Built in 1930, this home in East Austin is set to receive a state historical marker as the former home of one of the first Chinese immigrants to Austin, Joe Sing.  The house has now been passed down to Raul Hernandez, the great-great-grandson of Joe Sing.  Raul is dedicated to preserving the historical context of the [...]

July has been harvest time.  Watermelons, cherry tomatoes, Creole tomatoes, yellow squash, jalapenos, zinnias for the tables, purlane, mint, basil, marjoram, hauzontle, chard, and the random surprise here and there. 
We’ve had problems in some beds, most like due to poor soils and insufficient amending during bed prep, so we’re trying to correct those issues for [...]

Summer is maintenance time in the garden.  The only new plants in June were Red Aztec Spinach and a lone Summer Cilantro that finally came from seed we started a couple of months ago in a greenhouse off-site.  So instead of planting, we’re pulling and harvesting, with a little help from Goldberg and friends.

As the [...]

We’re just about done with planting for the summer season at the Fonda garden.   Which is a good thing, cuz there’s a six-foot thorny weed in the back corner, assembling an army to take over operations.  I think the big one threw a rock at me last week.
Early this month, Fonda inspiration and author Diana [...]

Buffalo grass is weedy.  The time spent mowing, fertilizing, watering, and bugging in other turf grasses is compounded and concentrated into just one simple task for Buffalo:  weeding.  This is especially true for highly disturbed sites, and which sites aren’t?
But after a tip from Jon Ahrens, we tried out the ‘Density’ variety from a grower [...]

Last Friday, part of the BG crew celebrated National Bike to Work Day by strapping an electric weedeater, propane blower, weed bags, and hand tools to our backs and riding to perform our weekly landscaping duties at Austin City Hall.  With some bikes borrowed from the best bike team in town, we enjoyed free breakfast [...]

Like the ones that have come before it, this season will change everything forever.  The dust will eventually settle under the humidity of summer, and we’ll be a little older, a little wiser, and a little closer to the place we really want to be.  Some premature reflection half way through:
We’ve been testing a new mix [...]

The Missus and I are shivering towards progress, one morning at a time, in the Fonda San Miguel vegetable garden.  We’ve cleaned out 3 of the 14 beds, worked in a cubic yard of Turkey litter compost, and have planted 1,500 carrot seeds, 1,500 radish seeds, and 20 4″ broccoli plants.   We’ve made some [...]

Austin’s Fonda San Miguel is considered one the finest interior Mexican restaurants in all the land.  In the Fall of 2008, the restaurant owners invested in converting an unused space at the end of the parking lot into a 100′ x 60′ organic vegetable garden, which caught the attention of Austin news media as one of [...]

We don’t maintain any landscapes on Sunny Slope Drive, so it took a little sleuthing to figure out how Ollie’s collar found its way to a chicken coop 82 miles from its home.  But Ollie might like to know about the trip his collar took since it went missing, so I’ll do my best to [...]