Everyone knows how great worms are for soil. They increase your soil’s porous qualities by tunneling, they cluster around decaying matter consuming fungi, bacteria, and nematodes and excreting them as worm castings, one of the most potent soil amendments there is. You’ve gone to great lengths to attract earthworms to your garden by adding compost and other organic matter to your soil or maybe you purchased worms to add. (Garden worms are different than composting worms. If you do have a source of garden worms, make sure your soil is “worm-ready” with plenty of organic material or you’ll lose them). But what happens to worms in the garden as soils dry?
Worms, of course, need adequate moisture to survive. You’ve probably kept your garden soil moist enough to sustain them. But what about your lawn, now that it’s dormant, and you’re doing what you can to save water? What about the worms? (more…)
Those following the battle to pass California’s Initiative 37 — the bill that will require labeling GMO foods (do we really need to tell you what 
August is the time of year our garden would turn chaotic. Trailing plants like cucumbers and spreading plants such as squash would take over wide swaths of ground that were formerly occupied — if our spring planning was any good — by spinach, lettuce, kale and other greens which, if not harvested would be doing their best to go to seed. These we would pull and throw in the compost… we didn’t care about lettuce seeds compromising our compost and usually the seeds hadn’t dried enough to survive the process. Then, anywhere there was space, we’d sow little squares or circles of late season plantings, things like mache (corn salad), kale, spinach and arugula, especially arugula, or anything else we had left in our seed bin. If there was some bare ground under one of those big shady squash leaves, we’d stir in some seed under them. The worst thing that could happen is that we’d be turning them back into the soil. The best? Picking a salad just before the snow arrived.
Drought has been big news this summer, no more so than regarding its effect on America’s corn crop. If there’s a silver lining, it’s that it has put renewed emphasis on corn raised for energy production (ethanol) and the amount that goes into making high-fructose corn syrup with all its 
You already know about 
It’s August and there’s plenty of 
It seems that no matter the problem we face in our gardens, the answer — or at least a part of the answer — frequently includes 
There’s only one thing more abundant this time of year than zucchini and crookneck: summer squash recipes! Of course, squash isn’t the only thing coming in abundance from our gardens in August. And there-in lies a clue as to how we should use this bounty. What grows together, goes together.
A friend asks, “What’s the big deal? You’re an organic gardener.” (“As best I can,” I reply, knowing there are few absolutes in gardening). “Why don’t you grow what you need? You want to eat non-GMO corn? Eat the corn you grow. Don’t buy it in the store.”
August is often the make or break month for potatoes. No doubt, if you’ve planted a few rows (or a lot) of potatoes, you’ve already dug a few plants for new potatoes which are usually ready two weeks or so after the plants blossom. But if you’re waiting until the first frost so you’ll have big tasty tubers for winter storage, now’s the time to be on alert. Warms days with high consistent humidity encourage blight, as does wet weather. The problem with 
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