By Janet Miller, Mary Jo Corby and Wendy Kraft The 2024 Great Tomato Plant Sale was the first year since COVID-19 that we have had a sale in all three county areas! Welcome back to Rivertown Garden, where there was a steady flow of customers all day and the garden looked fabulous! At the Richmond P...

By Liz Rottger Photos by Jim Marchetti Perhaps the most challenging of all of the Contra Costa UC Master Gardener's Great Tomato Plant Sales is in West County. Growing plants in one place and then selling them in an entirely different place is simply crazy.

UC Master Gardeners Liz Rottger and Fletcher Oakes created this tribute poster for the West County Great Tomato Plant Sale to honor the sizeable flower-growing community of Japanese ancestry that settled in Richmond/El Cerrito and were incarcerated during World War II.

by David George UC Master Gardener Pam Austin has been working and driving overtime as lead for the School Gardens project since the departure last year of Co-Lead Kate Verhoef from the Contra Costa program.

Article By Ann Ramirez Photos by Hedwig Van Den Broeck-Claeys Spring is here, and Summer is coming. We had our first group of enthusiastic beginning vegetable gardeners in February and are now beginning our May course.

Article by Meb Phillips Photos by Mary Beth Phillips In some indigenous cultures, often in May, the golden triangle of the corn seed, the glossy brown bean, and the hand-pie-shaped squash seed are planted together in a mound. These are called the Three Sisters.

By Susan Heckly Thank you for contacting the UC Master Gardener Program Help Desk and for sending a photo of your poor tomatoes. If the tomatoes were still on your plants and not moved a distance away when you discovered this, it's rats doing the damage.

Article & Photos By Anne Sutherland My honey and I recently returned from the trip of a lifetime in Peru and the Galapagos. To our delight, biodiversity specialist Maywa Blanco talked about Perus many varieties of potatoes and corn when we were in Cusco.

Article by Liz Rottger Photos by Brian Kerss This past winter, Brian Kerss and Liv Imset decided to prune a large elderberry tree at the Low Water Garden in Richmond. The tree had struggled through the entire summer with a heavy infestation of aphids and the pursuant black sooty mold.