— Nan Sterman What if you could grow most of your family’s vegetables and protein in your own backyard and do it with just a fraction of the water and resources that your in-ground garden requires? According to the people you’ll meet in this week’s episode of A Growing Passion,

— Nan Sterman Seeds fascinate me. They look like little pieces of dead wood. But bury them in soil or potting soil, add water, set them where the temperature is just right, and they sprout. Care for them and they grow into plants, many of which we eat. Have you ever seen a tomat

This week’s episode of A Growing Passion takes us behind the scenes with the San Diego Zoo and Zoo Safari Park’s amazing horticulture staff. My long time friend Stephanie Shigematsu is the Zoological Society’s Curator of Horticulture, which means she oversees everything plants.

–Nan Sterman From Anza Borrego Desert to the beaches at La Jolla, this is San Diego County’s garden tour season. This time of year, gardeners open their gates and invite the public in to enjoy the fruits (sometimes literally) of their labors. If you love seeing what’s behi

March in the Garden Get Ready for Spring — Nan Sterman March is such a busy month for gardeners. There’s so much to see, so much to learn, and so much to do. Where to begin? Here’s my list for getting your garden ready for the months ahead. Edibles Start your home ve

Gardens and art were part of this past week’s adventure as I worked on recharging, reinvesting, and reinventing myself at the annual conference of the GWA, the Association of Garden Communicators (www.gardenwriters.org). This year, more than 300 of us gathered in Atlanta, Georgi

— Nan Sterman With tomatoes ripening now, it’s a great time to taste test the many different types, learn their best uses, and  decide which to grow next summer. Here’s a tutorial. Tomato types Slicing (Beefsteak) tomatoes produce very large, often crenulated fruits,

  — Nan Sterman (Continued from last week’s blog) How to attract pollinators to your garden Water, habitat and food are the basics for attracting pollinators into your garden. Water Offer pollinators a constant drip or a shallow dish of water or water in a birdbath. A

— Nan Sterman Sex is complicated in the plant world. Flowers have male and female parts; some have both, some have one or the other. A male flower part is called a “stamen,” that’s where the pollen is. Pollen is the plant world equivalent of sperm. The female flower part is call