All about lovely lavender

Sunday, August 24, 2014

Lavender has a large fan club for good reason.  It has many uses-a spice for sweet and savory dishes, an ingredient in Herbes de Provence, potpourri, moth deterrent, aromatic ingredient in cleaners and candles, added to beauty and health products for its antiseptic and anti-inflammatory properties, a calming fragrance, and a beautiful addition to any garden.

Lavender is in the mint family, originated from the Old World, and has been cultivated since Biblical times.  It is typically a short lived perennial.  There are several different types of lavender available by seed.  The most common that you find in stores is English lavender (lavandula angustifolia formally lavandula officinalis).

Lavender has become a weed in Australia as they have the perfect conditions for growing lavender, dry, well drained soil in full sun with good air circulation.  Lavender is susceptible to root rot so keep mulch away from the crown of the plant and make sure they get good drainage.  

All lavenders need little to no fertilizer and prefer alkaline soil.  They are carefree plants if planted in the right place in your garden.

Most lavenders are not hardy in the colder zones (Zone 4 or below).  Be sure to check out the hardiness of a variety before purchasing.  You can always grow them as annuals.

Lavenders do not like to be transplanted.  Some report difficulty in growing from seed.  I have grown several from seed with no issue.

Lavenders come in various shades of white, blue and purple and heights from 6” to 6 feet.  The strength of fragrance varies as well.  English lavender is considered to be of the highest quality.

Lavender sugar on the left

In the culinary world, lavender is fun to use as an edible and aromatic addition to many different kinds of dishes.  Here are some ideas:

-Lavender sugar.  Just add a teaspoon to 1/2 cup of sugar and mix well.

-Lavender cream.  Add 6 stalks of lavender to 1 cup of cream.  Let sit overnight in the refrigerator, strain and whip.  Use some of the buds as decoration in the cream.  They’re edible!

-Lavender syrup.  Boil 6 stalks of lavender in 2 cups of water and 1 1/2 cup of sugar at a simmer for 15 minutes.  Let sit in refrigerator overnight, strain into bottle and keep refrigerated. 

-Lavender infused balsamic or white vinegar.  Place lavender stalks in vinegar and allow to steep in a cool dark place.  4 weeks later you will have lavender vinegar.  Yum!

Lavender ice cubes

You can use the lavender syrup in many things.  For lavender lemonade, just add one ounce of syrup with 2 ounces of lemon juice in each serving.  Add syrup to your hot tea or iced coffee.  Drizzle over pancakes, fresh fruit, yogurt or cake.  Use it in an adult beverage.  Doesn’t a lavender gin sour sound fun?  Just add an ounce to the ounce of fresh lemon juice and 2 ounces of gin.  Use a stalk for garnish.

The flowers themselves can be used as decoration on cakes, pies, drinks, ice cubes.  Bundle them to place in drawers and closets for a beautiful fragrance throughout the house.  An additional benefit is that many find lavender to be calming.

I use dried lavender and chervil for my body oil.  Smells wonderful and I get the added benefit of their medicinal properties.

Fall is a great time to plant perennials so you can get a much larger lavender plant and blooms for next spring!

Easy, homemade pickles

Homemade pickles

Sunday, August 17, 2014

Homemade pickles are soooooo easy!  Anything acidic does not require a pressure canner.  This includes anything pickled (vinegar is a healthy acid), made with sugar (also very acidic, but not necessarily healthy), or made with tomatoes.

I enjoy making pickles.  I slice up my extra cucumbers to just the length and width my husband likes them for his burgers and use my homemade pickling herbs and spices with organic apple cider vinegar.

The trick to pickles is to pick the cucumbers when they are young.  The larger they get, the more seeds they have.  Seeds are packed with nutrition, but don’t have the same crispness as cucumber flesh.  Either slicer or pickler cucumber plants make great pickles.  Picklers have been bred to be smaller and have smaller seeds, but both have the same fresh cucumber taste. 

Since all plants are in the business of keeping the species going, regular picking encourages the plant to produce more cucumbers.  I have noticed that my vines will only have one mature cucumber on each vine.  As soon as I pick the big pickle, another baby pickle starts growing like crazy.

Two cucumber plants (vine or bush) give me all the cucumbers I need for using in salads that I like and putting away as pickles as he likes.  To keep your cucumbers in peak production, harvest when the cukes are 6-7 inches in length.  I use scissors to cut the cuke from the vine.  If you are not going to use them immediately, store in a freezer bag in the crisper.  You can perk up the cuke by soaking in cool water, making them crunchy again.

I typically can 1 jar at a time using 2-3 cucumbers.  These will fit nicely into a quart canning jar.  Make sure the jar and lid have been sterilized.  I slice them lengthwise to the size that will fit on a bun; make sure you remove the ends of the cucumber as the ends are bitter. 

Here is my recipe for one jar of pickles:

2-3 flowering dill heads, 4-5 sprigs of salad burnet or tarragon, 2 cloves, 4-5 garlic cloves, 1/4 cup of apple cider vinegar, 1/4 teas of caraway seeds, 1/4 teas of peppercorns, one cardamon seed pod, 3 tablespoons of salt, a bay leave, fill the rest of the jar with water (about 2 cups is all that is needed).  If you like 'em spicy, throw in a pepper or two with stem removed.  Slice the pepper in half to get the spicy from the seeds.

A trick to keeping your pickles crispy is to add a grape leaf in each jar.

Get creative and add the spices and herbs you enjoy or that are handy in your garden.  

You can substitute other veggies for the cucumbers.  Pickled peppers and garlic are two other favorites.  It is a great way to preserve garlic that may not last in winter storage.

Keep the water to vinegar and salt ratio exact.  Always follow a canning recipe closely to insure that you have the right level of acidity to keep the food safe.

Sliced cucumber with herbs from the garden for seasoning

You can get a good jar seal by heating the water and seasonings on the stove to a boil, let cool, add the vinegar, then pour over the sliced cucumbers in the jar, and put the lid on.  Or you can do it the old fashioned way and not heat the liquid, letting the pickles naturally ferment.  It is critical that you have at least the amount of salt and vinegar recommended or the pickles will go bad.  I shake the jar a couple of times a day until the salt is completely dissolved. You let them ferment at room temperature in a cool, dark place 1-4 weeks and they are ready to eat!

For more on fermentation for food preservation, a good book is "Wild Fermentation" by Sandor Ellix Katz.

Unopened pickle jars will keep for a year or longer.  Once opened, keep refrigerated and eat within a couple of months.

Cucumbers love organic matter and moisture.  They are easiest to harvest when given a trellis to climb.  I use a liquid fertilizer like fish emulsion, bat guano or seaweed to add other needed nutrients.  Monthly side dressings of compost works well, too.  For minerals, I also use a “Growers Mineral Solution” to get the minerals plants need.  This also means the fruits you eat will be rich in minerals.  Your plants are what you feed them.  

Do not let the plant get dry.  This is what causes bitter fruits.  When I grow cucumbers in pots or in the ground, I use mulch to help retain moisture for the plant.  If growing in a pot, you may need to water daily during heat waves.

Sprouting broccoli- a year round fav

Sunday, August 10, 2014

I love sprouting broccoli!  It is a great year round salad green that also gives you broccoli.  If you love the taste and nutrition of broccoli and are looking for a green that you can get leaves for salads year round, this is the plant for you.  The most common use of broccoli is the flower, or floret, but the entire plant is edible.  Its leaves do not get bitter in the steamy dog days of summer and it is hardy to below 10 degrees F.

I try to always grow vegetables and greens that give me the most for the space.  Being choiceful on what you grow, allows you to have a whole lot of food in a very small space.  Even if you have a ton of space, you get a lot more for your effort by choosing veggies that maximize production for the space.  Less work for more food.  How can you not love that??

If you want a plant that will give you a large head of florets, sprouting broccoli is not what you are looking for.  Your normal broccoli takes up the same amount of space and gives you one head and they are done.

I personally grow Purple Sprouting and White Sprouting broccoli.  They are biennial plants (lives for two years).  You get small, purple or white tinted florets of broccoli after it over winters in the spring.  The leaves have either purple or white tinted veining.  

The broccoli head that you see in the store is actually the plant’s flower buds.  You want to harvest the floret when the little buds are full sized, but before they begin to open (flower).  Cut the large central floret stalk at a 45 degree angle to encourage the plant to produce smaller florets.  A plant’s desire to reproduce is very strong; it is its reason for living.  If you keep harvesting the florets, they will keep producing them sporadically after the first flush in April. 

At the end of the second year, you will want to let a few of the florets mature and fully flower to produce seeds.  You can continue to harvest the leaves for salads even while the plant is flowering.

These plants grow tall.  The seed pack said 24-36”, but mine grew even taller than that in the garden bed.  They can be grown in pots as well.  Typically, a plant will not grow as tall in a pot.  They also give you many seeds that are easy to save and replant.  I just love veggies that you only ever have to purchase one seed packet and you are set for life!

We use the leaves in salads along with the florets all spring, summer, fall and into winter.

Sprouting broccoli can be planted at any time.  The recommendation is from mid-April to late June to get a larger plant by fall.  You can use transplants as late as September.  A lightweight cover when it gets extremely cold in the winter will keep the plant producing leaves and protect it from frostbite.

The plants prefer soil with a pH of 6-7, rich in humus (compost), cool temperatures, and even moisture.  Mine grew very well even in record heat and drought so ideal conditions are not a must.

What's happening in the mid-August garden

Saturday, August 9, 2014

August sees the full swing of the summer, warm season garden harvests.  Late sweet corn (plant corn in succession and different varieties to lengthen the harvest), summer squashes (like zucchini), peppers of all types (sweet to hot, hot), tomatoes, Mediterranean herbs, cucumbers, okra, apples, peaches, pears, grapes, beans, melons, figs, eggplant, honey, artichokes, blackberries, blueberries, raspberries, onion, and fennel are all in season in the Midwest.  

The summer vegetables tomatoes, eggplants and peppers, have been slow to ripen this summer, likely due to the long cool spring and the cool snaps we have had this summer.

A secret to maximizing your peppers, tomatoes, eggplants, and zucchinis is to harvest them consistently.  The plants driving force is to reproduce so by continuing to harvest, it causes the plant to put on more fruits.

We are trying several chocolate and black tomatoes this year.  They are doing very well.  The small tomatoes ripen first and are more prolific than the large tomatoes.  I have already frozen 7 quart bags of tomatoes.

Yellow, red, chocolate, and black tomatoes

I will take the tomatoes frozen from last year and make into sauce.  You don’t have to have a pressure canner for tomato sauce.  Tomatoes are acidic enough that you only need a big pot to boil the jars in.  Be sure to follow the canning recipe exactly.

I have tried growing tomatoes in pots in previous years and just did not have good luck.  If you get a variety such as Tiny Tim, put it in a roomy pot, and water with a liquid fertilizer daily, you will get good results.  I am just not willing to invest the time to keep it in a pot.  Weekly care for plants in the ground is sufficient.  A pot with a water reservoir in the bottom is the best solution for lengthening the time between waterings when growing in pots.

It seems the hot peppers prefer pots.  I am trying a couple of new sweet peppers in pots this year, Nikita and yellow banana.  Both are doing quite well in pots.  I freeze the extra peppers whole for salsa.

Potted eggplant

The potted Black Beauty eggplant is doing great; much better than its sister in the ground.  I am trying a Turkish orange eggplant in one of my pots with a water reservoir.  It has finally starting growing well, but little black bugs have been steadily munching a bunch of little holes in all the leaves.  I started checking the leaves a couple of times a day to squish any I find.  Using a light weight cover is the recommended approach to keep the little buggers off the plant.  They look like flea beetles which usually arrive in the spring.  Another sign of how late the season is this year in the summer garden.

We are on our third round of lettuce this season and I resowed seed again this week end in all the pots.  We sow lettuce seeds about every three weeks to keep us in salads through all the seasons.  We also supplement lettuce with warm season greens like sorrels, sprouting broccoli leaves, chard, and cultivated dandelion greens.

In pots, we have had great luck with  Egyptian walking onions (which can be harvested year round), peppers, eggplant, zucchini, cucumber, greens, fig, columnar apple, passion flower, sweet bay, and celery.

The zucchini is doing great in the ground this year.  It did well in the pot last year.  You just have to be sure you get a variety intended to be grown in a pot for it to fare well.

Zucchini

I grow all of our herbs in the ground.  Rosemary and bay are both tender perennials.  I have tried the two rosemary varieties that are supposed to be able to survive a Midwest winter, but have not had any luck yet.  I have tried to also keep in a pot and bring in each winter, but have not had good luck with this approach either.  So, this is an herb I buy each spring, plant in the garden, then preserve for the winter by harvesting late in the season and drying.

A quick reminder, save the seeds from your best performers to plant next year! You can replant seeds from any heirlooms or open pollinated plants.  Not only does it save you money, but it also gives you the plants that do the best under your garden and zone conditions.

How to control bugs naturally, organically

Cucumber beetle-"bad bug" that spreads disease

Saturday, July 26, 2014

There are good bugs and then there are the bugs that eat up your harvest or give your plants diseases.  You have to be extremely careful in applying any insecticides (bug killers) as they will kill off the beneficial insects (like bees) that pollinate your veggies and increase your harvests.  

There are also bugs, wasps and insects that kill the “bad bugs.”  Using insecticides kills all insects and bugs, good and “bad”.  If you use non-chemical methods of control for the first couple of years, your garden will come into balance.  It can be very hard to resist the urge to get out the sprays, but there are other alternatives.

The best approach is to let nature take its course.  If you have bad bugs, the good bugs will quickly follow and provide equilibrium in the garden.  You can also purchase beneficial insects via mail order.  If you go this route, be sure that you will be at home when they are delivered so that you can get them released as quickly as possible.  Good bugs include parasitic wasps, assassin bugs, hover flies, lacewing, praying mantis, and ladybugs among others.

Ladybug eating aphids

You can encourage good bugs by planting flowers either around your vegetable patch or actually with your vegetables.  Marigolds are a “bad bug” deterrent.  I plant these all around my flower garden.

You can also encourage birds to your yard by having trees, shrubs and flowers that attract birds.  Keeping a bird bath with shrubs nearby so the birds can hide in the shrubs is a great way to get birds into your yard.  Birds will be happy to eat as many bugs as they can find!  For those that can, chickens or ducks provide the same service.

Stink bug-"bad bug"

Using a garden hose to dose down the insects can be a good strategy; just make sure that you are not watering a plant’s leaves that are susceptible to fungal diseases such as tomatoes, cucumbers or zucchinis.  

You can also go insect hunting and pull off the insects, larvae and caterpillars and throw them into a bowl with soap and water.  I like the book “Good Bug, Bad Bug”.  It has great pictures of both as well as pictures of them as caterpillars so you have a reference of both.  You want to encourage the good bugs in your garden.

For Japanese beetles, I use an attractor that is quite a distance from the vegetable garden.  They love roses so I go hunting for them on our roses every day.  We also apply Milky Spore to keep the grub population down around the roses so we have fewer adults in the summer.  It may take a couple of years for the spores to multiply in the ground, so don’t give up if the first year you don’t see a huge decrease in Japanese beetles.

For ants, you have to control the aphids.  A recipe for catching the ants and aphids:  2 cups of vinegar, 2 cups of sugar, 2 cups of water in a gallon jug with a lid.  Drill 3 small holes in the lid, large enough for the ants and aphids, but too small for a little bee.  Place in trouble areas.

If you are just overrun with the bad bugs, you can look on OMRI web site to see what the organic insecticides are:  http://www.omri.org/omri-lists  I use Safer Insecticidal Soap and Neem Oil for my indoor plants.

Here are some make your own insect deterrents.  Make sure you test on a few leaves to insure that it won’t adversely affect the plant you are trying to protect.

All purpose spray.  1 garlic bulb, 1 onion, 1 teas dry cayenne pepper, 1 teas liquid soap, 1 quart of water.  Mix water, garlic, pepper and onion together in a food processor, let steep an hour or so, drain through cheesecloth, add liquid soap and you are ready to spray away!

Hot pepper spray.  Good for repelling insects, squirrels, rabbits, and other curious mammals.  1 cup of hot peppers in a quart of water.  Mix in food processor, strain through a cheesecloth and you are ready to use.  Be careful to not get the liquid on your hands and then touch your eyes or mouth.  It will burn.

Tomato-leaf spray.  This is toxic to soft bodied insects like aphids.  It also attracts beneficial wasps.  Take the leaves off the bottom of your tomato plant, 2 cups.  Put in food processor with 1.5 quarts of water.  Let steep overnight, strain out leaves.  Spray on affected leaves, especially the undersides where they like to hide.

Easy ways to make a new vegetable garden bed

Using a hose to lay out your garden bed

Sunday, July 20, 2014

Making a new garden bed can seem like a monumental, labor intensive task, but it doesn’t have to be. There are several minimal labor ways to make a new bed. My favorite begins with a hose and old newspaper and/or cardboard.

Siting a New Garden

The best place to put a vegetable garden is close to the house where there is good sun, ideally a spot that gets southern exposure. Check out where the sun falls throughout a sunny day to see where the best locations are in your yard. 

Don’t be concerned if your garden spot gets some shade each day. Fruiting vegetables need the most sun, 6-8 hours.

Root vegetables require less and leafy vegetables require the least. Leafy vegetables appreciate getting afternoon shade in the hot days of summer. 

I have a spot on the northeast side of the house that I like to put leafy greens. It gets the morning sun, but the cool afternoon shade.  This allows us to grow lettuce through the summer.

Once you have picked out a spot, you can use a hose to lay out what you want the bed to look like. We then use a spray can of landscaping paint to paint out the edges of the bed.

Brand new mulched garden bed

Transforming Lawn to Garden

The easiest next step is to cut the grass inside your new bed as short as possible. Then lay several layers of newspaper or cardboard over the top of the closely sheared grass and cover with compost then mulch. Now, just let the bed lay until the grass dies. The grass and its roots adds organic matter to the soil as well.  Test the soil before planting to see what nutrients you need to add.  Use a balanced fertilizer when you plant.

Another option is after mowing close to the ground and laying the newspaper/cardboard, dump garden soil over it all, add compost, fertilize and plant immediately. Just be careful to not cut through the newspaper or you will get grass growing in your new garden bed.

We have also used a sod cutter, cutting up the sod in our new bed. Then, turning it upside down, covering with newspaper/cardboard, a couple of inches of compost, mulch, and plant.  This is definitely more work, but you have less chance of having to pull stray grass if you want to plant immediately.

Our garden is a combo of garden beds and containers

Types of Garden Beds

If you don’t need your garden bed to be “pretty”, a quick way to plant is to simply poke holes in bags of garden soil, put the perforated side down, cut open the top side of the bag and plant away. The plastic underneath will keep the grass from growing through. The downside is that your veggie plant roots won’t be able to grow down as well either. But if you don’t have time, this is a good way to get started. You can edge around the bags and removed them the following year, adding compost and have a ready made bed for the following year.

You can also go the raised bed route. There are many do it yourself, pre-cut raised bed kits that you can purchase. Use the same techniques above to make sure the grass won’t grow up through into your veggies. Newspaper and cardboard works great for this. Fill with good soil, compost, an all natural fertilizer and you are ready to plant.

The pros of raised beds is that they warm up quicker in the spring and you control the soil that you are growing in. The cons, the temperature is not as constant as if in the ground and they will need to be watered more often.

Potted eggplant with petunias

You can also opt to have your garden in pots. This is a great way to start small and quickly. It is amazing how many varieties of any veggie you love have been developed to grow in containers.

There are several options to getting your garden bed in place that don’t require a ton of time or hard labor. Now is the time to choose one and get your spring garden growing!

Growing zucchini and summer squash

Baby zucchini

Saturday, July 25, 2015

Zucchini is a summer squash.  They love heat, fertile soil, and sustained moisture.  You can plant them as soon as all danger of frost is past and they will be producing in just a few short weeks.  They go right through until fall if you keep them picked.  All plants are programmed to reproduce so if you keep the fruits picked, the plant will keep trying to replace it.

Squash originated in Mexico.  There are cave drawings from 8000 to 6500 BC depicting squash.  Squash was grown extensively by Native Americans as part of the “Three Sisters” of squash, corn and beans.

Squash love organic matter.  If you throw a few seeds in your compost pile, you will be rewarded with exuberant vines.

Zucchini is full of nutrition.  It contains antioxidants, carotenes, lutein, folates, potassium, vitamin A, vitamin C, and B vitamins.  For more specific nutritional information, Summer squash nutrition info

Zucchini bush

Plant when nighttime temps are 55F or warmer.  Add a fertilizer rich in phosphorous a week after transplanting, when flowers first appear and again when fruits begin to form.  They love water, too.  

Zucchini can be easily grown in a container, too.  Look for compact bush types like Bush Baby, Yellow Crookneck, Eight Ball, Cue Ball, Golden Delight, Anton, Patio Star, Giambo, Astia, Raven, Cosmos Hybrid (look for bush types versus vining types).  If growing in a pot, keep well watered and don’t let dry out.  

Don’t panic when the first blooms fall off without producing any fruits.  There are male and female flowers.  If yours falls off, it was likely a poor guy that withered without the love of a gal.  There can also be some false starts with malformed fruits.  Don’t worry, the plant will put on more blooms and you will be on your way to zucchini overload before you know it!

Give zucchini a mid summer side dressing of fertilizer or compost if planted in the ground.  Fertilize every couple of weeks with a liquid fertilizer if in a pot.

If you allow the fruit to get too big, the skin gets tough and the seeds hard.  Optimum length is no longer than 6 inches for the juiciest fruit and the smallest seeds.  We just picked 2 that were more like a foot long and they were still delicious.  

Our favorite preparation is to slice and grill it.  We slice them lengthwise, brush on olive oil, dust with sea salt, and put them on the grill with whatever we are cooking as the main course.  Grilling or roasting brings out the sweetness in the fruit.  Olive oil does not reach smoke temperatures until 350-400F so is still a good choice when grilling below 325.

If they grow large, you can use them for zucchini bread or cut in half, scoop out the seeds, stuff with a sausage tomato sauce and bake until tender.  

For more ideas on what to do with an abundant zucchini harvest, check out  What to do with all that zucchini?!

There are a couple of pests that you have to worry about with zucchini-the cucumber beetle, the squash bug and squash vine borer.  Cucumber beetle can infect the vine/bush with bacterial wilt.  When you see them, pull them off and drop in soapy water.

In late summer in areas with high humidity, you can get powdery mildew.  This can be treated by spraying with baking soda, copper or fresh whey.  I have found that planting a second plant around the first of July is the best approach.  This plant will be kicking in as the second starts slowing down.