A Growing Passion

In this episode, we explore the history of the gardens in San Diego's iconic Balboa Park, as 2015 marks the centennial of the Park's 1915 Panama California Exposition. We hear how the Exposition promoted the city, the first port of call as ships sailed west through the Panama Canal, and how it also promoted the regions' fledgling agriculture and horticulture industries.

In this episode, we search out some of the champion trees listed on the California Big Tree Registry. From San Luis Obispo where the Registry is housed, all the way to Los Angeles where, with the help of a big tree hunter, we climb a giant floss silk tree to measure and crown it as a new champion.

It's garden show season and Nan travels up and down the coast experiencing various gardening shows and tours to see what's new in plants, the world of design, and what other gardeners are doing in their gardens.

Every vegetable or fruit gardener has faced the dilemma of too much, all at once, much more than they can eat fresh. The issue becomes, how to preserve that harvest and enjoy it throughout the year. In this episode, we make jam from tomatoes, preserve home grown lemons the Moroccan way, pickle cucumbers, beets, fennel, and onions, make kimchi from cabbages, smoke peppers, and so much more.

You walk into a nursery, pick up a beautiful plant in one-gallon container, pay for it, take it home and plant it in your garden. Ever stop to think about how that plant got to the nursery? We aren't talking about the truck that delivered it, but rather about what it took to breed, trial, propagate, grow, and then deliver that plant to the nursery.

Water is serious stuff, particularly in California where drought is on everyone's minds Water flows into our houses and it also flows into our farms and gardens. With supplies growing more limited, how do farms and gardens factor into the water equation? What are the environmental issues? We take a look at California's water supply, where it comes from, where it goes to, and its impact.