Currents Edible

In Marin

CELEBRATING THE PEOPLE, PLACES AND CAUSES OF THIS UNIQUE COUNTY

BACKYARD GREENS

Start your own edible garden this summer.

BY KASIA PAWLOWSKA

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San Rafael resident Beth LaDove (pictured) is a master gardener who has set up edible gardens for numerous restaurants in the past, including Piatti in Mill Valley and Comal in Berkeley. She met fellow master gardener Jenn Long, of Larkspur, and the two recognized a need for a community where prospective gardeners could receive expert advice. Two years in, and business is blooming. “We were thinking this would be local, but then orders began coming in from Australia and Mexico,” says LaDove. Here she shares some tips on how to start your own edible garden this summer. gardentribe.com

PLANT Summer is a great time to start root vegetables that are ready to harvest in the fall. Think beets, kale, chard and radishes.

PLOT Start small with a 3-by-8-foot or a 4-by-10-foot area of land. Take it slow and focus on just three to five crops.

SAVE Herbs are truly cost saving. Try perennials like rosemary, oregano, marjoram, sage or thyme. Sage and oregano look especially nice in gardens. HELP THE TREES In the October 2015 issue of Marin Magazine Bill Marken wrote

about the phenomenon of sudden oak death and explored the history and current state of the pathogen. Discovered in Marin County in the mid-1990s, SOD spread through forests of Northern and Central California and killed more than a million trees. While the drought has slowed the spread of the disease, wet years exasperate it and with 2016 rain levels the highest they have been in four years, cases are expected to be on the rise. Because of this, researchers are encouraging residents near affected areas to attend training sessions and to take part in citizen scientist surveys of sudden oak death, known as SOD Blitzes. Volunteers should attend the meetings with the “SODmap mobile” app already installed on their phones to help identify potential collection locations. Blitz samples will be taken to the UC Berkeley Forest Pathology and Mycology Lab to determine the presence or absence of the pathogen and results will be posted online in the fall. sodblitz.org K.P.

Famous Guide Revamped

It’s doubtful that San Anselmo’s Barry Spitz thought his 1990 self-published book Tamalpais Trails would go on to sell 25,000 copies, yet that’s exactly what happened. Going to extremes to get the job done, Spitz measured every trail with a wheel, a task that proved to be quite a challenge on some of the steeper paths like the Dipsea. Now, six editions and more than a quarter-century later, the well-known and respected book has received another honor — being published by the Parks Conservancy in association with the One Tam initiative. The seventh printing, newly christened Mount Tamalpais Trails, offers hikers a comprehensive guide to the entire One Tam (the community campaign by the new Tamalpais Lands Collaborative) region, expanding north into Pine Mountain and the Bolinas Ridge, as well as the Randall and McCurry trails, and south into Green Gulch. “It’s a revered mountain and if I had a hand in helping protect it and open it to people, then I’d feel very honored,” says Spitz. Meet the man behind the book and get a copy signed on National Trails Day, June 4, at Book Passage in Corte Madera. onetam.org K.P.