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News and Other Articles That I've Found Interesting


An Ode to the Dandelion: Deciphering fact from fiction for one of the most infamous plants in the world.

L.A. County finds high lead levels in soil on properties already cleaned by Army Corps

Polluted soil is all over L.A. Here’s how to fix it, even if your home didn’t burn

Love Them to Death: Turning Invasive Plants into Local Economic Opportunities

​A brand-new rose popped up in Barbra Streisand’s garden. Now you can buy it for yours

A simple way you can actually help save the world

Invasive plants make fires worse. Can they be stopped?

Helping Families by Monitoring Soil Safety after the LA Fires

After the Fire:  Home Garden and Fruit Tree Safety

Don’t mess with Mexico’s maíz: Constitutional amendment to ban GMO corn seeds

Inside the Japanese-American Farm Preserving Endangered Fruit

A Guide to the Peppers of the World

How a humble mail carrier developed the Hass avocado in Southern California

Invasive Plants: What They Are and Why They Matter

Do more than clear brush. Garden for fire.

Fire Recovery Resources for Your Landscape & Garden

What trees survived in our terrible fires? And why didn’t they burn?

Is the ash and residue from the recent fires a danger to the fruits and vegetables in your garden?

Gardening in Areas Outside the Burn Zone

Now that you can return home after the fires, how do you clean up safely?

Produce Safety after a Fire

12 beautiful plants and flowers to enjoy in Southern California in 2025

Night of the Radishes

An ancient, Indigenous, legendary bean to give thanks for

Huitlacoche, a Mexican Fungus, is Popping Up On Restaurant Menus Across the US

Meet the Italian ‘Fruit Detective’ Who Investigates Centuries-Old Paintings for Clues About Produce That Has Disappeared From the Kitchen Table
Where have all the orange groves gone?

Was NYC’s Little Island worth all the travel troubles to get there?

Why Does the Season Before Winter Have Two Names?

California’s Food Recovery Program is the First of its Kind in the US

National Hummingbird Day – September 7, 2024

Another blistering heat wave is here. Start protecting your plants now

How Cherokee Trail of Tears Beans Connect a Community to Its Roots

Which fruits and vegetables have the most pesticide residue?

Interview With John Schoustra - Avocado Growing

Want a landscape that will outlast climate change? Plant these Ice Age survivors

10 Common Tomato Problems and How to Solve Them!

Book Review = Foraging Southern California:  118 Nutritious, Tasty, and Abundant Foods​
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Book Review = Regenerating Essential Goods and Services in Urban Landscapes:  Sustainability Through Ecological Design​
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When is it OK to pick someone else’s fruit tree?

Buzzy, Fuzzy, and Wild -- Celebrating Peak Pollinator Season

The Super Luxe History of Pineapples—And Why They Used to Cost $8000

The 18th-Century Spy Who Gave Us Big Strawberries

Turn Your Garden Into an ‘Ark of Taste’ for Nearly Lost Plants

End Of A Dynasty:  Nuccio's Nurseries

About 69 percent of the global diet is “foreign"

15 best native plants to grow in your yard if you also want fragrant bouquets

18 ways to volunteer with native plants in and around L.A.

April is National Garden Month!

Would You Eat This Purple Tomato?

Zesty Edible Flowers List

Will 2024 give us a superbloom — and where to see wildflowers now

How to Prepare Garden Soil For Spring Using Regenerative and Organic Techniques

Five Great Native Plants

For Women’s History Month, a look at some trailblazers in American gardening and horticulture

The Best of Food on Colossal

How Black Pepper Won Europe From a Tastier Pepper

The World’s Longest-Running Experiment Is Buried in a Secret Spot in Michigan

Pruning Roses and Cultivating Beauty

Turf is out. Native grasses are in. Here are 4 lush low-water options

The Greatest Trees of Los Angeles

Urban Ag is Nothing New. Representing it in City Government is.

‘Edible meadow’ for improved gut health to feature at Chelsea flower show

Prepare to forfeit your homegrown fruit to stop the Oriental fruit fly

Unprecedented Footage Shows Plants ‘Talking’ to Their Neighbors about Potential Predators

Relict Gold: The Long Journey of the Chinese Narcissus

California redwoods 'killed' by wildfire come back to life with 2,000-year-old buds

The lesser-known Latin American history behind the poinsettia flower

Heirloom Pea Varieties

Here’s what’s wrong with your perfectly drought-tolerant Southern California landscaping
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Pearls Puncture and Support Fruit and Vegetables

Where do fall colors come from?

How Did Madagascar Become the World’s Biggest Producer of Vanilla?

Why One Island Grows 80% of the World’s Vanilla

​California native plants are not our only choice for drought-tolerant landscapes

Danish Street Art Project Has Built Over 3,500 Urban Bird Houses Since 2006

Rose hips’ seedpods provide a pop of color in the fall and winter garden

Looking for the Perfect Onion.  From Georgia to New Zealand, the quest for a sweet, painless onion continues.

The Thousand-Year Rose

Ok–I know something is wrong, but what is it?

Millions of sterile fruit flies are being dropped on L.A. to fight an infestation

How Sunflowers See the Sun

12 Facts About Día de los Muertos

Pumpkins are known for a ghoulish grin and delicious taste. Their origins are rooted in Mexican history.

The Monarch Butterfly Steals From Poisonous Plants to Survive

‘They’ve never seen anything like this’: Their DIY garden is inspiring the block

Grave of the Potato King

Why Leaves Change Color in Fall

History with A Peel

To Hass and Hass Not: Avocados at The Huntington and Beyond

Three Sisters Native American Gardening

Would You Trust AI to Help You Forage?Before you buy a plant field guide, make sure it wasn’t written by a computer. 

What Is a Bay Leaf, Exactly?

How to get into the hottest clubs in L.A. County — community gardens

Why a Vancouver Cemetery Is Planting Squash, Kale, and Corn

Where have all the camellias gone? A bittersweet end for historic Nuccio’s Nurseries

New law to protect Joshua trees from climate change imposes fees on desert developers

Tree Law is a Gnarly, Twisted Branch of the Legal System

Seedy mixup results in #Jalapeñogate drama across the US

Glass Gem Corn

On rooftops and under bridges, community gardens will bloom in South L.A.

I’m hot! So are my plants!

Flower power and diplomacy: Versailles perfume gardens transport public back in time

Let's All Eat Flowers

Is This the World’s Most Beloved Asparagus?

The Thousand-Year Rose

Flower power and diplomacy: Versailles perfume gardens transport public back in time

8 L.A. trees to love that aren’t jacarandas

Castroville vs. Coachella: Battle heats up to grow the perfect California artichoke

The Original Caesar Salad Was Finger Food

Plant by plant, flower by flower, he created his own Shangri-La in a Griffith Park nook

​Crop rotation makes the garden go ’round

In Southern California, everything is blooming everywhere all at once

Community Organizations Turn to Gleaning to Redistribute Local Produce

Gardening in the time of COVID

L.A. Sanitation Composting Law:  Composting 101 with Caleigh Wells

Stunning Wildflower Superbloom Photos That Will Have You Racing to the Hills

How America’s Beloved Meyer Lemon Caused a Mid-Century Citrus Panic

This Is What It Sounds Like When Plants Cry

Is it OK to plant in mud? The best tips for gardening in super-soaked L.A.

The one gardening mistake you can’t afford to make

Growing Wheat in Your Backyard

"Dirty Dozen" Garden Products

What We Learn from Leafing Through Seed Catalogues

Unlocking Secrets of the Honeybee Dance Language

Why 2023 could be the year of the superbloom

The Farmers and Gardeners Saving the South’s Signature Green

Want to live longer? Consider planting a tree.

Your ‘superbloom’ selfie isn’t worth destroying California’s ecosystems

​Los Angeles and the "Orange Empire"

Pando, the World’s Largest Organism, Is Being Eaten by Deer

A community garden in Watts provides solace, fresh produce for immigrants

This WWII weapons bunker has a new mission:  Sheltering a scientist's insect collection

How Poinsettias Became a Christmas Staple

Best Crops For A Self Sufficient Garden Plan

A Quest for the Gros Michel, the Great Banana of Yesteryear

Grave of the Potato King

In U.S. Prisons, Seeds Are Prized Contraband for Prisoners Looking to Grow Their Own Food

Where do fall colors come from?

Time to 'Bee' Thankful

The Medieval Origins of Thanksgiving Dinner

The Pirate, the Mailman and the Avocado: The Accidental History of Avocados in California

The most fragrant native plants are just heavenly. Here’s what to plant now

The Hidden History of the Housewarming Pineapple

Po-TAY-to, po-TAH-to: Let’s call the whole yam thing off.

When Voluntary Action Isn’t Enough: The Case For Regulating Pesticide-Coated Seed

Long before citrus reigned in Southern California, L.A. made wine. Lots of it

Fortune-telling with food is an age-old custom​

In ‘The Cultivar Series,’ Uli Westphal Gets to the Root of Crop Diversity and Agricultural Modification

AMERICA’S LOST CROPS REWRITE THE HISTORY OF FARMING

​Tropical Milkweed Doesn't Deserve the Bad Rap

Tulips for the desert?

Reverse Pollinator Decline in Your Backyard

Compost

Durian Fruit:  3-Year Old Eats The Smelliest Fruit on Earth!

Ojibwe harvest sacred, climate-imperiled wild rice

The Queen's Floral Legacy

‘The American lawn feels irresponsible’: the LA homes ditching grass for drought-friendly gardens

Eight Superfoods That Could Future-Proof Our Diet

Looking for fall vibes? Here are 8 places to pick apples within driving distance of L.A.

In the 1800s, This British Isle Was Covered in Groves of 12-Foot-Tall Kale

The Words We Use for Food:  Understanding Labels at the Farmers Market and Grocery Store

Waterwise Gardening: Living the Dry Life

Why Birds Changed Their Tune During the Pandemic

Insect Pollinators are Essential for Seed Saving

Root Beer Plant

Tropical Milkweed (Asclepias curassavica) A Noxious Weed No Longer Sold in Ventura County

Tropical Milkweed—A No-Grow

Monarch Migration Underway from Pacific Northwest

We’re in a heat wave. That’s going to completely change your winter garden plans

That Milkweed You Buy at Retail Nurseries May Contain Pesticides

Want a winter crop? Wait till November to plant

Meet the Urban Farmer Determined to Teach Others About Edible Landscapes

USDA Invests $300 Million to Help Farmers Transition to Organic Production

Using Weeds to Read the Soil: Some Basic Concepts to Get Started

Save the Tomatoes! How to Protect Your Raised Bed from a Heat Wave

Here’s What the Watermelon Was Up to Before It Tasted Good

Farmers’ Battle Against, and Now For, Milkweed

The urban garden transforming lives after prison: ‘I’m finally free’

Meet the Great Seed Detective

The consciousness of bees

Monarch Butterflies: Closer to Extinction

How urban planners' preference for male trees has made your hay fever worse

Why Beans Were an Ancient Emblem of Death

Getting to the root of watering the vegetable garden

How heatwaves are creating a pollen crisis

Meet the Woman Restoring Native American Peaches to the Southwest

Inside the Gently Competitive World of Giant Vegetable Growing

Tomato season is open!

Saving Your Trees From Drought!

Save trees first: Tips to keep them alive during drought

2,292 Plants Fill the Audience in Opening Performance at Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu

Increasingly Heavy Farm Vehicles Are Crushing Soil Health

13 plants that thrive in raised garden beds in L.A., even in summer

When Tomatoes Were Blamed For Witchcraft and Werewolves

We’re in a megadrought. Here’s how to keep your veggie garden alive this summer

Native Plants for Southern California Pollinators

Wild mustard fields can be dazzling — and devastating

How the Rage for Sage Threatens Native American Traditions and Recipes

Find these 6 gardens hidden in unexpected places around Los Angeles

Does Adding Fungi to Soil Do More Harm Than Good?

Why Beans Were an Ancient Emblem of Death

Wildflowers Springing Up

Worm composting is great for the planet and your garden.

The Vegetable Gardener’s Guide to Crop Rotation

Remembering the ‘Kiwi Queen’ Who Revolutionized American Produce Aisles

The Fight To Save Chile’s Glorious White Strawberry

The Farmers and Gardeners Saving the South’s Signature Green

The White House Vegetable Garden: 10 Fascinating Facts

​SoCal plant people: Here’s how to prepare for this week’s frosty winter storm

A plant that outlived dinosaurs is being poached to extinction, crime analysts warn

How to Resurrect Gold-Rush Era Orchards Ravaged by Fire

SNAP Benefits Can Be Used to Buy Seeds. Why Isn’t That Well Known?

He spends his days counting monarch butterflies in L.A. He could use your help

Urban Farming Can Actually Be Pretty Productive

​Dig Into an Enormous Archive of Drawings Unveiling the Complex Root Systems of 1,180 Plants

The one gardening mistake you can’t afford to make:  Feed Your Soil!

Exploring the ultimate Christmas plant, the poinsettia, and its Southern California history

Wild Poinsettias Can Grow 8 Feet Tall

The ‘Rock Food’ Feast That Looks Good Enough to Eat

The Myth, the Legend, the Parasite: Romance, Lore, and Science beneath the Mistletoe

​Holiday Season Brings Poisonous Plants into the Home

​Colored Micrographs Magnify Pollen Seeds, Plant Cells, and Leaf Structures

The Magnificent Orchards That Protect the World’s Fruit

After Record Low, Monarch Butterflies Return

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