Resources to help you garden
Community Garden Startup Handbook
Top Ten Reasons to Grow and Buy Organic Food
Published Articles and Online Videos About Victory Gardens
General Garden Resources
helpful tips for the vegetable gardener
Master Gardening Center San Diego County:
A group of volunteers to answer the most commonly asked questions about home horticulture.
Master Gardener Problem Solver
Click the link above or call The Master Gardener "Hotline": (858) 694-2860. A Master Gardener will answer your questions on home gardening and pest control Monday through Friday from 9 am to 3 pm. And it's FREE!
Bring in a Plant Sample The best sample should include a healthy and a diseased portion of your plant. Make sure the samples are contained in a plastic bag.
Address: 5555 Overland Avenue, Building 4, Suite 4101, San Diego 92123
Garden Forever This website has all kinds of handy resources for all types of gardening: Tips, Tools, Articles, Supplies, Gardening Books and Links. Their philosopy is "Gardening for people of all ages, abilities and lifestyles. If I could have but one wish it would be to garden forever."
Local Sources for Organic Seeds and Plants -
City Farmers Nursery: City Farmers specializes in those hard-to-find items that big box and chain stores just aren't interested in. Further, we organically maintain every plant, bush and tree as Mother Nature intended. To see a story from the San Diego New Network about Bill Tall and his beautiful nursery, click here.
Whole Earth Acre Nursery. They don't have a website, but Whitney and Sui Lin Robinson are avid supporters and friends of those who want to grow food at home. They offer some of the best plant starts in the area, grown as naturally as they can with great care. They also collect and plant seeds from their own stock, insuring the best viability and vitality for this region. You can find them at the Hillcrest Farmers Market on Sundays and the Vista Farmers Market on Saturdays. Their nursery is in Vista, California. They can be reached at
To see a listing of all the area's farmers markets, click here.
Online Seed & Garden Supply Companies
Peaceful Valley Farm & Garden Supply
Composting and More
Solana Center for Environmental Innovation: Their program areas are broad in scope, addressing both regional and national issues, and include: environmental education, pollution prevention, forest preservation, sustainable living and renewable technologies, and recycled product procurement. Home compost bins are available Tuesdays and Thursdays, 9am to 4pm.
Free Composted Horse Manure for home, school and community gardeners. El Cajon Equestrian Center recently started composting their horse manure/shavings and are giving it away to gardeners who can use it in bulk. The beautiful and rich compost is turned and watered according to the guidelines of the County of San Diego following the information gathered by the San Diego Wild Animal Park, and is aged for up to 8 weeks before giving it away, though some people like it sooner. You only have to come pick it up. They'll load your trucks with a tractor. Compost is available all year long. Please call Nan Edwards at 619-443-1939 to schedule your pickup. El Capitan Equestrian Center, 12307 Willow Rd., Lakeside CA (corner of 67 and Willow).
Red Worm Fertilizing Products16161 Highland Valley Rd. Escondido, 92025
619-339-1963. Click here for website.
Raised Bed Gardens
Texas A&M University: How to Build a Raised Bed Garden
Eartheasy: Ideas for sustainable living. With every activity of our daily lives, we connect with the interdependent web of life on Earth. The health of our environment is a reflection of the choices we make.
Plant Information
Producepedia by Western Growers: This site is designed to provide you, the consumer, with important and fun information about produce.
California Rare Fruit Growers, North County Chapter shares information about the propagation and growing of common and rare varieties of fruit.
Soil Testing
The key to any soil test is collecting a good representative sample and having a company that will provide interpretation of the test results. And of course soil
testing will only help detect fertility or salinity/toxicity problems. It
does not help with problems caused by soil disease, nematodes, poor
drainage, etc. For annual plantings like vegetables and flowers, we suggest
a good organic preplant fertilizer when the soil is worked along with some compost
and a little bit of organic nitrogen fertilizer periodically. If soil drainage is
poor, grow in raised beds or large containers.
Soil Labs
Clarkson Lab 619.425.1993.
Environmental Engineering 619.298.6131
Fallbrook Ag Lab 760.728.4628
John Deere Landscape 619.562.8777 (Ask for Ed.)
Pacific Analytical 760.496.2200 &
Soil and Plant Lab 714.282.8777 (Orange County)
Wallace Labs has many years of experience in assisting farmers, professional landscaping companies and home owners produce better gardens and improving landscape by analyzing soils, plant tissues and water.
Wallace Laboratories' agronomic soil analysis not only includes pH, salinity, the concentration of soluble salts, and sodium but also for all 14 essential nutrients and over a dozen toxic metals including arsenic, cadmium, lead, and mercury at no extra cost. Recommendations and interpretations are also provided with the report. Plant Tissues are analyzed to optimize the growing conditions and to fine tune your landscaping site.
Homegrown Vegetable Exchange
Veggie Trader is your place to trade, buy or sell local homegrown produce. Wish you could turn your excess plums into lemons, or maybe even a little cash? Use this site to find neighbors to swap with or sell your excess produce to. Or if you specialize in growing tomatoes, find neighbors who specialize in other produce and form networks to share in the variety. Even if you don't have a garden, Veggie Trader is your place for finding local food near you.
Crop Swapper was developed by two brothers who immensely enjoy gardening and often trade with each other during the growing season. They are two creative guys that have a lot of great ideas, and thought this one would benefit everyone. They organize their crops to complement each other so they have a variety of homegrown produce to supplement their families dinner tables. If they could do it on a small level, why not try and expand with this neighbors?
National Victory Garden Links
others doing the same around the country
Life on the Balcony Growing tips for apartment and condo dwellers.
VictoryGrower supports the notion that gardening is an excellent way to increase food security (the amount and quality of food) in America. Gardening enables youth, families and entire communities to improve their access to Good Food.
The Fenway Victory Gardens represent the nation’s last remaining of the original victory gardens created nationwide during World War II.m
Denver Urban Gardens: believes in: “growing community” - one urban garden at a time. Critical to their mission is the belief that we need to come alongside neighborhoods, in a support role, as they work to create their own urban garden. They seek to enable, unite and empower participants to reach out and build their community.
San Francisco Victory Garden Project: Victory Gardens 2008+ is a pilot project funded by the City of San Francisco to support the transition of backyard, front yard, window boxes, rooftops, and unused land into organic food production areas. The SF Victory Gardenprogram builds on the successful Victory Garden programs of WWI and WWII but redefines "Victory" in the pressing context of urban sustainability. "Victory" is growing food at home for increased local food security and reducing the food miles associated with the average American meal.