Companion Planting for the Vegetable Garden

Companion Planting in DripWorks Demonstration Garden

Though some may plant their gardens haphazardly (to each their own, I say) I like to create a plan and plant carefully for beneficial growth and insect control. With 40 years of vegetable gardening experience as my guide, here are a few things that I have learned along the way:

Setting up a Drip System

Setting up a drip system is easier and more fun than you think. Drip irrigation has become the preferred method of watering for homeowners with vegetable gardens, landscape, orchards, and decks. Farmers large and small depend on drip irrigation to stretch their water supply and produce high yield, top quality crops.

Live Power Community Farm-CSA

Horsepower at Live Power Farm

Gloria and Stephen Decater moved to the sparsely inhabited but beautiful and fertile valley of Covelo, California in 1973.  Years later they formed Live Power Community Farm, an association of involved consumers and dedicated farmers. This farm today is a 50 acre, solar electric and horse-powered, diversified, certified biodynamic CSA farm.

Planting Your Juicing Garden

Fresh vegetable juicing has enjoyed a meteoric rise in popularity recently; here in Northern California and all across the United States. To that end, the DripWorks demonstration garden will be growing heirloom varieties of carrots, beets, kale, parsley, local apples, and melons to provide us with the raw materials for this delicious and nutritious way to be healthy. With proper planning, you can enjoy fresh juices year round without having to resort to less fresh and potentially nutrient deficient produce from the grocery store.

Heirloom Seeds: Part Two-The History

Humans have been farming and ranching in a way that fits their local regions for thousands of years, selecting plants that grow best and collecting seeds or cuttings from these well adapted plants. The result for present day humans has been a plethora of beautiful and nutritious choices. About fifty years ago the food industry began to develop food crops for ease of shipping, long shelf life on the supermarket shelf, and standardization—not taste or nutrition. The good news is that diversity of the food supply is actually increasing, at least for those who know where to find the seed to grow it. In this series of blogs, Dripworks hopes to make it easier for our readers to learn about the tradition of growing with heirloom seed and understand why today it is more important than ever.

Heirloom Seeds: Part One-Their Importance Today

Beautiful Heirloom Beets

This is the first in a series of blogs we will be producing throughout 2015 to explain how growing organic produce from heirloom seeds will not only produce a healthier food crop, but also help protect the beleaguered pollinators (birds, bees, and butterflies) that allow fruiting trees, berry vines, and vegetables to bear crops in the first place.

New Year's Gardening Resolutions 2015

All of us at DripWorks want to wish you a very Happy New Year and hope for a year of normal weather patterns with more rainfall for the many drought stricken areas all over the United States. Our resolutions cover landscape, fruit tree growing, and vegetable gardening.