- Author: Anne Schellman
HAPPY GIVING TUESDAY!
Please help the UCCE Stanislaus County Master Gardener Program reach our goal of raising $5,000 to help fund a pathway and sign for the garden. Today, November 29, 2022 on Giving Tuesday* is a great time to make a contribution, which will be directly reflected in our garden, which you can visit at anytime!
Right now, the garden doesn't look like much. It was just planted this past week, and the drip irrigation was installed. Native plants such as Cleveland sage, coyote bush, penstemon, and ceanothus are just "babies." By this time next year, they will have grown in size and be flowering! We hope to see visiting hummingbirds, bees, moths, butterflies, bumblebees, and YOU!
How to Give
If you prefer to donate by check, please make it out to: UC Regents and send to:
UCCE Stanislaus County Master Gardener Program
3800 Cornucopia Way, Ste A
Modesto, CA 95358
Thank you!
*sorry for any confusion, the last post said Nov 28 was giving Tuesday which is incorrect and has been changed.
Anne Schellman has been the UCCE Master Gardener Coordinator for Stanislaus County since 2018.
/h3>/h3>- Author: Christine Casey
Conserving water and helping bees are goals shared by many gardeners. Given California's current extreme to exceptional drought status, it's time to re-visit the best low water plants for bees. Haven scientists are nearing the end of a long-term project examining bee preference for commonly used landscape plants. We've focused on low-water plants for northern California, while our San Diego-based colleagues have focused on southern California plants.
One of the consistently most-preferred plants has been Russian sage, Salvia yangii, formerly Perovskia atriplicifolia (read about its reclassification here). It's been either the first, second, or third most attractive plants to honey bees, and second, third, and sixth most attractive plant to native bees over the course of our observations.
Native to central Asia, this plant copes well with hot, dry conditions as well as extreme cold. It blooms from late spring to frost, providing a season-long bee resource. Like most members of the Lamiaceae, it serves only as a nectar source. Pair it with a complimentary colored pollen-providing plant in pink or red, like the coneflowers shown here, for both garden interest and bee nutrition.
Imagine yourself walking out to your garden or patio and being greeted by a spicy fragrance. All around you are pots and containers filled with culinary herbs such as fresh thyme, oregano, and basil. You reach down and take a snip or two of these fresh herbs and wander back into your kitchen to add them to the pot simmering on the stove. Sounds fabulous, doesn't it?
I can't think of anything more rewarding than growing your own culinary herbs. When I started gardening, these were the first plants that I placed in my yard, my first “babies” so to speak. Since then I have tried growing many different varieties of culinary herbs, in both containers and in the soil. Some with more success than others. But each one has been a joy to grow.
There are a wide variety of culinary herbs. Thyme, basil, oregano, rosemary, sage, and marjoram are used a great deal in cooking. Others, such as French tarragon, savory (summer and winter), and lavender have been relegated to the back of the herb and spice shelf. Nearly all are easy to grow, usually perennial in nature, and are readily found in most garden centers.
Once established, most herbs adapt easily to containers and small spaces, use low water, and are both heat and cold hardy. Some herbs, such as sage, don't mind poor soil and seem to thrive in it. Chives, on the other hand, like soil to be rich and soft with plenty of drainage. Always check the grower's information for plants that work well in your area. Choosing herbs that best suit your environment, climate, and space constraints will help guarantee their health and success.
When deciding whether to plant your herbs in containers or directly in your garden, you will need to be aware of their growing patterns and potential size. Herbs that are in the mint family, such as oregano and marjoram, can get quite large and spread quite rapidly in a garden environment. If you have lots of room, great. But they will begin to compete with less hardy varieties after the first season. I've found that growing culinary herbs in containers saves me a lot of time and frustration down the road.
In pots or containers, gardens and raised beds, culinary herbs are a definite must for both the beginner and expert gardener. Their beauty, fragrance, and flavors will grace your garden, as well as your kitchen, more many years to come.
Happy gardening!
Terry Pellegrini will graduate from the 2020 Master Gardener Program, congrats!
Please join Terry and Rho Yare for our next virtual gardening class in partnership with the Stanislaus County Library.
Tuesday, June 30, 2020 from 6:00-7:30 p.m. on Zoom. Sign up at http://ucanr.edu/virtualherbs/2020
- Author: Lauria Watts
I call these the Big Four: Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme. Easy to grow in our area (southern California), common to find in pots, and tasty in recipes.
They can be beautiful in the garden or pot. Parsley is a deep, deep, woodsy green and quite pretty when it blooms in its second year of growth. Blooming Rosemary's pine-like leaves look frosted with sky-blue flowers when it blooms; some varieties have white or pink blossoms. Soft looking Sage grows in pillow-like mounds and throws some lovely flowers above the leaves. Tasty Thyme grows low, with tiny, tiny leaves, and is quite decorative when each branch is capped by a miniature pom-pom of dainty flowers.
These herbs are easy to dry. While a dehydrator will make a very easy task of drying herbs, drying can be done in an oven if you do it with care. I have dried parsley in my ancient natural gas wall oven quite quickly. As the oven is very old, circa 1965-1970 (as I said, ancient--not kidding here!), it has a pilot light which will keep the oven somewhere between 90º-100º F. Just about anything will dry quickly.
For best flavor pick these herbs just before they bloom, but don't worry, they will still have plenty of flavor if you don't. The day before picking you can spray down the plants to get dust off of the leaves. The next morning pick early and lay leafy branches in in mostly one layer on newspaper covered cookie sheets so that they will dry quickly. Then, put the sheets in the oven . My oven's door is braced slightly open and the herbs are stirred several times to ensure all properly dry to crispy. You can most easily separate leaves and twiggy matter after drying, then place leaves in storage containers, preferably glass jars . In just a day or so enough freshly dried herbs can be packed away to last for a year.
As Thyme has such fine leaves oven drying will keep them together well. Rosemary and Sage can be oven dried or you can go old school: gather picked branches in bundles of six and then hang them out of the sun in your house or garage/patio to dry; during our summers, this can be very quick. Make sure you pack your dried stuff into glass jars as soon as it is finished to keep your herbs fresh and clean. Store your packed herbs in a cool, dark, dry place.
Herbs carefully and properly dried with any method will be fresh, colorful and tasty. Additional bonuses of growing herbs for drying: you will have plenty of herbs for fresh use as well as dried, you will know they will be very flavorful, and you will have plenty to experiment with when cooking.
For a great instructional article from the National Center for Food Preservation (NCHFP), look here: Complete instructions on drying herbs from the NCHFP.
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By Denise Seghesio Levine, U.C. Master Gardener of Napa County
To pinch or not to pinch? That is the question. Pinching is a technique that can shape a plant; increase production of herbs, flowers and fruits; determine the size of blooms and fruit and even keep your garden blooming longer. But pinching is not the answer for every plant. So which plants should you pinch, and how?
Pinching is a form of pruning. You can do it with no other tool than your fingertips and fingernails, although if you have a lot of pinching to do, clean scissors or shears will save your manicure. By “pinching,” I mean actually removing the new tender growth at the end of a stem.
Pinch as close to leaf nodes as possible, being careful not to injure the tiny buds beneath. Each time you remove a main stem, your plant will try to grow two new stems beneath the pinch or cut. This easy technique encourages fullness and also helps keep plant size in check. It forces most plants to grow bushier and fuller rather than concentrating their energy on getting taller.
Basil, tarragon, thyme, sage, scented geraniums and marigolds respond well to pinching. Oregano and thyme do best when pinched or cut back to about half their length. Frequent pinching can keep rosemary and lavender to a manageable size during their spring growth spurt and supply you with lots of herbs for cooking. Cut back woody stems by no more than one-third.
With most herbs, the more you pinch, the more you will have. For a summer-long harvest of Genovese or Thai basil, pinch.
Inspect the base of the leaves where they connect to the stem and you will see new leaves forming in tiny pairs. Pinch right above that point and soon each pair of leaves will turn into a new branch. This practice keeps your plant producing leaves rather than going into flower and seed mode. Remember to feed your culinary herbs and keep them watered so they will work hard for you.
Many flowers benefit from pinching or cutting, rewarding you with armloads of blooms. But it's worth getting to know the few flowers that do not like this treatment because an unwelcome pinch can eliminate your entire harvest for the season. Do not pinch campanula, cockscomb, delphinium, dill, stock, larkspur and most sunflowers.
Do pinch annuals such as coleus, impatiens, salvia, most snapdragons and petunias early in the season to encourage bushing and spreading. Pinching encourages more side branches, which means more flowers and color for your garden or pots.
Always pinch at a node but decide how low to pinch depending on how compact you want the plant to be. Sweet peas will branch into a much fuller plant with pinching. When you are happy with your plants' shape, stop pinching and let them grow.
Zinnias and cosmos are especially generous bloomers if pinched. Pinch early to promote branching, then “pinch” by cutting flowers. The more frequently you pick bouquets, the more flowers you will have for your tables and your friends. It is a beautiful thing.
Each time you pinch a plant, you delay its flowering. The result is a plant with more side shoots but smaller flowers. With chrysanthemums you can decide if you want a few large flowers or many smaller ones. If you prefer dinner plate-size blossoms, remove side shoots and laterals early in the season when they are green and succulent, leaving only the few stems you want to bloom.
You can stagger bloom times with some late-flowering plants like Russian sage, phlox and asters by pinching back half of the plants in your flower bed by about one third. The pinched plants will bloom later, giving you a few more weeks of summer beauty.
Remove peony blossoms when they are finished so the plant can focus energy on next year's blossoms instead of producing seed. Clip foxglove after blooming to have healthy flowers next year or forego pinching them and let them self-seed. You will probably have fewer blossoms next year but potentially more plants.
Refrain from pinching if you want blossoms and seeds for local birds and insects. As a compromise position, let the last, late blooms go to seed, or identify a few plants as your seed producers for pollinators, birds and self-seeding.
Workshop: U. C. Master Gardeners of Napa County will conduct a workshop on “Make Room for Salvias” on Saturday, April 21, from 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., at the University of California Cooperative Extension office, 1710 Soscol Avenue, Napa. Every gardener should be able to find a salvia just right for that little (or big) space. Salvias are long-lasting, attract butterflies and pollinators and have attractive foliage. Learn how to select and care for these versatile plants.Online registration (credit card only);Mail-in/Walk-in registration (cash or check only)
Master Gardeners are volunteers who help the University of California reach the gardening public with home gardening information. U. C. Master Gardeners of Napa County ( http://ucanr.edu/ucmgnapa/) are available to answer gardening questions in person or by phone, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 9 a.m. to Noon, at the U. C. Cooperative Extension office, 1710 Soscol Avenue, Suite 4, Napa, 707-253-4143, or from outside City of Napa toll-free at 877-279-3065. Or e-mail your garden questions by following the guidelines on our web site. Click on Napa, then on Have Garden Questions? Find us on Facebook under UC Master Gardeners of Napa County.
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