Sweet Orange

Try this recipe. I think it’s delicious!

Put the following in a blender:

• 1.5 cups of Trader Joe’s Organic Green Tea Lemonade (or some facsimile)
• 2 stalks of organic celery
• a handful of organic greens (a salad mix or spinach, whatever you have on hand)

Now blend, drink, enjoy!

If you use organic ingredient, the health benefits to yourself and our shared environment are greatly increased. (Eventually, I plan on write more on this. For now, see this short, out-of-the-months-of-babes video: My Potato Project: The Importance of “Organic.”)

If you think that you can’t afford organic produce, an inexpensive option does exit: Grow your own. And if you live in an apartment or small space and think that you don’t have the enough room to grow produce, think again!

See this video to see what I mean:

Here are a few more suggestions for growing your own veggies and fruits in small spaces: 66 Things You Can Grow At Home In Containers: Without a Garden and Gardening is for Apartment Dwellers Too!

Note: If your time is more important than your money, businesses exist that will do the planting for you.

Irvine is adding another first: The Great Park in Irvine will be the first site outside of Washington D.C. to host the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Decathlon….http://bit.ly/zVUZF3

Photo courtesy the Orange County Great Park

Do you like the idea of having fresh vegetables that you can pick right outside your door but don’t feel you have the time to do the planting? Well, if that is the case, Harvest to Home has an answer for you. They will do the planting for you.

Of course, if you did the planting yourself, it would be cheaper. But if your time is more of the deciding factor, the services that Harvest to Home offer provide an answer. They will deliver and install either boxes that can be placed in your yard (or on a balcony) or raised-bed vegetable gardens.

If you choose the vegetable-box option, you will pick from their list which vegetable boxes you want delivered. If you choose the raised-bed option, then you will be able to work with the company to create a custom vegetable garden. For an additional charge, one-time or on-going maintenance is available. In addition, you can buy or rent accessory equipment.

Harvest to Home delivers to Orange and Los Angeles counties as well as Arizona. To learn more about the services provided, watch the Harvest to Home videos.

So Harvest to Home offers an option for getting the health benefits that fresh-picked, organic produce can provide you and your family. It’s a matter of your time or your money. Which would you choose?

According to Southern California gardening expert Pat Welsh, January is a good time to plant the following vegetables in your Southern California garden.

From transplants:

• Broccoli
• Brussels sprouts
• Cabbage
• Cauliflower
• Celery
• Lettuce
• Parsley
• Peas
• Swiss chard

From seeds:

• Beets
• Carrots
• Lettuce
• Mesclun
• Peas
• Radishes
• Turnips

As bareroot:

• Short-day onions
• Artichokes
• Asparagus
• Strawberries
  (Point of interest, at least to me: Strawberries are not technically a fruit or vegetable, but rather an accessory fruit.)
• Rhubarb
• Horseradish

However, she lists the last three with reservations: According to Welsh, in Southern California, November is a better time to plant strawberries; rhubarb is difficult to grow, and horseradish grows like a weed.

Source: Pat Welsh’s Southern California Organic Gardening: Month by Month In this book, Welsh provides month-by-month information on planting, watering, fertilizing, and pruning vegetables, fruits and ornamentals in your Southern California garden.

Photos courtesy Seeds of Change

According to Cindy McNatt, Orange County Register gardening columnist, December is a good time to plant the following vegetables in your Orange County garden.

• Lettuce
• Mustard
• Chervil
• Chives
• Cilantro
• Dill
• Parsley
• Peas
• Onions
• Broccoli
• Cabbage
• Cauliflower
• Strawberries

McNatt provides this information in her column titled December garden guide. The column also provides information on planting ornamentals, watering, and pruning in your December Orange County garden.

Note: You might also get some good information from Pat Welsh’s book Southern California Organic Gardening–Month by Month.

Photo courtesy Abundant Life Seeds

Ditch the word consumer and just get behind the people doing stuff….We are all still pioneers.–Britta Riley on TED TV

The following video offers a twofer: First, it explains a method for growing your own food garden in small spaces, even inside apartments. Building window farms is the method used to create these vertical gardens. (I wrote about vertical gardens from another angle in a previous post.) Second, the video redefines the word “consumer” as well as redefines how business should and could work.

When you watch the video, you might find a few more categories in which this video could be placed. So watch the video and get some food for thought. Pun intended.

Britta Riley describes herself as an innovation culture hacker, social entrepreneur and artist who is working “to open up new markets that I think people and nature need now…. [Her] current company, Windowfarms.org was named one of the top 100 businesses to watch in 2010 by Entrepreneur Magazine. Windowfarms makes vertical hydroponic platforms for food growing in city windows in conjunction with an online citizen science web platform with over 16,000 community members worldwide.”

Not all gardening has to be in the ground, horizontal, or take up much space. Vertical gardening is what I am talking about. The Phytopod is one example, but numerous other possibilities exist. (However, I do particularly like the way the Phytopod looks.)

According to one of the ads for the Phytopod:

Your can have 20 square feet of planting area on a 2′ x 2′ footprint! Plant lettuce, basil, tomatoes, radishes, spinach, herbs, flowers–anything you would want in a garden patch…!

The example in the picture seems to be planted with some greens–great for a fall garden.

I like it! Renters, apartment dwellers, all who have limited space, rise up. Start your own garden.

Click here to see a video of how it works. (I suggest that you ignore the big bug at the beginning of the video, but that’s just me.)

Photo courtesy Vertical Home Gardens

To educate the world about the power of gourmet living foods!–118 Degrees Mission Statement

Here is an update to yesterday’s post: At noon, (after the Salad Bowl gardening lecture), you can watch a salad-making demonstration called Salad-Making 101 at the Great Park. Executive chef and owner of the Costa Mesa restaurant 118 Degrees, Jenni Ross, will give the presentation.

Here is more information as provided on the Great Park website:

Check out Chef Jenny Ross, owner of restaurant 118 Degrees, as she demonstrates a dressing recipe and talks about ways that you can use greens to create fresh, homemade salads. The demonstration will begin at noon at the Farm + Food Lab, immediately after the Salad Bowl Garden workshop.

Photo courtesy 118 Degrees

The Orange County Great Park fall garden lecture series continues. Last week we had those wicked bugs. This week it’s all about growing your own garden greens. Here is the skinny on this upcoming event:

The Orange County Great Park is hosting a fall garden lecture series. The lectures, which are held at the Great Park Farm and Food Lab, are now though November 5. All lectures are free. The next lecture is on Saturday, October 15 at 10 am.

Here is a description of the upcoming free talk that is straight from the Great Park’s website:

Master Gardener Kay Havens will demonstrate how to make beautiful salad blends. Her seminar will include Asian greens as well as how to make garden additions for flavor and color.

Note: The Great Park uses sustainable practices (The 2009 APA award given to the Great Park and comments from The Sustainable Sites Initiative are examples of this.) but recently accepted a donation from a company that is associated with Monsanto. This company will be the “exclusive lawn and garden products sponsor of the Orange County Great Park Farm + Food Lab and Community Gardens Program.”

If you follow these matters, you will know that Monsanto receives a lot of criticism from the sustainable-practices community. I am not sure what to think of this partnership right now, but maybe that is a discussion for another time.

Photo courtesy Seeds of Change

The Orange County Great Park is hosting a fall garden lecture series. The lectures, which are held at the Great Park Farm and Food Lab, are now though November 5. All lectures are free. The next lecture is on Saturday, October 8 at 10 am.

Here is a description of the upcoming free talk that is straight from the Great Park’s website:

Author Amy Stewart (Wicked Bugs) will discuss bugs gone wild. It’s an A - Z of insect enemies, interspersed with stories that explore bugs’ sometimes odd behavior and our sometimes irrational responses to bugs.

Note: The Great Park uses sustainable practices. The 2009 American Planning Award given to the Great Park and comments from The Sustainable Sites Initiative are examples of this. However, the Great Park board accepted a donation from ScottsMiracle-Gro, a company that is associated with Monsanto, and ScottsMiracle-Gro will be the “exclusive lawn and garden products sponsor of the Orange County Great Park Farm + Food Lab and Community Gardens Program.”

If you follow these matters, you know that Monsanto receives a lot of criticism from the sustainable-practices community. I am not sure what to think of this partnership right now, but maybe that is a discussion for another time.

Photo courtesy Seeds of Change, an organic gardening and food company