Plant Pathogens – Pasteurize? Sterilize? Sanitize? Boil Everything!

March 26, 2019 Recently, I was watching someone rinse a plastic polyethylene plant-potting container in a bleach solution for reuse. I was pretty sure that pot needed to be thoroughly rinsed of organic matter prior to the bleach rinse. The observation made me think of several reasons why a gardener needs to know how kill […]

Get To The Root Of The Matter

February 4, 2019 Last week Sue helped us plan the vegetables for the year. We were thinking of what to plant near the far north olla and we got out our photos of plant root lengths from the summer. The olla best serves a plant with a deeper root system. (See Water Conservation page on […]

What’s in the Air is Fair

January 12, 2019 Is it risky to eat food grown next to the Freeway? Orchard visitors sometimes ask this question. It is an especially interesting question to me, an Environmental Protection Agency retiree and air quality specialist. The two principle ways food can become contaminated from environmental pollutants are through soil and air. In urban […]