Williams Garden Center Tips

2014-03-07T23:30:00.001-05:00

Ten Mistakes New Herb Gardeners Make (and How to Avoid Them!)

So you're thinking of herb gardening, or maybe you tried it last year and it was an utter disaster? Have no fear. There are a few simple mistakes that many herb newbies make (and I know, because I made most of 'em myself). Master these simple and practical tips for herb gardening and you'll be using your own fresh herbs like Mario Batali in no time.

Fresh herbs are one of the greatest ways to increase the taste of your food healthfully. I often toss whatever leafy herbs are hand liberally into a salad to add unexpected variations in flavor (basil, oregano and dill are all great choices). Fresh herbs can add punch to sauces or create intensely flavorful crusts for roasted meats. While fresh herbs are now regularly available at grocery stores year round, growing your own herbs is a great way to build mastery over your food. Growing herbs at home can be easy whether you live in a house in the suburbs or an apartment in the city.

It surprises me how often I bump into friends who are flummoxed about some aspect of herb gardening. I feel there are few practical guides to growing herbs on the internet, for those who are just starting out. Most of the advice is geared towards high end gardeners who can make sense of soil PH and whatnot. When I was starting out, what I really needed was some sort of herb gardening for dummies. So here is my quick and practical advice for growing herbs for beginners.

Mistake 1: Growing from seed. When you first start out trying to grow fresh herbs, I recommend you begin by trying to grow from young plants rather than planting your own seeds. These great little starter plants are widely available in garden centers in spring and throughout the summer. For the same price as a packet of fresh herbs from the produce section, you can buy your own little starter plant. Lots can go wrong in the seed to seedling transition (including not thinning out plants properly), so its probably best to begin by skipping that complicated task or you are in danger of washing out before you really begin.
Mistake 2: Starting with the wrong varieties. I recommend you start by trying to grow fresh basil. It is the perfect trainer herb. First, basil grows quickly, allowing you to observe the effects of your care more easily. Second, basil leaves wilt visibly when not watered enough, but recovers well if you water the wilted plant. This makes basil a great ‘canary in the mineshaft’ to help you figure out how much water is enough.
Mistake 3: Watering herbs like houseplants. Instead, water herbs a moderate amount every day. While some houseplants flourish with one solid watering per week, most delicate herbs require moderate and regular watering. This is particularly true during hot summer months. If you have good drainage at the bottom of your pot (at least a, drainage hole, possibly rocks beneath the soil), it will be difficult to water herbs too much.

Mistake 4: Not cutting early and often. As a novice gardener, it may seem like your puny little plant just isn't ready for a trip to the barber, but then you will find yourself sitting there wishing for leaves without much success. Again, basil is a great herb to practice pruning. As with all herbs, you want to cut the herb just above a set of growing leaves. With basil, when you cut the plant that way, the originally trimmed stem will no longer grow. However, two new stems will grow around the original cutting, creating a “V” shape (see the photo above, can you spot the Vs?). If you don’t trim basil aggressively, it will continue to grow straight up, and become too tall and top-heavy. Making your first trim approximately 3-4” above the soil produces a nice sturdy plant. Of course you want to be sure you are always leaving a few good sturdy leaves on the plant (see below). As it continues to grow, continue to prune it approximately every 3-4" for a nice solid plant. I like to let it grow for some time and then cut back to within 2-3 inches of the original cut. After only a few early trial cuts, this usually makes for a nice clipping with plenty of basil to use for a pizza.

Mistake 5: Taking the leaves from the wrong place. When you are just starting out it seems to make so much sense to pick off a few big leaves around the bottom of the plant, and let those tender little guys at the top keep growing. Wrong. Leave those large tough old guys at the bottom alone. They are the solar panels that power your herb's growth. Once your plant is big enough to sustain a decent harvest, keep on taking from the top, as you have been when you were pruning. That way you get all those tender new herbs that are so tasty, and your plant gets to keep its well developed solar power system in place. Plus, if you pluck from the base and leave the top intact, you get a tall skinny plant that will flop over from its own weight (and yes, I know this from experience). When you pluck from the top, instead of clipping off just below a pair of leaves, you want to clip off just above a pair of leaves. It is a bit counter-intuitive as a novice, but trust me it works. The place where the leaf joins the stem is where new growth will occur when your plant sends off new stems in a V.
Mistake 6: Letting your plants get too randy. If you are pruning regularly, this may never become an issue, but unless you are growing something for its edible flowers, be sure to cut back herbs before they start growing flowers. My friend once brought me to her backyard garden and pointed, frustrated, at her wimpy, small basil plants. "I just keep tending them, but they don't even produce enough leaves to put on a salad!" she lamented. I pointed to the glorious stalk of flowers at the top of each plant, "That's your problem" I explained. Because herbs are kind of like college boys: if you give them half a chance, they will focus all their energy on procreation and neglect growth. If you want leaves, keep cutting off the little flower buds whenever you find them (see photo above), and it will encourage your plant to focus on growing more leaves.
Mistake 7: Using tired soil with no nutrients. Tired soil that has been sitting in your garden or lawn for ages often looks grey and a little depressing. Would you want to grow in that stuff? Give your plants a dose of the good stuff and they'll thank you for it. I grow my herbs in a combination of potting soil, used coffee grounds (with a near-neutral PH), and organic compost. If I have some on hand, I also throw in crushed egg shells. Those without access to compost (and no deep commitment to organic growing) may find Miracle grow useful. My momma swears by it for tomatoes. A diluted solution of Miracle grow occasionally can help many herbs flourish.
Mistake 8: Getting in a rut. There is an element to passion about herb gardening. In order to be good at it, you need to feel rewarded. So don't stick too long with one or two herbs just because they work. Branch out to a few other basic herbs that you will use regularly in your kitchen. There are few things more rewarding as an urban foodie than being able to pop out to the fire escape to clip fresh herbs to use in my cooking. Once you have become comfortable with basil, I recommend moving on to try growing oregano, mint, rosemary and thyme. All are regularly useful herbs in the kitchen, and all are relatively easy to grow. You will notice that rosemary cleaves after cutting in a somewhat similar way to basil, but grows much more slowly, so the effect is difficult to notice. Some plants also respond to clipping by throwing out more full leaves at their base.
Mistake 9: You mean there's more than one kind of mint?When choosing herbs, read the label carefully. For example, there are two main varieties of oregano: Mediterranean and Mexican. Mediterranean oregano is the more common variety, and what you likely own if you have conventional dried oregano in your cupboard. I love Mexican oregano in spicy dishes, for making beans from scratch, and often use it in tomato dishes where I don't want the flavor to seem too much like marinara. Similarly, there are many different kinds of mint. You don't want to be thinking of the pungent spearmint plant and accidentally take home the much more subtle (and not mojito savvy) applemint by mistake.
Mistake 10: Feed me Seymour! If you are planting in soil instead of pots, take care that your cute little herb seedling doesn't become a giant plant that takes over your garden. A word of warning for oregano and mint: both can be voracious growers. If you are planting outside in a garden, rather than in pots, you may want to consider potting these herbs and then burying the pots in the ground. This will add a measure of control to the root systems of these herbs, which can otherwise take over a garden and strangle nearby neighbors. When in doubt, check out wikipedia, they usually are careful to point out which herbs are in danger of overwhelming your garden.Beginner or expert Herb gardener, we have what you need, huge selection and lots of great ideas. Got to see it.

2012-02-03T15:05:00.000-05:00

How Much is a Garden Worth?

Picture by Roger Doiron,

With the global economy spiraling downward it is a good question to ask. There isn’t one right answer, but I’ll give you mine: $2,000.00. Someone suggested to me that we calculate the total value of the produce coming out of our garden over the course of the growing season.

There was a lot of work involved, but as with gardening itself, it was work with a purpose. It didn’t take long for our log book to start filling. By the time we had finished weighing it all, we had grown 834 pounds and over six months, worth of organic food (we’re still eating our own winter squash, onions, garlic, and frozen items like strawberries, green beans, and pesto cubes). Once we had the weights of the main crops we grew, we then calculated what it would have cost us to buy the same items using three different sets of prices: conventional grocery store, farmers’ market and organic grocery store). The total value came to $2185.00, $2420.00, and $2551.00 respectively.

As with any growing season, there were hits and misses. Our most valuable crop was our tomatoes (158 lb. for a total value of $525.00).

On the cost side, we had about 280.00 into seeds and plants. We have a well so water is free but the exectricity was about 40.00 dollars I guess and I mulch my beds to keep moisture in and weeds down. So, if we consider that our out-of-pocket costs were $280 and the total value generated was $2400.00. That is a return on investment of 860%. The cost of our labor is not included because we enjoy gardening and the physical work involved. Besides the health benefits far exceed any labor costs.

If you really want to play around with the data, you can calculate how much a home garden like ours produces on a per acre basis. If you use the $2400 figure and consider that our garden is roughly 1/25th of an acre, it means that home gardens like ours can gross $60,000/acre. You can also calculate it on a square foot basis which in our case works out to be roughly $1.50/square foot. That would mean that a smaller garden of say 400 square foot would produce $600 of produce. Keep in mind that these are averages and that certain crops are more profitable and space efficient than others. A small garden planted primarily with salad greens and trellised tomatoes, for example, is going to produce more economic value per square foot more than one planted with potatoes and squash. We plant a bit of everything because that’s the way we like to garden and eat.

Clearly, this data is just for one garden (roughly 1600 square feet), and one climate , we are zone 5, but it gives you an idea of the value of growing your own. If you consider that there are about 90 million households in the US that have some sort of yard, factor in the thousands of new community and school gardens we could be planting, this really could add up. Some might ask what this would mean for farmers to have more people growing their own food. The local farmers I know welcome it because they correctly believe that the more people discover what fresh, real food tastes like, the more they’ll want to taste. In our case, part of our savings helped us to buy better quality, sustainably-raised meat from a local farmer.

Clearly the healthy savings new gardeners could be making and then reinvesting in their local economies could make a big difference. I can’t say enough about the value of growing a garden, for yourself, your family and your community.

Think Green Plant Companion plants

2010-02-04T23:53:00.007-05:00

Thinking spring? I am. Planning the vegetable garden and the flower beds and looking for ways to be green, save money and get a bigger harvest with less work and less chemicals. Companions are the way to go. That means plant to different types vegetables by each other, creating a symbiotic relationship. Just as there are beneficial insects that eat destructive insects or improve pollination, there are beneficial combinations of plants that help fight pests or increase yields.

Companions plants can be used to draw pest away form good plants. Some companion plants are grown to add things such as nitrogen to the soil.Legumes fix nitrogen. Still other companions are grown to deter insects naturally. Some plants are grown just to shade more fragile, desirable plants. May we suggestions a few places to start.

Cabbage, Broccoli and Cauliflower – Plant with aromatic herbs (mint is a traditional companion plant for cabbage), beets or chard, but not dill, strawberries, pole beans, or tomatoes.
Lettuce – Plant with radishes or carrots
Spinach – Plant with fava beans
Globe Onions – Plant with beets, carrots, lettuce and cabbage but not with beans or English peas
Turnips – Plant with English peas but not with Irish potatoes
Beets – Plant with lettuce, kohlrabi, onions, garlic, mint, cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower but not with beans
Carrots – Plant with onions, chives, lettuce, leeks, shallots, rosemary, sage, and beans but not with dill, parsnip, tomatoes and radish
Leeks – Plant with carrots but not with
Basil -- Great to plant with tomatoes and peach trees as insect repellant.
Mint-- On the other hand can attract insects away from desirable plants
Lemon balm and Borge -- Should be planted to attract bees which increases pollination and so increases yields.

Some plants give off chemicals that suppress or repel pests protecting neighbor plants. Marigolds, calendula, releases a nematode repellent from their roots which permeates neighboring plants repelling many insects.

Suppress Weeds or Pests--- Black walnut trees and wormwood both release chemicals that suppress the growth of a wide range of plants. Wormwood tea will repel slugs and aphids but will not harm most vegetables such as tomatoes, broccoli.

Crop rotation is also important. Most vegetables are “heavy feeders” that require fertile soil rich in phosphate, nitrogen, calcium and other nutrients. Others are “light feeders” like carrots, turnips, radishes, and beets. which like, low nitrogen. Lastly there are “heavy givers” like legumes which add nitrogenRotating these crops allows the soil to the soil. Crop rotation over time gives soil a chance to rejuvenate itself between nutrient depletion.

Prepare soil for heavy feeders, with green manure crops like clover, alfalfa and by compost, manure and potash from things like ashes and bone meal for calcium and phosphorus. After “heavy feeder” rotate to “light feeder” crops the plant legumes the next year.

Rotating crops within your garden lets soil rest and be replenished naturally and helps to curb pest and disease naturally.

For more information and help with knowing what to plant and where stop at the garden center.

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2009-05-22T13:56:00.002-04:00

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