Mud Baron

Anyone who's spent anytime with Westside City Councilman Bill Rosendahl knows that once he gets the mic...he's going to be rocking it awhile. When I asked his staffer, Tony Arranaga, to put together "just a list of his 2011 garden plans" I shouldn't be surprised that Bill added his own commentary... and pictures... and philosophy... and CHICKENS! So yes, he's grabbed the mic on me again, this time on the "internets" and has up and...

Last year I traveled to Washington DC for the People's Garden Summit. Nothing odd in that: school bureaucrat on a trip to the nation's capitol to meet with federal bureaucrat and talk about "bureaucrat things." I was going on behalf of my school groups and the National Gardening Association, a great group that gets kids all across the country outside and in the garden. Great right? But what makes this unusual is that the second leg of my flight from Philly to DC - canceled.

Some of us were cool kids. Some. Me? No, except to my dungeon master a la Patton Oswalt. Oh god, junior high? Painful. Yes, most of us were not anywhere near the cool table. Few of us had anything figured out in our tweenish awkwardness, let alone sustainable agriculture systems and our "food shed." College was when we are supposed to "get it together?" So when this food justice-y, dahlia growing, school garden building writer...

At Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, one of our state's greatest Agriculture schools, they teach "Learn by Doing." That's when you get a bunch of type-A, 3.9 GPA college-y kids not used to failure and you get them out there and make them start shoveling shit (that is the word, it's not compost straight out of the cow). They learn "organic means lots of extra work" that way. Chemicals work too, but organic often mean...

It's 83 degrees where I've parked myself and the laptop. It's a little muggy from a marine layer burn off--this could be a sleepy version North Carolina with bad bar-b-que. But it's So Cal. We can pretend awhile with the next invited garden writer and her 2011 planting list favorites. It's Helen Yoest [Twitter] of Tarheel Gardening. She generously shared her must-haves from her own backyard planting scheme. I noticed Eschsholzia california right away, and...

Photo courtesy Shawna Coronado It's the third day of 80 degree-weather in Los Angeles and you may be feeling like we missed spring. Spring is planting time and that takes the right seeds. I've written about companies that offer really great product, but nothing is better than the experience of friends. Their favorites might be your favorites too. Seeing that there is no "Yelp" for backyard gardens, I rely on my cadre of gardeners,...

Photo via Facebook It's our ever-active City Council President, Eric Garcetti, getting down and dirty this morning for all us Angelenos on an inspection of the city's now rain-taxed sewer system. This is Garcetti's way of kicking off his Shorty Awards campaign for excellence in social media on the subject of--gasp!--politics. You can give him a nomination via Twitter and see that LA defeats the equally Tweet-a-licious, snow shovel-wielding Newark, NJ Mayor Cory Booker....

It could be my laziness, my deeper interest in the distracting end-products of “Cocktail Gardening” and its logical basil-infused cocktail hour or the simple fact that almost no major or minor home garden seed companies advertise Genetically Modified Organism products, but I haven’t been able to find any GMO products in the local garden center aisles. I’ve really, really tried.

We will be in the “heat” of spring in just over two months. The days will be lengthening as we pass the December 21st Solstice; you hippie freaks will undoubtedly be worshiping the Mother, and I’ll be looking at new varieties of available seed to put in her. Here are some of my fave vendors whose catalogs that I have dog-eared and love to support.

I’m not going to wait until one of you gets your compost together to ask me an important question. I’m not going to hear the 4th query on “why do I suck at gardening?” (A: worms hate you). This column needs to be responsive, sure… but let me ask a question that you should be asking: Why do my dahlias have jock itch?