Gardening with Herbs

Stop Slugs In Your Garden

Slugs are "electrified" when placed on copper destroying them plus more organically healthy tips to keep slugs off your hostas, lettuces and out of your garden.

Home Improvement Writer: Kevin Vandenbroek for Redbeacon.com

If you’ve got lettuce or hostas planted in your soil, you’ve probably got slugs. Their diet isn’t just those two things; they’ll get into everything that’s worth eating in your garden. These little trouble-makers begin to pop-up once the temperature rises about 40-degrees Fahrenheit. They love damp garden spaces. And when they lay eggs, it’s in the range of about 100.

How can you keep the slugs at bay?

If you’ve got lettuce or hostas you’ve probably got slugs. They begin to pop-up once the temperature rises about 40-degrees Fahrenheit.

• Hair - It doesn’t matter if it’s human or dog. What matters is that it causes the slugs to hang themselves on the delicate strands. When the hair breaks-down, it provides the soil with extra nitrogen.

• Coffee - Caffeine makes slugs nervous. Take your used grounds and surround those plants that are being attacked.

• Beer - Don’t use stale beer. Give them a drink of the good, cheap stuff. Line-up a bunch of disposable tubs near where the slugs are. Wait until twilight, then top them off with brew.

• Epson Salts - This is not just plant food for roses, if you broadcast some around the soil of your garden it will chase away the slugs. It also will solve any Magnesium issues with your plants.

• Iron phosphate - Iron wreaks havoc on the digestive tract of a slug. Sprinkling these pellets gives your soil an iron boost and wipes out the slimy creatures.

• Vinegar - You don’t want to spray this on plants like salvia because it is a herbicide, but spritzing some plain white vinegar around your garden will actually dissolve any mollusks.

• Rove beetles - They may look nasty, but they won’t chew up your plants. They do feast on slug eggs and slugs.

• Lightning bugs - Glowworms have an appetite for slugs. Adult lightning bugs create glowworms. Make mom and pop happy by giving a small portion of your garden a damp, weedy place and don’t turn on the lights in your yard at night.

• Boards - Between your garden beds, place some old planks. Slugs hate the sun, so they’ll slither underneath the wood. First thing in the morning, armed with a disposable aluminum tray, simply scrape them off and into the tray.

• Toads - If you take this solution, stay away from using pesticides as you don’t want to kill the toads. You’ll want to create a little toad-haven near your garden, though. They’ll need a shady, damp area and a small pool of water to survive during the day. But then at night, these small hoppers love to dine on slugs.

• Citrus - Use the rinds of things like oranges, lemons and grapefruit to make slug traps. Slice a little hole in the side of the skin so the slugs can get inside, then turn the rind upside-down. They love citrus and will tend to leave your plants alone. Check the progress and when you have captured enough of the beasts, toss the whole deal into your compost heap.

• Copper - When a slug encounters a penny, it actually gets a jolt of electricity. Go to your local gardening shop and purchase some copper plant guards. Want to amaze the kids? Catch a couple of live slugs and stick one on a penny. Zzzzzzt!

Sunchoke - Jerusalem Artichoke Plant of HerbFest 2013

Sunchoke Plants In Full Bloom

This came from localharvest.org.

Sunchokes (Jerusalem Artichokes)

Sunchokes, of the sunflower family, are native to North America where the natives called them "sun roots" before European settlers arrived. Samuel Champlain, a French explorer found them in Cape Cod in 1605 and pronounced them similar in taste to artichokes. But why "Jerusalem artichokes"? They don't come from Jerusalem nor do they look like artichokes. There are a few theories: when first discovered people started calling them "girasole" (or flower that turns looking for the sun) which eventually became "Jerusalem". Another possibility is that as sunchokes became the staple food of the first European pilgrims in North American soil they named it as food for the "new Jerusalem".

Around the 1960's they were renamed "sunchokes" by someone in the produce marketing department who took the separation of church and steak too seriously. Sunchokes can grow up to 10ft, and if left to their own devises will live forever in the same spot, but quality of tubers will deteriorate if not frequently divided and replanted in fertile soil. They grow best in the sunniest spot, just like their cousins the sunflowers, with an optimum temperature of 65-80- F and 125 frost-free days. But the tubers will be at their prime when harvested after the first or second frost.

And speaking of the tubers, these look like small, knobbly potatoes but crunchier, sweeter and do have a slight taste of artichoke. They practically contain no starch, but plenty of inulin (not insulin), which becomes fructose when spuds are stored in the ground or refrigerated. The humble sunchoke is considered gourmet fare by many. Raw, it's an excellent substitute for water chestnuts in hot and spicy stir fries, or cooked in cream soups, broiled with sweet potatoes, or simply scrubbed and baked.

Why Pinch Tops Of Herb Plants

Why Would One Pinch An Herb?

Q: When I am told to pinch back an herb, exactly what does this mean? How many inches of stem should I take as I pinch? Do I pinch off all the tips, or just one or two?

A: When you pinch back herbs, you are orchestrating two fundamental forces of plant life: the need to reproduce and the need to stay alive long enough to reproduce.

Herbs, like other plants, want nothing more than to reproduce. Most herbs want to make flowers and seeds, so they channel their energy toward stems that will grow fast and bloom quickly. With annual herbs such as basil and marjoram, bud production begins within weeks after plants are set out in the garden. Perennial herbs prepare to bloom in spring soon after days become long and warm.

Whether annual or perennial, herbs’ fast-growing tips send chemical signals down the stem telling secondary buds not to grow. In nature, sprinting to maturity is smart. What we see is a lean, upright plant with few lateral branches. It is totally intent on blooming.

Not what we had in mind! We decide that a bushier plant would be better, plus we want fresh herbs to use for making dinner. We pinch off a few growing tips, taking enough to flavor up the dish we want to make, and in the process we remove the chemical factories that have been inhibiting the growth of the little leaf buds farther down the stems. Within days, new stems pop out just below where we pinched, each one determined to produce flowers as quickly as it can.

It seems like the plant expected this to happen, which is probably true. Deer and other animals often browse on growing tips, and tender stem tips are a favorite site for aphids and other insects. Whether the growing tips are removed by deer, grasshoppers or gardeners, herbs respond to decapitation by growing into bigger, stronger plants that produce many more flowers and seeds than they would had they been left intact. For plants, our pinching is more a blessing than a tragedy.

There is no precise measurement for how long a pinched off stem tip should be. If the plant is badly in need of bulking up, I might take a few longish tips, say 4 inches long, as well as some smaller 2-inch tips. When pinching, following the plants’ natural shapes is always a wise strategy as opposed to giving them flat-tops. If a plant is holding blossoms, be sure to pinch off every last one. This will eliminate possible hormonal confusion as to where the plant stands on its reproductive mission.

Pinching is a kind thing to do to plants. Most basils are vastly improved by pinching early and often, and the same goes for scented geraniums. Thyme, mints and oreganos can be pinched more casually, by gathering stem tips as you need them in the kitchen. With rosemary and other slow-growing semi-woody herbs, pinch out stems here and there to sculpt plants.

If you plan to dry herbs, save your pinching and do it in waves, so you harvest handfuls of thyme, marjoram, oregano, or whatever in one fell swoop. This makes the drying process easy to manage, whether you dry the herbs in bunches hung in a warm, airy room, lay them out on screens or dry them in a slow oven. Depending on your climate, these herbs may produce two or more good cuttings in the course of a season. Herbs handled this way are not as pretty as those tended by hand, in pinches, but they are very productive.

Often times you literally can pinch herbs with your fingers, but this time of year I slip a small pair of scissors into my back pocket whenever I visit my herbs. Snipping off stem tips makes clean cuts, which are less traumatic to stems than twisting and pulling.

Original publication in the Herb Companion by By Barbara Pleasant June/July 2004

Using The Mediterranean Herbs

Janice Cox, of the Herb Companion, wrote an interesting article on the ancient use of herbs in the Mediterranean region for spa treatments to increase vitality, improve health and make one's skin more beautiful.

There is a group of herbs that are generally referred to as the "Mediterranean Herbs" which have shown over time multiple uses for living. Many people forget that historically herbs are defined as "beneficial weeds" and it is not a plant that is discovered that matters but more one finds beneficial uses of plants for cooking, health, cosmetics, crafting that brings the plant into the world of herbs. Most cultures have developed a method of using live plants for living. Generally the Mediterranean herbs are bay, rosemary, thyme, oregano, marjoram, parsley and basil.

Below are some excerpts from Janice's article about how certain Mediterranean herbs have been used historically.

Top 5 Herbs From Herbfest 2012

Top 5 Herbs Of Interest At HerbFest 2012

As with each year of the annual Herbfest there are a few herbs that stand out for new uses and interest. HerbFest 2012 was no different. Click on each herb to learn more.