Produce Chart with Pesticide Levels

Several folks asked for a LABELED produce chart showing pesticide levels, so here it is! RED means it is likely to have a higher level and GREEN means a lower level usually.

Always Best to Buy (or GROW) Organic Produce?

Lately, I'm getting more requests from my landscaping clients who've never considered themselves gardeners to grow their own food. And they want to do it organically. Horror stories of tainted greens drive many to question what else they might be buying in that bag of lettuce or spinach. Restaurants, bars, and even airlines blame skyrocketing prices for dropping lime…

Easy to grow from seed: LET US have LETTUCE!

Some of my lettuce is beginning to bolt.  Just when it starts getting too hot in the kitchen and I prefer a cool salad over a warm meal, my salad fixins' peter out on me.  While I LIKE flowers, when a stalk shoots up on lettuce to produce flowers - thus producing seeds - I…

What the HECK is an HEIRLOOM? Part 2

What qualifies plants to get shelved into the HEIRLOOM section? Last week we jumped into a discussion about HEIRLOOMS, one of the current buzzwords in landscaping. Introduction date is the 1st factor that decides a plant's place as an heirloom, as I indicated, but today we'll look at the 2nd criteria for that classification: dependability and self-reliance.…