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Articles by Pam Peirce
Pam Peirce celebrates 30th anniversary of ‘Golden Gate Gardening,’ a bible for San Francisco gardeners
Pam Peirce’s gardening book, “Golden Gate Gardening,” has a new, updated 30th anniversary edition. Peirce is at Garden for the Environment in S.F., which will have a launch party for the book on Sept. 23. Photo: Provided by David Goldberg Pam Peirce has never lacked vision about what gardening can mean for Bay Area residents.
Book Release Party for 30th Anniversary Edition (4th Edition) of Golden Gate Gardening
Import event into your personal calendar Date: Saturday, September 23, 2023 Time: 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM Event Type: Party/Street Party Organizer/Author: Pam Peirce Location Details: This will be at the Garden for the Environment, which is at 7th Avenue and Lawton, in San Francisco.
Cilantro and parsley the easiest-to-grow duo for Bay Area gardens
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Are you a cilantro hater or a cilantro lover? I’m told that there’s a genetic link to the conviction that this herb tastes like soap. I think culture is involved, too, though, since I was once one of the “Ew, that tastes like soap” crowd, but nowadays, I relish this distinctive herb. I have become a more adventurous eater, though my genes, so far as I know, remain the same.
A Bay Area garden harvest is not fast food. Here are tips while you wait
When you see a tiny green nub of a tomato forming on your tomato plant, you know you will have a ripe fruit there in about 45 days. And once the first one ripens, probably many more will follow. If my plants remain healthy, which they usually do, I am inundated with tomatoes for several months in late summer and into fall. When I grew an early sweet corn, ‘Early Sunglow’, rated at 55 days from planting to harvest, in a warmer part of San Francisco, it was ready to harvest in 90 days.
Blue tomatoes? New varieties to try in your Bay Area garden this year
Another new line of varieties is the Artisan Bumble Bee series, bred at the Green Bee Farm in the East Bay by Fred Hempel, who has stabilized them well enough that they can be called open-pollinated. Their small, often bicolor (striped) fruits were bred for attractiveness and good flavor. At 70-75 days, they are medium-early. Several seed companies sell a mixture of colors and bicolors. Active breeding also continues to create tomato varieties that resist tomato late blight.
How to rid your garden of weeds so your plants can actually thrive
Keeping plants alive: That’s what gardeners do. Right? But the wise gardener also knows how to kill plants — specifically weeds. A slapdash, distracted approach to killing weeds is likely to result in their multiplying rather than dying. Here are tips that will help you free your garden of plants you don’t want so the ones you do want can thrive.
Is it ethical to plant a food garden in a drought? Yes
As California repeats its frequent pattern of periodic extreme drought, I think of a past drought during which a friend told me of an elderly San Francisco widower who stopped growing vegetables to help save water. He just stopped, left his yard fallow, bought his vegetables. As gardening to grow food had been his exercise and among his greatest joys. I have often wondered what happened next. Did he despair when he gave up his garden?
10 steps to Bay Area tomato success right now
Spring is that time of year when the gardener’s fancy turns to tomatoes. Not every Bay Area garden will ripen this coveted fruit, but many will, and the following tips will give you the best shot at success. 1. Choose a variety suited for your microclimate. In much of the Bay Area, summer nights are cool, their chill inhibiting fruit set. Nearest the coast, summer days are also cool, slowing growth. But throughout the entire Bay Area, the frost-free period is long.
Crisp yacon tastes like jicama and you can grow it right now in the Bay Area
In the United States, the crisp, sweet crunch of yacon roots is a secret known mainly to gardeners. When I began to grow it, over 20 years ago, it was even less known, though it has been a popular food in its native South America for centuries. After I read about this plant in the book “Lost Crops of the Incas,” it took me three years to locate starts to grow. The low point was the first trip I took to a tropical plant nursery near my parents’ house in San Diego County.
The pretty pest eating your garden right now
Now that the strangest summer in living memory has ended, many new gardeners are still enjoying the food produced by their COVID victory gardens. The summer pests faced by all gardeners are also enjoying the bounty. One, the cabbage white butterfly (Pieris rapae), is fluttering about in many a garden on these foggy or sunny early-fall days.
How to set up a Bay Area worm compost bin in a time of COVID-19
Some people have been growing a sourdough starter in their kitchen. As a gardener, in the same spirit, I decided to start up a new redworm compost bin. I’m glad I did so, since the redworms are happily eating a portion of our household’s food scraps, although the process has also been a reminder of the patience required to depend on nature to do its work rather than being a consumer who can drive out and buy what you need after somebody else provided the patience.
Grow a crop of shelter-in-place tomatoes right now
America’s favorite vegetable is a fruit, say the botanists. Well, it has seeds, so it has to be a fruit, but most of us eat tomatoes in savory dishes, so we call it a vegetable. Those of us who garden in the parts of the Bay Area where summers are cooler have more serious tomato concerns: How to grow the damn things! My column that ran in The Chronicle March 1, talked about what you need to know about tomato varieties. This week focuses on the actual growing.
10 easy food crops for your Bay Area garden during coronavirus pandemic
In times of insecurity, we return to the basics, such as being with those we love, cooking with staples or growing food. While a garden takes time to grow, and it won’t fully feed your family, it can definitely increase your sense of calm and provide some help with groceries. Fortunately, among the fastest crops, and the most useful right now, are leafy greens. They can provide something fresh and clean in a time of limited shopping.
Schefflera needs pruning to stay in shape
GARDEN By Pam Peirce Published 4:00 am PDT, Sunday, October 10, 2010 Prune scheffera just above a leaf, using bypass pruners for a clean cut. Prune scheffera just above a leaf, using bypass pruners for a clean cut. Photo: David Goldberg Photo: David Goldberg Image 1 of / 4 Caption Close Image 1 of 4 Prune scheffera just above a leaf, using bypass pruners for a clean cut. Prune scheffera just above a leaf, using bypass pruners for a clean cut.
High water levels promise banner year for lake-based recreation
The early-winter rains, coming on top of high holdover levels at reservoirs from summer, are helping to shape 2020 as one of the best for lake-based boating, camping, fishing and water sports. At the 154 major recreation lakes in California, lake levels are 114% of normal for the date, reported the Department of Water Resources and other water agencies. Many lakes in the Bay Area and across Northern California are on a trajectory to fill before spring.
Sunday Getaway: Purisima Creek Redwoods
What you’ll see: No matter your mood, outlook or ambition, you can find a fit at Purisima Creek Redwoods Open Space Preserve. This is one of the Bay Area’s best getaways, where destinations include ridgetop views, wilderness canyons, a pristine stream and cathedral redwoods. You can go for 5 minutes or 5 miles, depending on your starting point, and either way get a reward that lasts.
Plant now: A Mediterranean garden for the fall
“The Mediterranean diet is good for you.” I’m sure you’ve heard that saying, and that an important hallmark of the Mediterranean diet is plenty of vegetables. Today’s column is about some of the food crops from around the Mediterranean Sea that thrive in the Bay Area’s climate, letting us grow them in profusion throughout the year to support healthful eating. I will concentrate on vegetables and herbs, especially those you can grow now through spring.
It’s time for midsummer harvesting: Use it or lose it
Who wants to grow a baseball bat-size zucchini? Or a mushy, overripe cucumber? Nobody, really, but home gardeners still produce them regularly. Midsummer is a good time to look at some of the secrets of plant growth that will help you harvest well. Zucchini and cucumbers are among the crops of which we eat an immature fruit, or, in the case of broccoli, flower buds. These are transient stages. After only a few days, the zucchini gets big and tough and the yellow broccoli flowers open.
Food crops and edible flowers that thrive in the shade
Many food crops thrive only when they are bathed in sunlight most of the day. Most of the “summer crops,” such as tomatoes, corn, beans, squash or cucumbers, need a minimum of six hours of sun a day. Other crops, those we grow for leaves or roots, such as lettuce, kale, cabbage or carrots, can be grown where sunlight will strike them as few as four hours a day. A number of our favorite herbs and edible flowers also want half- to full-day sun.
Runner beans are an easy way to jump-start your garden
Want to grow plants that produce lots to eat, are ornamental and grow well in cool microclimates? Try runner beans. You can eat the young pods as a green bean (a.k.a. snap bean or string bean) or you can harvest older pods when the beans have formed inside them, shell out the beans to cook and eat, or harvest mature, dry beans later. The flowers are big and bright, attract hummingbirds and are also edible.
Get your garden going in January through March for Bay Area’s secret season
Want all the pleasures of harvesting garden vegetables but worried about conserving water? Make January-March (the “secret season”) an important part of your gardening year. By starting now, you can take advantage of late-winter and spring rains. Just a little planning in January and February can bring you delicious harvests from March through June, usually with very little supplemental watering.
Humm baby! Attract hummingbirds to your home garden
One of my great pleasures is watching hummingbirds flit about sipping nectar, hearing the “zoom” as they fly by, seeing them perched on high in my backyard garden. I’ve learned that in San Francisco the most common hummingbirds are Allen’s and Anna’s, although others can be sighted. Hummingbirds will sip from feeders filled with red-dyed sugar water, but this will not sustain them.
S.F.’s knockout garden takes root atop Transbay Transit Center
We’ve been hearing rumors for the past several years that trees were being planted atop the new San Francisco transit center: palms, gingkos, oaks, even redwoods. Now that the park is open, we can see them for ourselves. There are trees there all right, some of them quite large.
Best edibles to grow in shade in Bay Area
Best edibles to grow in shade in Bay Area These plants will thrive in less-than-sunny conditions Does a garden need sun all day long to grow food? Urban gardeners want to know, because their little bit of gardening space is often pretty darn shady. Cities and suburbs are full of houses, fences, sheds, trees and shrubs that block the sun. You might be eyeing the sunniest part of your garden for a place to sit or to grow sun-loving flowers; still, you'd like to grow something edible. What to do?
National Heirloom Exposition returns to Santa Rosa in September
Garden Events National Heirloom Exposition It’s that time again for gardening’s heirloom extravaganza. This nonprofit show will include speakers, demonstrations, heirloom produce, vendors of products relating to food, gardening and sustainability, and a kids’ pavilion of fun and educational activities. There is always an exuberant display of produce — last year’s show included a 21-foot tower of heirloom winter squashes.
How Bay Area gardeners can grow their own soup
How Bay Area gardeners can grow their own soup Gardeners are futurists. While we eat what’s in season, we are also planning for future seasons. In June, I am making use of root crops and greens I planted earlier in the year, but I am also already thinking about what I will make from the beans, tomatoes and basil I planted last month. When I start to harvest them in mid to late summer, I will have recipes standing at the ready.
Horticulture Magazine, March/April 2018 digital edition
You’ll love this issue of Horticulture if: Order the March/April 2018 issue of Horticulture and download it immediately. You’ll find tips and techniques from gardening experts, plant selections that are proven winners, plus page after page of gorgeous garden photography to inspire you.
‘Private Gardens of the Bay Area’: A rare peek into private enclaves, spacious to small
Designer Monica Viarengo added a living wall of succulents to a children’s slide for a drought-tolerant garden in a Mission District home in S.F. The grass is actually artificial turf. Designer Monica Viarengo added a living wall of succulents to a children’s slide for a drought-tolerant garden in a Mission District home in S.F. The grass is actually artificial turf. Marcia Donahue’s garden in Berkeley contains a variety of plants, chickens and her own garden art.
UC garden series offers symposium on the science of cannabis
Apples that formed in the spring were ripe in October when this S.F. apple tree began to bloom and leaf out again. Apples that formed in the spring were ripe in October when this S.F. apple tree began to bloom and leaf out again. As cannabis is legalized, sometimes scientific matters can get lost amid all the talk about social issues.
Take me out to the garden!
Take me out to the garden! Tomatoes, sunflowers, blueberries, lemons and kale are all thriving in a garden under the scoreboard at San Francisco’s AT&T Park. “Kale is one of Hunter Pence’s favorite vegetables, so it’s our totem plant,” says Hannah Schmunk, the garden’s community development manager, referring to the Giants right fielder. This bountiful food garden is open to anyone with a ticket starting two hours before and during games.
Naked ladies can pop up like magic
Q:I have some pink "spider lilies" in my backyard that all of a sudden stopped blooming a few years ago. They seem to grow in many places with little care (many along Junipero Serra Boulevard near the no-mow fescue that you wrote about recently). Every year around August to early September they bloom with these beautiful pink flowers on a single stalk. How can I get mine to bloom again?
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