backyard is a Garden of Eden

  By Joshua Burman Thayer, based on interviews with John Valenzuela | Illustrations by Joshua Burman Thayer   As a Bay Area horticulturalist devoted to encouraging home food production, I often find myself thinking about the Eastern Mediterranean. It’s the region where many of the important food crops we grow in Northern California originated.   “Where…

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A Swale Idea!

Strategies for growing food in an episodic drought environment By Joshua Burman Thayer Gardener’s Notebook, April 2020: I recently finished work on a large hillside landscaping project in Danville, California. Designing this orchard and herb garden “food forest” (and others I’ve done recently for East Bay homeowners) gave me a chance to apply some strategies…

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Get Out in Your Garden

Kids climbing the walls indoors? Get them out to help in the garden. It might seed a lifelong love of gardening and a better appreciation for nature’s wonders. Joshua Burman Thayer, author of our Gardener’s Notebook, offers tips for gardening with kids. Click here. Many local gardening centers can fill orders for plants and supplies. Look…

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Glorious Gooseberry!   

Gardener’s Notebook       We survived the winter and March is here. That means it’s time to take action and shape the scope of our summer gardens. Everything we do in the spring months affects the outcome during the coming growing season.    My mission today is to encourage you to plant Ribes uva-crispa, commonly known as the gooseberry. This larger cousin of the currant is a lovely, lacy, and elegant upright plant that might prick you a little if you grab onto its branches. It…

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Gardeners, Start Your Tomatoes!

  Gardener’s Notebook   Tomato season may seem a long way off, but January is the time to sprout your tomato seeds. Knowing where your seeds come from ensures the high quality you seek in your organic vegetables. I have always been fascinated by seeds, seed savers, and the concept of seeds as the original…

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Huckleberry at Home

Gardener’s Notebook By Joshua Burman Thayer My saying of the moment is Vaccinium for Everyone! The Vaccinium genus of plants includes over 450 species worldwide with 40 native to North America. Many are members of the temperate forest understory, which have evolved to set edible fruit in less than full sun. Among them are the…

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Big Trees at Home

  By Joshua Berman Thayer   Here in the East Bay, many of us live within the confines of an urban grid. If we have space to landscape, it’s likely to be a quarter acre at most. How can we make these small urban lots produce abundant organic produce? The answer might be to fill…

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Create a Home Ecosystem of Perennial Edibles

  Gardeners Notebook By Joshua Burman Thayer | Illustrations by Cheryl Angelina Koehler   Have you ever imagined an orchard in your yard? Or perhaps you already have one but sense that your space is underutilized? Try composing your plantings into guilds. These are groups of plants that operate together to enhance each other’s health…

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Fall Composting Basics

Gardener’s Notebook By Joshua Burman Thayer     It only takes a few cool evenings and wet mornings to give a sense that fall is coming. Squirrels stash nuts and songbirds fatten on dry seeds, giving us a little help with clearing away the summer plant residues as we make room for cool season crops.…

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Prune Those Tomato Plants!

Gardener’s Notebook By Joshua Burman Thayer   Tomato plants thrive in our Bay Area Mediterranean climate. They grow an amazing amount for an annual, and their vining branches can become very dense and also shoot out great distances with the increased light at the summer solstice. Your job as a tomato plant tender is to…

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Cucumbers in the Creases

Gardener’s Notebook How to fit cucumbers into your summer garden patch Spring is upon us. With nights growing warmer and the wet season soon to be over, now is the time to map out your summer garden. What you do right now to thoughtfully prepare your garden beds will determine your bounty in June, July,…

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Garden Allies

Friends, partners, collaborators, cohabitors . . . Grown together, plants can be more than the sum of their parts   By Joshua Burman Thayer  | Illustrations by Cheryl Angelina Koehler Did you know that plants form alliances? Like humans, plants do better when they associate with other plants for mutual benefit, such as to procreate,…

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Summer Starts

Gardener’s Notebook   Now is the time to sprout your summer crops from seed. In April and May when you purchase a $4 tomato or $3 pepper start, that plant was started from seed way back in February. The nursery worker who started it was thinking ahead to the vegetable-growing season, and you can too! …

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Protect your Topsoil Through the Winter

Gardener’s Notebook   Pelting rains, driving winds, and what looks like a creek flowing through your backyard. These winter storms make it hard to remember that just a few months ago, Northern California was up in flames and blackened by smoke. The challenge now is to protect your soil and give it a bit of…

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Sow a Cover Crop

Gardener’s Notebook   Too many holiday visitors hanging around the house? Get the team outside to tend the earth in a family affirmation of healthy food! December is prime time for planting an edible ground cover to nourish and protect your soil and also create some good food for the table. By planting these easy-to-sow cover…

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Tend Your Soil

Gardener’s Notebook  As you clear out your fall tomato beds, take a little time to give some love to your garden’s soil. Then seed in some fava and garlic to grow through the winter months.   Safety First If you’re preparing a new growing space at your East Bay home, you might want to bring…

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An Edible Hedgerow in the City

An Edible Hedgerow in the City By Joshua Burman Thayer “Thrush in a Fig Tree” illustration by Rigel Stuhmiller In our densely packed urban areas, space is at a premium. Courtyards, corridors, driveways, and narrow strips along property lines can seem lost for gardening use, but there are strategies for filling those zones with plants…

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Fall Planting Guide

Gardener’s Notebook by Joshua Burman Thayer As the days shorten and the stress of the sun lessens, we’re in a prime window for planting perennial evergreen species that can provide your household with edible abundance. That window stays open from early October until the third or fourth day of our first big storm, when the…

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Meet the Local Wild Cherry

Meet a Local Wild Cherry: Prunus ilicifolia On a recent stroll along the north bank of the Carquinez Strait in Benicia, I came upon a California native plant loaded up with edible cherry-like fruits. Prunus ilicifolia, aka hollyleaf cherry, evergreen cherry, or simply California wild cherry, was called islay by California’s Salinan tribespeople. The Salinans…

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Plant for the Future with Edible Hedges

Gardener’s Notebook Do you have a property line with nothing growing on the border or an annoying view of a road or apartment building? Plant for the future by installing an edible hedge. Pineapple Guava Originally from Brazil, pineapple guava (Feijoa sellowiana) brings together two valuable qualities: It’s tropical and also quite drought tolerant. This…

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Solstice Garden

Gardening at the Solstice We have arrived at the summer solstice, the time of year when daylight lasts the longest and the sun is as far north as she gets. Here are some ways to transition your plants from spring to summer growth. In North America, the month following summer solstice (which in 2018 was…

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Growing Moringa

Gardener’s Notebook By Joshua Burman Thayer Moringa Can Be a Boon to Your Garden Have you heard of Moringa oleifera? An amazingly fast-growing perennial, moringa is edible from root to shoot. High in iron, it offers a nutritional boost to people as well as animals, and can be a real boon to your garden or orchard…

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Neighborhood Gardening

Grow Your Garden into a Local Food Network By Joshua Burman Thayer | Illustrations by Cheryl Angelina Koehler Small is beautiful. Henry David Thoreau’s most famous foray into agricultural writing arose out of observing a patch of beans he had seeded outside his cabin at Walden Pond. That simple act in the 19th century is…

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March to Start Tomatoes

Now Is the Time to Plant Your Tomatoes Tomatoes take the full growing season to root, shoot, and fruit, so now is the time to get the stars of the summer into the ground. Plant them deep: Tomatoes have the awesome ability to launch root shoots into the soil from places where you have broken…

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Spring Gardening

Snatch that Space in Your Spring Garden We’re now in that great season of leafy green growth following the spring equinox. For gardeners, that means a special opportunity to plant “catch” or “snatch” crops. These are faster-growing edible species (harvested in 60 to 80 days) that can be tucked in around the longer-lasting summer crops before those main crops get a…

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Grow Citrus

It’s the Citrus Time of Year! Citrus fruits are the classic California winter bounty. By including a variety of citrus in your diet, you can improve nutrition and build immunity during the winter flu season and spring allergy season. The fruits are well known for their high vitamin C content, and they are also good…

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Creating Layers in Your Food Garden

Good things from the lower layers of your food forest By Joshua Burman Thayer | Illustration by Cheryl Angelina Koehler Permaculture seeks to build harmony between people and nature. It calls upon us to care for the earth while producing food for our nourishment. Planting a food forest is one way to realize these goals.…

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Winter is the Time to Plant Bare-Root Fruit Trees

Gardener’s Notebook By Joshua Burman Thayer There’s a lot going on in a northern forest mid-winter, but you don’t need to head into the wilderness to see it. Just look around. Similar things are happening everywhere in nature, even in the mild and urbanized East Bay. Take, for instance, those fallen leaves. They serve many functions: They return carbon…

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Plant a Tree Collard

Plant a Tree Collard Now is the time! By Joshua Burman Thayer As winter brings shorter days and cooler temperatures, our gardens enjoy a reprieve from the dryness of summer. More moisture comes not only from winter rains, but also from condensation as the dew point rises. The dew point is the atmospheric temperature (varying…

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Grow Pomegranates

Pomegranate Pizzazz Ruby red pomegranate seeds enliven our salads, meats, sauces, and desserts with their brilliant color and tart-sweet flavor. Pomegranate trees and shrubs (Punica granatum) grow easily here in the Bay Area and are best planted between September and November. This is also when the fruits are harvested. Pomegranate lovers owe thanks to botanist…

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Perk Up Your Plants with Coffee Grounds

Perk Up Your Plants with a Free and Easy Amendment: Coffee Grounds Your used coffee grounds can provide a natural and beneficial soil amendment. Add this natural food source to your soil by following these easy steps. Capture the gold Don’t just dump coffee grounds in your compost. Separate them into their own bucket, and…

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What is a Food Forest?

On Plant Communities and Food Forests Permaculture concepts in action By Joshua Burman Thayer Plants, like people, thrive in community. As a landscape designer who works with permaculture strategies, I appreciate how nature evolves its plant communities so each member benefits from its associations with the others. That’s valuable knowledge to bring into the garden.…

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Touch-Up Pruning for Lemon Tree Health

Gardener’s Notebook Many Bay Area property owners enjoy great yields from their citrus trees, but most are unclear about when and how to prune them. The common wisdom is to prune in winter, but citruses, which have a sub-tropical heritage, are best pruned when there is no threat of frost or rain. Light touch-up pruning…

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May in the Garden: The Three Sisters of Summer Adopt a Fourth

Gardener’s Notebook By Joshua Burman Thayer One of the great delights of walking the hills above the bohemian enclave of Berkeley is the chance to follow the system of footpaths that provide secret routes from one street to another. Oak tree branches frame enchanting views of the Golden Gate and the San Francisco Bay on…

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Growing Food Near Native Oaks

Growing Food Near Native Oaks Is it possible to grow perennial food plants near native oaks? Yes, with the right plants and methods. Here in Northern California, we are blessed with many stoic and picturesque native oaks. Quercus agrifolia (coastal live oak), Quercus lobata (valley oak), and Quercus douglasii (blue oak) are all found in…

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Home Harvest

                                  Wishing you had more planting space in your yard? There may be an extra piece of gardening real estate you did not realize you had. Growing food on fences and arbors can enhance privacy and also add to…

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Move Over Spinach: Miner’s Lettuce is Here

Gardener’s Notebook A recent rainy day off found me wandering the oak woodlands on the east side of Mount Diablo. As I ambled into Mitchell Canyon, I stopped to admire the rolling clouds upon the ridge, then looked down to find myself standing ankle-deep in a patch of Claytonia perfoliata, otherwise known in these parts…

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In the Winter Garden

Right now, the Bay Area winter may be gently nudging or loudly banging on your door. If you’re a gardener, the transition into the cool season can seem abrupt and disappointing, but with steps taken now, you can boost plant growth and keep your beds productive through the winter months. 1. Mulch for Warmer Roots…

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Young Hands in the Dirt

  sharing the garden’s pleasures with kids By Joshua Burman Thayer Illustrations by Cheryl Angelina Koehler As a wilderness camp counselor and later as a naturalist with the San Francisco Unified School District, I had the experience of getting paid to interact with kids in nature. Leading trips around the dunes of Fort Funston and the…

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