| Fresh Herbs in the Kitchen | Here are two favorite recipes using fresh herbs, from Lurvey staff.
French Tarragon Herbed Rice
Kelly Nudera
1 cup long grain rice
2 chicken bouillon cubes
2 cups water
2 tablespoon butter
1 cup sliced mushrooms
1/2 cup sweet onion
3 tablespoons minced French tarragon.
Saute the mushrooms and sweet onion in butter for five minutes under low heat. In another sauce pan boil water with a pinch of salt, add bouillon cubes, rice, mushrooms and sweet onions. Cook until rice absorbs liquid mixture, approximately 15 minutes. Add minced French tarragon. Serves 4-6.
Salsa Fresca
Julio Barrientos
(a.k.a. Chef Julio)
5 roma tomatoes
1/2 bunch chives
1/2 bunch cilantro
1 cucumber 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 limes salt & pepper
Dice tomatoes, chives, cilantro and cucumber and mix together. Season with
cayenne pepper, lime juice and salt &pepper to taste. |
| Deadheading Who? | No, it's not a rock group!
This time of year, deadheading is one of the principle tasks in the perennial garden. Deadheading is a fancy name for removing spent flowers. There are several ways to deadhead perennials, depending on the type of plant.
But first let's review why it's worth the effort. Deadheading in the perennials is like cleaning your room. It makes the garden neater, prettier and more pleasant for visitors. It also prolongs the blooming time of many perennials that only bloom once per season.
Deadheading also prevents perennials from spreading about in your garden where you don't want them. Many perennials will deposit their seeds liberally in the garden if the flowers are allowed to go to seed. Next year, you may find that you have more than you counted on!
Finally, deadheading promotes stronger plants. If you remove a spent flower before it goes to seed, the energy in the plant will be directed toward making that plant healthier. It will not be spent producing seeds for new plants.
The first how-to about deadheading is how to make it an enjoyable activity, rather than a chore. Do it a bit at a time, each day, when you tour your garden to see how and what it's doing. Take your basket and clippers and deadhead as you go. This can be relaxing and pleasant, not so much a chore.
Here's what to do:
For plants with individual flowers, like P eonies, coneflower, and Balloon Flower, simply pinch off or cut the spent flower. For plants with blooms in clusters or spikes, such as Phlox, Bee Balm, Salvia, and Penstemon, cut the stem just above the first set of side branches after all flowers in the spike have bloomed. You can also remove individual flowers as they die to keep the blooming spike looking fresh. For perennials with many small flowers above the basal leaves or the mounded plant, including Geraniums and Dianthus, shear off the small flowers with a scissors. |
| In Our Next Issue |
Perennials that like the heat
Using native plants
Insects and other pests in the garden
Summer lawns
and more!
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| Holiday Hours |
Friday, July 2
7 AM - 5 PM
Sunday, July 4
CLOSED
Monday, July 5
7 AM - 3 PM
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| Save the Date! |
Customer Appreciation Day is Saturday, July 17!
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| Featured Plant: Coneflower | |
Photo courtesy of Northscaping.com | Our featured plant is the coneflower, a very popular plant in Chicagoland gardens.
Coneflowers are easy to grow in full sun or light shade, in any well drained soil. The native variety has vibrant purple or rosy pink drooping petals with an orange cone and can be up to 4 feet tall. The best known cultivar, 'Magnus" is about half this tall and has deep rose petals that are less drooping than the species.
In the last few years, many cultivars of coneflower have been developed, so more colors and sizes of this popular plant are available. It now comes in orange, white, yellow, gold, and nearly red, and short, medium or tall. The daisy-like appearance, with a wide variety of colors and sizes make the coneflower cultivars ever more popular.
Check out the coneflower in the Garden Center. We carry Mac and Cheese, Tiki Torch, Pink Poodle, Tomato Soup, Sunrise, and White Swan as well as the original Magnus and more.
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| Harvesting Herbs | |
With all the rain we have had this spring and early summer, it is very likely that you have prolific growth in your herb garden. It's time to start harvesting and enjoying fresh herbs in your cooking!
Here's a guide to harvesting some of the more common herbs.
Basil: Harvest anytime after the plant has three sets of leaves. Pick individual leaves or stems and cut up the leaves or use whole. (Be sure to pinch off flowering stalks so that the plant continues to send out side shoots with more leaves.)
Parsley and Cilantro: Cut off as much of the curly leaves as you need right now. Be sure to leave a few leaves so that the plant can regenerate itself with more leaves for future picking - and cut off the flowering stalk before it blooms to stimulate more leaf growth.
Sage: Cut individual leaves or a stem from which you remove the leaves, then crush the leaves with mortar and pestle to release the flavor and aroma.
Thyme: Give the plant a haircut! Don't be afraid to shave off the top or side growth. Thyme regenerates prolifically with adequate watering. You'll want to remove the tiny leaves from the stems before use. This can easily be done by pinching the stem lightly and running your fingers down the stem to remove the leaves.
Chives: Cut with a scissors. To keep the stalks tender, cut off the flowers before they bloom.
If you have harvested more than you need right now, here are several ways to preserve herbs:
 Leafy herbs like parsley or tarragon can be kept fresh for a few days in a glass of water, just as though they are cut flowers.
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Wrap herbs in a paper towel and put in a plastic bag; refrigerate, and don't forget about them!
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Place the entire harvest - leaf, stems and all, in a brown paper bag. When thoroughly dry, shake off the leaves in the bag, sift to separate out the stems, crumble and store. (This is a time-saving method of harvesting bulk herbs at the end of the season.)
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| Rainy Weather Challenges in the Garden |
The abundance of rain we have had this year provides two challenges for you in the garden: weeds and fungal diseases. Here's how to work smart to avoid problems. Fungal diseases are encouraged by wet conditions, crowded plants, and infected plant material in the garden. Black spot and powdery mildew are fungal diseases familiar to most gardeners. Black spot lives within the plant tissue and shows up as spots on the leaves. Powdery mildew grows on the surface of the plant and appears as a whitish fuzz. We can't control the rain, so the first line of defense with fungal disease in the garden is to create space so that plants get plenty of air. If you garden is overgrown, this may mean removing self seeded plants to create space. If no disease appears to be a problem, make notes of those perennials you can move or divide at the end of the season, to "open up the garden" for next year. Removing dead plant material helps reduce the spread of fungal disease. This is especially important if you have black spot on your roses. Remove any infected plant parts and be sure to check around the base of the plant for leaves that have fallen. This simple clean-up task goes a long way toward controlling and eventually eradicating fungal disease. If you feel the need to use fungal sprays or a drench, we carry several varieties in the Garden Center. What you use will depend on the type of infection, the infected plant, and the extent of the infection. For the best diagnosis, bring us a sample cut from your plant. Be sure to cut a sample just before you come so it is not too wilted. We'll need to see a big enough sample to identify the plant, and we'll want you to be ready to tell us how big the plant is, where it is located in your garden, and how extensive the infection is. Weeds are another challenge in rainy weather. It can seem like you just weeded and boom! The weeds are back. They will appear almost overnight, and they grow fast if you aren't out there pulling! Here are some tips to control weeds:  Mulching is the best offense against weeds. After pulling weeds, spread mulch about 2 inches thick. We have several choices in the Garden Center. Don't bury your plants with mulch. Burying them will eventually smother them or contribute to you-know-what - fungal disease. Don't try to do it all at once! Keep up with the weeds by choosing a small section of your garden to weed each time. In this way, you don't spend all day weeding and you get 'em while they are still small. Prevent new weeds with pepper spray (see recipe in this issue), or if you do not mind using chemicals, with a weed killer spot treatment. You can also prevent new weeds for several weeks by applying a pre-emergent like Preen. We have these products in the Garden Center. |
| In the edible garden | |
Of course, you will be harvesting and enjoying your early crops. Here are a few other tips for the edible garden in mid-season.
Plant late season vegetables in early July. Direct sow beets, beans, cucumbers, summer squash and cabbage in the garden. Be sure to note the dates to harvest on the seed packet and make sure you have enough time before the expected frost date, which is typically October 15.
Support your tomatoes with cages or strong stakes. Cut off stalks that are trailing on the ground before they bear fruit, to avoid a lot of wet plant material on the ground around the plant. This will help prevent leaf spot, that fungal disease we mentioned earlier in this edition.
Mulch between rows to keep the weeds down. You can also spread newspaper under your mulch to aid in this process. The newspaper will compost.
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| Pepper Spray for Weed and Insect Control | |
Here's a great and easy recipe for pepper spray, which, incidently is also good for removing insects on your plants:
1 pint hot peppers
1 bulb garlic
1 Tbsp. liquid dish soap
2 Tbsp. vegetable oil
4 gallons water
Puree the peppers and garlic; add some of the water and puree until very smooth. Add to the remaining water in a 5 gallon bucket. Cover and let sit overnight. Strain through cheesecloth into a 2 gallon garden sprayer. Add the soap and oil.
To eradicate weeds: Spray the weeds in the heat of the day to burn them.
To remove insects on your garden plants: Spray in early morning or evening - never in the heat of the day, and never in direct sunlight. Reapply after rain or overhead watering.
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