In this photo Lt. John Pike of the police force of the University of California, Davis demonstrates the proper way to apply pesticides and fungicides in your garden. The lieutenant’s top tips: Wear gloves! The stuff is gross. Keep it… Read More »proper pesticide application
Things have slowed down. It’s November for godsakes. But stuff keeps happening in the garden. Probably the most remarkable thing blooming is this, a variegated mutation of Salvia divinorum. I noticed the variegation a few months ago and will try… Read More »not for sale to minors (november bloom day)
You may have heard already, but if not I wanted to relay some great news about the passing this week of ACT 173, a bill that would declare the third week of April California Native Plant Week. The legislature has… Read More »california native plant week
I grew this fiercely thorny rose, Rosa minutifolia, for over a decade. With wild-rose-pink flowers barely two inches across, its petals were crinkled and delicate, but the blooms were never particularly stunning when compared to the buxom, botoxed blooms of… Read More »world’s thorniest rose?
I’m standing in the United States as I take this picture. The hills you see are less than a mile to the south but are mostly in Mexico, across the border. The low break in the hills carries the name… Read More »destroying smuggler’s gulch
At first I thought it was a good idea. I never imagined that in some communities it would be prohibited. During some of the recent rains I put some little buckets to catch rainwater that had drained off the roof.… Read More »the rain might not belong to you
My local photographer friend Scott Davis sent me a link to an online petition asking President Obama to create a position of Secretary of the Arts, an idea that was first floated by Quincy Jones. Wall Street bankers collecting their… Read More »secretary of the arts
If you read it on the internet it must be true, right? I’ve had some questions about a recent post that relayed some information on farmers in Iraq being prohibited from saving seeds. After doing more detailed research it looks… Read More »after a little more research…
View the update to this post here. Here’s a bit of political unpleasantness I read about in a seed description in the Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds catalog listing for the Iraqi tomato variety, Rouge D’Irak: Saving seeds was made illegal… Read More »seed saving banned?