Posts under ‘Other People’s Gardens’

At the risk of allowing this site to become an echo chamber, I want to point you in the direction of Trey Pitsenberger’s blog, and Trey’s take on the issue of the unscented Home Depot tomatoes I highlighted last week. Trey’s post mostly points back at me (echo…echo….echo…), but I think he provides a really [...]

On a blustery Thanksgiving morning, six months after I moved to Oakland, I took my parents to celebrate Mass. They were visiting me for the first time in this new city I called home, and I wanted to show them the newly-dedicated Cathedral of Christ the Light, which I’d been attending since its dedication Mass [...]

Earlier this week, Michelle Obama launched “Let’s Move,” the new national childhood obesity prevention campaign. Though I rarely talk about work here, it was an exciting day for my organization, which has been working on this issue as part of a larger initiative funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. As with all Washington, DC [...]

Before I was able to add myself to the lease for the new apartment, I had to meet with the property manager, a wonderful woman from Alabama who met me for coffee. “What is it that you do?” she asked, and I told her all about the job that brings in the money. Later, I [...]

Gardeners, plant and nature lovers can join in Green Thumb Sunday every week. Visit As the Garden Grows for more information.

The best thing about January? Opening up a brand new calendar. And, while I usually come up with a calendar that features my photography, I stumbled across a resource late last week that I have to share. The Cottage Industrialist’s monthly calendar highlights seasonal produce and recipe ideas to put those seasonal fruits and vegetables [...]

While visiting my parents over the holidays, my Dad announced, rather quietly, that he might have found a place to garden this year. My parents moved to Ohio just after I moved to California, and, like me, Dad hasn’t found his gardening groove quite yet. He has a yard, but it’s not a good one [...]

Some days, I take a step back from my life and, well, give it all a big bwa ha ha. It’s not like good things weren’t happening all along the way, but the good things that happen in this still-relatively-new incarnation of my life involve such fabulosity I can barely stand it. One co-worker has [...]

Back in July, I attended The Crucible’s Fire Arts Festival, an event that gave me just the tiniest taste of what Burning Man might be like. In an empty lot in an industrial section of Oakland, a number of artists had installed pieces of varying sizes, all of which featured some form of interaction with [...]

I want to preface this story by assuring you that, in my normal life, I do not make it obvious to the naked eye that I bear an unabashed adoration for the perfect tomato. I have a tattoo, but it’s not visible unless you know where to look, and it is not a design of [...]