Spring is a transition season—plants are tender, growth is rapid, and pests are just waking up. In my experience gardening in Northern California, the pests that show up first are the ones that matter most. If you manage them early, you often prevent the bigger infe...

For more than 30 years gardening in California’s mild-winter climate, I’ve learned that how and when you harvest cool-season crops matters as much as how you grow them. The difference between tender, sweet produce and tough, bitter harvests often comes down to tim...

Moving seedlings from a protected indoor space to the open garden is one of the most critical—and often overlooked—steps in successful vegetable growing. I’ve been hardening off seedlings for decades in Northern California, and I’ve learned this: plants that transition gradually establish faster, suffer less shock, and ultimately yield more.

Hardening off is simply ...

Succession planting is one of the best ways to keep your vegetable garden producing continuously throughout the season. Instead of planting everything all at once, you stagger sowings of the same crop—or rotate crops in the same bed—so you always have fresh harvests and fewer gaps. Over decades of gardening in Sonoma, I’ve found that this approach max...

Accurate soil temperature readings are one of the simplest yet most powerful tools a gardener can use. After decades of observing plants in Sonoma and similar climates, I’ve learned that measuring soil at the root zone depth—about 4 inches—is far more reliable than air temperature for timing plantings. Seeds and roots respond to the soil they grow in, not the...