Mulching Your Vegetable Bed

We always recommend mulching your vegetable garden with straw.  It helps keep the garden warmed during colder periods and reduces how often you will need to weed throughout the summer.

Here’s some great info from Lucerne Farms:

3 Reason To Mulch Your Vegetable Beds!

Your vegetable bed is the one most deserving of the mulching practice, for a whole host of reasons. But here are three that will reduce stress on your plants and help increase your bounty come fall. 

Mulching with Premium Ground Cover:

1. Helps your plants’ roots stay at a consistent temperature during the season which enhances growth and reduces stress. During the beginning and end of the season, mulch is going to help the soil hold its heat. But when that mid-summer heat hits, your plants will be thankful for the cooler temperatures on their roots. This will help prevent heat stress and help your plants put its energy towards producing beautiful things for your table.   
   Gardening Mulch for Vegetables 
2. Allows soil to hold a more consistent moisture level. Each plant varies on their desired moisture level, but all benefit from consistency. When consistent moisture levels can be met, our garden friends are able to put more energy into growing garden goodness, instead of having to conserve energy until the next watering. 
3. Provides protection for some of the hardest workers in our beds. People are becoming increasingly aware of the web of microbes operating within our soil. This soil web helps make nutrients readily available to plants. The healthier this web, the more nutrients your plants receive, and the healthier and happier they are. This means… you guessed it… more energy to put towards garden goodies. 

Japanese Beetles: How to Detect, Prevent and Get Rid of Them

If any of your plants look like this, you may have Japanese Beetle damage. There are many plants they enjoy to munch on and they are especially fond of plants such as Basil, Roses, Grapes and Hibiscus.  If you’ve been noticing lots lately, it’s due to high temperatures. They tend to come out when the temps reach 85 degrees and above.

Control of Japanese Beetles

The most cost-effective way to eliminate Japanese Beetles is to hand-pick them early in the morning.

Pick off the beetles and drop into a cup of soapy water.   We don’t recommend using beetle bags traps as they tend to attract more beetles to your yard.

Prevention of Japanese Beetles

Japanese Beetles lay eggs in late summer. The eggs hatch into larvae that overwinter in the soil.  The larvae moves towards the surface of the soil/grass in the spring as it warms up, and eventually emerge into adult beetles. The larvae are white grubs that feed on the roots of grasses and soils.

They actually can cause a great deal of damage to your lawn. The best way to get rid of them permanently is to treat your lawn with an organic control. There are several methods to eliminate and/or reduce populations of Japanese Beetles.  One method is an application of Milky Spore to your lawn.  Milky Spore is a biological that will kill the grubs as the feed on the roots and soil.  Other methods to prevent include include applying nematodes to your lawn, attracting native parasitic wasps and flies, and let your lawn go dormant during the hot summer months.  Watering your lawn promotes the environment in which they breed.

As always we recommend the most natural and organic measures to eliminate this pest to enable you and your family to enjoy the outdoors.

Quick Guide to Edible Flowers

For those who haven’t used flowers in cooking before, eating a flower might seem like an odd concept.  You’ve likely picked off many of these flowers that garnished your dishes without even knowing they were actually edible. When choosing flowers to cook or bake with ensure that they were organically grown and of course, they are edible.  Some of our edible favorites include:

Daylily (Hemerocallis) Daylilies have a mild flavor and can be eaten raw or cooked. They are delicious in a stir-fry and make a wonderful appetizer. Try stuffing them with cream-cheese dips or spreads.

Anise Hyssop (Agastache foeniculum) Anise Hyssop has a sweet, licorice-like flavor. The flowers are great in salads, fruit salads, and can also be sugar-glazed for decorating desserts.

Bee Balm (Monarda) – Bee Balm can be used to make tea.

Nasturtium (Tropaeolum) – Nasturtium has a peppery flavor. Both the leaves and flowers add flavor to salads and sandwiches.  I tend to use the flowers in my salads because they add such interesting summer colors to my dishes.

Marigold (Tagetes) – Marigold has a spicy flavor and it often used as a vegetable or salad garnish. The most common Marigold for eating is ‘Lemon Gem’. We grow this variety specifically for cooking and keep in our herb section so it’s easy to find.

Pansy (Viola) – Pansies have a sweet mild flavor.These are great in salads, or sugared for decorating and garnishing. What I love so much about Pansies is you could have them blooming in your garden from March to December if you grow them in partial sun.

Calendula – Calendulas have a tangy flavor almost similar to saffron.  They come in bright Oranges and Yellows  and brighten up any plate. The petals and flowers look great in salads and when used as a plate garnish.

Chives (Allium schoenoprasum) – Chive flowers have a mild onion flavor and can be used both raw and cooked.  You can separate the petals for mild flavor in a salad, or use the entire blossom for stronger flavor. These can also be used in a stir fry or when sautéing.

Garlic Chives (Allium tuberosum) – Garlic Chive flowers have a garlicky flavor. You can separate the petals for mild flavor in a salad, or use the entire blossom for stronger flavor. These can also be used in a stir fry or when sautéing.

Roses – (Rosa) – Roses petals can be used fresh or dried. I prefer fresh because they look so much nicer this way.  They can be used in salads, desserts and teas. Also, they are quite beautiful when crystallized with sugar and used for desserts and garnishes.

Squash Blossoms – Squash Blossoms are one of my favorites. They are delicious fried or stuffed with cream cheese mixtures. My favorite way to prepare them is to fry them. First I dip them in an egg mixture and then in seasoned flour. They are such a summer treat.

Many of these edible flowers are long bloomers and the key to lots of blooms is to deadhead (remove spent blooms) when past bloom.

There are so many other edible flowers. When experimenting with flowers be sure first; that they are edible and second; that they are grown organically.  What flowers will you be eating for dinner tonight?

Woodchucks: Pest or Pet?

This year we have more to contend with in our home garden. Not only do we have a woodchuck, but it has an entire family with babies. The babies are so cute and my children seem to think we can keep them as pets. They’ve eaten our squash, cucumbers and parsley. The babies also seem to be enjoying my Phlox panicualata (summer phlox) and Echinacea (coneflower).

Luckily the warm weather has just begun and all of these plants grow fast. We will just replace the vegetables and make it so they don’t want to visit our garden. There are many organic controls for woodchucks – fences, bloodmeal , hot pepper spray, garlic spray and the product Plantskydd.

I just went out to the gardens and applied Plantskydd last night. I have successfully used this product for many years to deter little critters from the garden. You can apply using different methods – around the whole perimeter of the garden or around the plants they tend to eat. Either way seems to be just as effective.

There are some plants in particular that woodchucks seem to enjoy. These plants include squash, cucumber, parsley, Achillea (yarrow), Aster, Echinacea (coneflower), Dahlia, Phlox paniculata (summer phlox), Helianthus (sunflower), Papaver( poppy), Ipomoea (sweet potato vine) and Chrysanthemums (mum). These are plants that you want to be sure you protect.

You can fill your gardens with plants that woodchucks don’t tend to eat. Lucky for us this list is very long. You can add plants like Daylily, Veronica, Dianthus, Hosta, Anemone, Artemesia, Amsonia, Asclepias(milkweed, butterfly weed), Agastache (hyssop), Aruncus (goatsbeard), Cimicifuga, Campanula(bellflower), Astilbe, Coreopsis, Centaurea (bachelor’s button), Crambe, Eupatorium (Joe pye weed), Platycodon (balloon flower), Cranesbill (geranium), Euphorbia (spurge), Gypsophilia (baby’s breath) and there are so many more.

Personally I wouldn’t limit my garden to plants that don’t eat because once you apply a deterrent they stay away and find something else to eat. What do you use to keep woodchucks away from your garden?