Series archive: The Global Garden

The Global Garden started two years ago with the mission of meeting the people and exploring the cultures of Los Angeles through the prism of what we plant.

Feeling frisky after the salad? Maybe it’s the arugula.

In the spirit of the season, meet the baseball plant, sometimes sold as the baseball cactus, so named for the ribs that resemble the stitching on a ball.

Marigolds were on double duty all summer long, brightening the garden while repelling pests -- aphids above-ground and root knot nematodes in the soil.

At nearly every community garden in Los Angeles, and at every school garden too, someone is probably growing carrots.

The next time the thermometer rises, consider following the example of Victorian women.

The golden barrel cactus may be endangered in Mexico, but the plant has found new life north of the border as a top accent in low-water landscapes.

In summer, when the camomile is in full bloom and harvesting has begun, the gardeners at Stanford Avalon Community Garden in South L.A. let a portion of the field go to seed, ensuring a harvest down the line.

Prickly pear cactuses are so common in Southern California that they blend into the background, even now when the fruit, or tunas, are turning red-purple and dropping off.

One of the enduring lessons of gardening life is to remember the recommendations of other gardeners.

For most garden plants, flowering is a sign of renewed life.

For gardeners who lament the arrival of summer because it means pea season is over, consider the venerable pigeon pea -- a hardy perennial that can produce successive harvests during the year.

Unlike many plants considered invasive, fennel does everything it can to ingratiate itself into the garden.

Gary Jackemuk stands next to the backyard Floriani cornfield at Winnetka Farms, his homestead in the San Fernando Valley, snatching fig beetles in midair with his hands.

For Craig Ruggless of Winnetka Farms, one of the most prized plants this season is spigariello, a leafy cool-season green that tastes like broccoli and keeps growing after you’ve harvested it.

Attention, pod people: Have you harvested your okra today?

In the world of succulents, the hundreds of species and cultivars of the hoya genus stand out.

Jamie Jamison remembers her early introduction to woad.

Jamie Jamison still has the 1996 copy of Spin-Off magazine dedicated to cotton and color, the issue that inspired her to plant her own cotton.

The thornless blackberries in Mary Steffens’ backyard in Echo Park are going on three years, and one of the plants is finally setting fruit -- big, purple-black globes of nearly seedless, sweet-tart juiciness.

The etrog citron (Citrus medica) is a fruit with thousands of years of human use, much like the related Buddha’s hand fruit.

Growing coffee isn’t hard.

It’s hard to find someone who doesn’t appreciate the cute factor of mouse melons.

Gina Thomas remembers the day one of the Russian gardeners at the Wattles Farm community garden in Hollywood insisted on tasting a plump rocoto chile she had grown.

The giant yucca certainly lives up to its name: Yucca gigantea rises 30 feet high in ideal conditions, with white blossoms that push out from the center -- flor de izote, as the bloom is sometimes called, the national flower of El Salvador.

Michelle Wong tried to hold back the tears after learning that her landlady had ripped out the goji berry planted in the backyard of her apartment in Koreatown.

Fernando Larios eyes the stand of plantains running along one side of the Francis Avenue Community Garden in Koreatown.

If all goes well, Alicia Bacon’s plot at the Ocean View Farms community garden in Mar Vista will be a garden of scents this summer, an olfactory orchestra of plumeria, the flowering vine known as Exotic Love, flowering ginger and -- last but not least -- roselle, (Hibiscus sabdariffa) also known as rosa de jamaica.

The Northern California town of Castroville calls itself the “artichoke capital of the world,” although that’s really not true.

Companion planting is based on the idea that, like people, some plants do better with good neighbors.

Somewhere around the world, it has long been tea time.

One of the stands of lemon grass in the middle of the Vermont Square Community Garden is in full flower now, a somewhat unusual occurrence.

Kale, the king of greens, has been losing plot real estate to a close relative, collards.

How could you not love a bean called lablab?

On a ridge in Echo Park, the fungus kingdom has established a small beachhead in Mary Steffens’ side yard.

For the ancient civilizations of the Mediterranean, sorrel soup was a harbinger of spring.

Recent rains have been ideal for one of the fastest growing greens in the garden: bok choy and its many variants.

Even during the coldest time of the year, gardener Suky Sung Lee enjoys her taro, the “potato of the tropics.”

Rue. The name alone should give you pause.

The Japanese apricot -- a plant native to China, actually -- is one of the longest lived of the flowering fruit trees.

Even though the mizuna wasn’t as big as he would like, lacking a thick taproot, Tak Tsunemoto harvested a box worth from his garden plot in Mar Vista.

The tromboncino squash in Nancy Howell’s garden plot doesn’t resemble the trombone for which it’s named but, rather, a french horn.

Come fall in Southern California, they are markers of the season: persimmons hanging on the tree, even as leaves are dropping.

Nancy Howell has been at Ocean View Farms community garden in Mar Vista since it opened in 1977.

For most gardeners, basil is a wonderful harbinger of summer, but in India a variety known as holy basil, or tulsi (Ocimum tenuiflorum), is grown year-round.

Let’s get one thing straight: The fruit from the jujube tree has nothing in common with the corn-starch confectionary of the same name.

When it comes to drought-tolerant, fast-growing shade trees, few are as useful as the ice cream bean tree, Inga edulis (and its 300-plus related species).

The first time you crack open a pomegranate, you understand why this Iranian native has achieved such significance around the world.

You’re probably already growing purslane. That could be good or bad.

Opuntia, the prickly pear cactus, originated in South America, moved into the valleys of the Andes and then north into Mexico and North America.

In the Long Beach community of Carmelitos, Richie Huang’s gardener father has positioned little protective paper hats over the ripening bitter melon.

White sapote trees may have been trendy 50 years ago, but these days they are empty-lot plants, the kind of urban flora most often seen sprouting from scattered seed in some neglected patch of Southern California.

The scent of citrus emanating from Boni Liscano’s backyard in Atwater Village comes from a 20-foot-high calamondin tree (Citrofortunella microcarpa), sometimes called kalamansi or calamansi.

Garden writer/saint Jeff Spurrier recently handed off some of his heirloom tomatoes with a reminder that I should save a few seeds of my favorites to plant next spring, naturally leading to the question: How?

Even in the heat of summer, Horacio Fuentes doesn’t need any shade in his Wilshire Park backyard.

In the heart of the Wilshire Park historic district, Horacio Fuentes has built a garden with the feel of his native El Salvador.

At Wattles Farm, the community garden in Hollywood, Gina Thomas pointed out a cluster of tiny, husk-enclosed ground cherries hidden among the foliage.

Long before the tomato achieved star status in the vegetable gardening world, its cousin in the nightshade family, the tomatillo (Physalis philadelphica), was a staple for the people of Mexico and Guatemala.