Organic Gardening Info from Peaceful Valley

Think it’s bad having deer in your garden? Try a toddler!

The day we planted cosmos that my dad brought by as a gift, our toddler went to check out the beautiful booms. We said, “Smell, just smell the flowers,” hoping that he wouldn’t destroy the plants before we could get there to intercept, leaping over raised beds to come to the flowers’ rescue. Well, smell them he did. He took them by the stem, and yanked the cosmos out of the ground, root ball and all, and then smelled the flowers… and then put them under my nose for me to smell the flowers. How sweet.

Replant. Repeat. Replant. Repeat. Replant and give up gardening for the day!

That was a couple weeks ago now, and the cosmos are doing beautifully and no longer attract the attention of our toddler, for he’s found new, fascinating, tasty things in the garden….

Green strawberries! He loves strawberries. Loves them! At 16 months he’s never seen a strawberry grow on a plant nor has he ever seen a mini green strawberry, so how does he know that something the size of a blueberry, pale green in complection, and hidden by a leaf, is a strawberry?! He’s a smart cookie… and I can’t wait until he smartens up and decides that strawberries really do taste better when they’re red. We may never get to that stage though since he’s picked nearly every developing strawberry in the garden, never hesitating, and always stuffing it in his mouth before mom or dad can intercept.

Last week I mentioned that this is my first year growing sunflowers. And finally, the big one has bloomed!

I wanted to share a neat project that is going on this summer called The Great Sunflower Project. Researchers are recruiting people across the country do a “bee census” of sorts by sitting and watching their sunflowers for 30 minutes a couple times this summer, counting the bees that visit them, and sending in their bee tallies.

They are sending free seeds to anyone who signs up (you have 3 days left to sign up and get free seeds, hurry on over!).

I planted more sunflower seeds recently, and can’t wait to be able to sit in my garden and count the bees with a cool beverage in hand.

Growing great garlic involves a lot of different tricks and special techniques (see the book; Growing Great Garlic ), around this time of year there are a few things that you need to do to your garlic plants to get the most out of them.

First as you get closer to harvest time you should cut back on the water you give to your garlic. About two weeks prior to harvest you should stop watering altogether. This will promote nice dry skins and will prevent any mold from forming.

When to harvest is a much debated subject. Some say when the bottom leaves are partially brown, others say when the plant is 40% brown / 60% green. For me it’s more like once I see some browning happening on my garlic I put harvesting it on my garden “To Do” list. The reality is that the home gardener can’t always harvest at just the right time… a week on either side of perfect is not going to be very noticeable, so don’t sweat it.

The second thing you should be doing in the next month or so is cutting off your scapes. Scapes are the stalk and flower buds that form on garlic, these buds will eventually become “bulbils” which are a garlic flower (not a true flower). These flower stalks only appear on hardneck and elephant varieties. The scapes usually show up as a small bud with a short stalk, then, as they grow they will turn a few loops. After they make these loops it’s the perfect time to cut them off. As long as you do not plan to grow from bulbils (which can take upto 2 years) cutting off these scapes will focus all of the plants energy on the bulb production. (note: Elephant garlic will not turn loops, the scape can be cut when it is 8 – 10″ long.)

My garlic just put on scapes in the last week or so, they have not made any loops yet. Here is a photo:

I would recommend letting at least one of your garlic stocks go through its full natural cycle. It’s interesting to see how it all works and some varieties have beautiful flowers. Some Elephant garlic will put on a stalk that is near 6 feet tall and flower the size of a grapefruit.

As a great bonus the scapes are good eating! Stir fry, grill, sautéed, just about anything you’d do with garlic. You can expect a similar taste to garlic without the “hot” bite fresh garlic has. Combine scapes in a dish with squash flowers for a real pre-harvest treat! I like the two with a little goat cheese in an omelet …mmmm delicious!

Stay “In the loop” for more tips on garlic as the time comes.