Preserving Your Herbs

In many cases herbs are the first thing that new gardeners grow, herbs can be grown indoors in containers, on small balconies, and other small places since they tend to be smaller in size. So now that you have your herbs, how should you preserve them so that you can enjoy them throughout the coming months?

Before you preserve and store your herbs you will have to harvest them. When harvested before blooming your herbs will have the best flavor. This is because their essential oils are the highest at this time. 

If your herbs have a very strong flavor such as oregano, rosemary, thyme, lavender, mint, sage, or bay then you will want to dry them.

To dry your herbs you can either air or room dry them for small amounts, but if you have a large a mount of herbs to dry you may want to invest in a food dehydrator to help the task go by a little more quickly.

For room/air drying you will want to fasten your herbs together in small bunches of stems with either a rubber band or twine, tie these bundles tightly since the stems will inevitably shrink as they dry. Then you will need to hang your herbs upside down in a warm, dry place. As the leaves become brittle, strip from stems and store in glass jars that are labeled and dated appropriately.

For your herbs that are more tender or have more subtle flavors, you will want to freeze them. You can freeze your herbs either as cubes or as a paste.

To freeze as a paste you will want to gently puree the herbs with a small amount of olive oil. (According to Mother Earth News the ration should be 1/4 c. oil to 1 c. herb leaves). Then you can freeze your paste in a plastic freezer bag.

To freeze as cubes just chop the herb leaves coarsely and pack them into ice cube trays loosely, add water to the tray and freeze. Once your cubes are frozen you may remove them and store in a plastic freezer bag for up to three months, so be sure to label and date your freezer bags. These cubes can be added to sauces or soups to amp up your flavor in your food dishes.

September Gardening Tasks for Perennials

September is the time that the days begin to cool and being outside for extended periods of time becomes more enjoyable. So while you are outdoors there are a few things that can help your garden along. Or at least make your garden prettier.

Tasks for Perennials:
You will want to start now and continue working with your perennials over the next few months (once your soil has cooled to less than 60 degrees).  Plant your spring blooming bulbs in well drained soil and plant about 3x deeper than the diameter of the bulbs. For this particular month you will want to focus on planting:

• Tulips: Plant so bulbs aren't touching. For abundant tulips plant 10-20 bulbs in a hole that is one foot in diameter.
• Early blooming perennials can be divided. Be sure to give plenty of water after they are replanted.
• Dig up, divide, or transplant any of your perennials that are becoming crowded.
• If you want some fall color in your yard now is the time to plant:
  Mums, Winter Pansies, Flowering Cale, Cabbage
• Plant your seed perennials by scattering them in rows or in an open bed. Once it is spring these seedlings can be moved to their more permanent locations.

To make dealing with the replanting of bulbs easier, you may want to consider investing in a bulb planter.

For more September gardening tips visit: September Gardening Checklist. 

Starting Composting

If you are planning on having a garden next year, now is a great time to look into composting. Compost is a great material that will help your garden to grow.

Composting is also a great way to cut down on how much you are sending to the landfills. When you compost you will be reusing many degradable products that are ordinarily thrown out.

So how do you start your compost?

To make things easier you can invest in a composter to hold your compost or you can create your own compost pile.

First you will want to select a spot that is near a water source, this spot needs to be dry and shady.
Then  you will add your brown and green materials (list for appropriate materials below). Be sure that the larger pieces are shredded or chopped, you will add the materials continually as you collect them.
Moisten your dry materials when they are added.
Once you have established your compost pile, you will want to mix in grass clippings and other green waste, bury vegetable and fruit waste under 10 inches of your compost material.
If you are using a compost pile, cover with a tarp to keep it moist.
When the material at the bottom is dark and rich in color your compost is ready to use. This can take anywhere from two months to as much as two years.

Green Compost Material:
Algae
Bone meal
Coffee grounds
Egg shells
Feathers
Flowers
Fruit and fruit peels
Grass clippings (fresh)
Hair
Juicer Pulp
Manure
Plant Trimmings (that have not been treated with pesticides)
Seaweed
Tea leaves
Vegetables & peelings

Brown Compost Material:
Buckwheat hulls
Coffee filters
Coffee Grounds
Corn Cobs
Cotton/wool/silk scraps
Grass clippings (dried)
Hay
Leaves (dead)
Peanut Shells
Peat Moss
Pine needles
Sawdust
Shredded paper egg cartons
Shredded newspaper
Straw
Tea bags

Do NOT Compost:
Pet Feces
Meat and Bones
Diseased Plants
Seeding Weeds
Wet Grass
Inorganic Materials 


As you add materials to your compost, you will want to turn your pile periodically. Every 3 to 5 days tends to be a good amount of time. If you have a spinning composting bin, the turning will be easier, if you have a compost pile then you will want to use a pitch fork or shovel.

Previous Compost Posts:
Composting
Revisiting Composting

Fall Lawn Care

Once the worst of the summer heat has passed, you will want to be sure you implement your fall lawn care regiment. We will go over a few tasks to get you started here, but depending on you location, type of grass, etc, you may need to do more to keep your lawn at its healthiest. But here are the first steps to take this fall in caring for your lawn:

Get out your garden sprayer, clean it (to be sure no residue from past uses is left in it) and spray herbicide on any weeds that have crept up in your lawn. Be sure to clean your sprayer well before put it up for storage during the winter.

Fall is also an ideal time to aerate your lawn. This will encourage your grass to uptake oxygen and nutrients and it helps to combat all the compaction that typically takes place on the lawn during the traffic that lawns see during summer months.

Be sure to get leaves up off of your lawn as they begin to fall. When your grass is covered by leaves it is unable to receive the nutrients it needs to store from the sun during the winter. Also leaves are a great addition to the compost pile. (Read more about composting.)

If your fall is a hot dry one, then you will want to water your lawn.

Also, fall is a great time to fertilize your lawn if it needs extra nutrients.

If you are seeing bare patches in your lawn, reseed now.

What fall lawn care tips do you want to share? Please leave your tips in the comments below.

Top 5 Posts from July - August 2012

In the past month we have had a huge amount of traffic to our blog! We are so happy to welcome new readers to our blog. We want to do a recap of the top 5 blogs on our site that you guys have been visiting so much this month.

1. How to Help Stressed Tomatoes: This blog gives some tips on how to help your tomatoes and what the signs of stress for a tomato plant are.
2. What is Lasagna Gardening? This is a guide on what a lasagna garden entail and a how to on how to create your own.
3. How to Freeze Your Peppers. This blog tells you how to best freeze your peppers. This is great for those with extra peppers from their harvest and need to know how to keep them for the winter months.
4. July Gardening Tasks. Be sure to bookmark this blog so you know what to do next July in your garden.
5. Uses for Summer Squash. Squash is as very versatile vegetable. It goes in so many dishes that it is amazing all the different things you can do with this summer veggie.

We hope you enjoy rereading these blogs, and we would love to hear from you about what information you would like for us to go over in future blogs!

How to Freeze Your Peppers

Have a lot of peppers from your harvest? Freezing is a great way to store your peppers for use in winter soups, chilis, and other recipes.

The process of freezing your peppers is quite simple:

1. Wash peppers.
2. Core peppers.
3. Remove seeds & white membranes.
4. Pat dry.

Options for freezing:

Option 1: Divide peppers into small batches (just enough for certain recipes) and freeze in containers. This makes it easier to use the peppers than having to defrost a huge amount of them at once.

Option 2: Pre-freeze your pepper halves on a baking sheet in the freezer. Once fully frozen place in freezer bags and put back into the freezer. This is easier to get and choose what amount you need as the pre-frozen peppers are less likely to stick together. 

A great way to store your frozen peppers after they have finished freezing is to use a vacuum sealer. This will help save space and keep them from getting freezer burn.

Tips on Preserving your Produce from the Garden

Need some tips on how to preserve your garden harvest to keep it from spoiling before it can be shared or eaten? Then you have come to the right place.

First step: Choosing Produce: Be sure to choose the nearest to ripe and most unblemished produce that you can. If there are blemishes in an otherwise good piece of vegetable or fruit, be sure to thoroughly cut out the damaged areas before storing.

Tips on preservation methods:

Dehydration: You can dehydrate certain fruits and vegetables either using a dehydrator or using a handmade drying rack. (you can find a tutorial on a DIY Solar Dehydrator on ehow.com) Follow the instructions that come with your dehydrator for the best outcome of your dried preserving methods. Some of the best fruits and vegetables for dehydration are: apples, grapes, peaches, pears, tomatoes, apricots, bananas, berries, figs, melons, plums, (okay most fruits are great for dehydrating), green beans, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, onions, peas, peppers, zucchini, squash, garlic, and more.

Canning: Canning is a vast world of different recipes, types of produce, etc. The main tip is to be sure you know the acid level of your foods. This will determine whether the food needs to be canned using a water bath canner or a pressure canner. A great guide that will help you in any canning endeavors you will undertake is the Ball Blue Book.

Freezing: The National Center for Home Preservation has a list of some awesome links to guides on how to freeze a huge variety of produce, since each fruit and vegetable is a bit different in the method of how it should be frozen you should look into their info at: http://nchfp.uga.edu/how/freeze.html