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Book Review

Vlog 3: Review of P. Allen Smith’s Container Gardening Deck

November 18, 2009

I recently received a review copy of P. Allen Smith’s Container Gardens Deck. In order to test it out and see whether I would recommend the deck to other people, I took one of the cards with me to the nursery and used it to create a container design: As you can see, I think […]

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Review of ‘Black Plants: 75 Striking Choices for the Garden’ by Paul Bonine

November 6, 2009

When I heard about Paul Bonine’s Black Plants: 75 Striking Choices for the Garden I was very excited. I love black plants. I pre-ordered it on the spot, but I haven’t gotten around to reviewing it until just now. I apologize, because it really is a great book that deserved immediate attention. As the title […]

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Welcoming Wildlife to the Garden

October 16, 2009

Recently I discovered a great book at my library called Welcoming Wildlife to the Garden by Catherine Johnson, Susan McDiarmid and Edward Turner that I’m very excited to share with LOTB readers. What initially caught my eye was the book’s subtitle, “Creating backyard and Balcony Habitats for Wildlife.” Any gardening book  that remembers balcony gardeners […]

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Photo Essay of Novella Carpenter Event at Riordan Library

July 24, 2009

Adriana and I headed up to LA yesterday to hear author Novella Carpenter discuss her Oakland farm, which is the subject of her book Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer. We met up with Milli and her friend Amy and had fun mingling with other LA gardeners and bloggers. All-in-all I had a great […]

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Pickled Pepperoncinis

July 20, 2009

Yesterday I pickled something for the first time. Pretty exciting, eh? Okay, maybe it’s not that exciting. But it was fun and even challenging. If you grow your own vegetables, you should definitely give it a try. I had a modest first harvest from my pepperoncini plants, so I selected smallish preserving jars (16 oz) […]

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Growing Stuff: An Alternative Guide to Gardening

May 3, 2009

A month or so ago, I got an email from Black Dog Publishing alerting me to the fact that Life on the Balcony had been listed as a resource in a new book about container gardening that was about to be published. What a thrill that was! The publisher was kind enough to send me […]

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How Adorable! Gardening Inspired Cupcakes

December 5, 2008

This weekend, I’m going to help my mom make some cupcakes from her new cupcake cookbook, Hello, Cupcake! by Alan Richardson and Karen Tack. The ideas in the book are absolutely the most adorable things you have ever seen. While I am given to exaggeration, that was not an exaggeration. Most. Adorable. Ever. The great […]

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Books for Your Balcony Garden Library

August 28, 2008

Everyone could use another book. Or at least that’s the philosophy I live by. There may be families that love books as much as mine, but I am confident that none love them more. I am a very curious person, so I have a wide variety of books, many of them on rather bizarre topics. […]

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Book Review: Fine Gardening’s Gardening in Containers

July 8, 2008

Gardening in Containers: Creative Ideas from America’s Best Gardeners is a great book if you want specific project ideas with instructions. The book is divided into five sections: Containers in the Garden, Designing Container Plantings, Selecting Containers, Container Gardening Primer, and Great Container Plants. Each section is divided into projects (there are 27 projects in […]

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