Rita's Monthly Gardening Tips,  April 6, 2015

Planting herbs in your garden is a great way to enjoy a flavorful harvest to enhance your meals. Herbs will also lure beneficial insects to your garden.

These helpful insects feed on pollen and nectar in the flowers of the herbs as a necessary part of their diet. Another part of their diet is other insects. These other insects are the ones that are eating and harming your garden such as aphids and mealy bugs.

Beneficial insects are considered the good guys and are the reason gardeners are cautioned not to spray insecticides at random. You don’t want to accidentally hurt the garden critters that are on your side. Keeping insecticides and pesticides out of your yard is beneficial to the entire ecosystem because the poison moves up the food chain and also, causes contamination of groundwater.

It’s important to maintain a variety of herbs because different herbs attract different beneficial insects and the herbs flower at different times of the season. Incorporating herbs into the garden will not only help to avoid harmful pesticides, but it will also provide fresh culinary herbs throughout the growing season.

Many members of the Carrot/Parsley Family (Apiaceae, formerly known as Umbelliferae) are excellent insectary plants. The flowers attract beneficial insects such as lacewings, ladybugs, hoverflies, and parasitic mini-wasps. They are also a favorite food of the swallowtail butterfly. The flowers are noted for having many small blossoms that come together in a flat surface. Here are some examples of herbs from this family that have flowers which attract beneficial insects:

Dill (Anethum graveolens)

Dill is a ferny-leaved herb that grows very quickly and easily to about three feet tall.

The leaves or seeds can be used in recipes such as in pasta or potato salad, dressings, sauces, and making pickles

Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare)

Fennel looks and grows like dill but smells like licorice. Fennel seed is a great ingredient to add to breads. Like dill, the stalks and/or leaves are a wonderful culinary companion in many dishes.

Caraway (Carum carvi)

Caraway is a biennial, which means it grows leaves the first year, then flowers and goes to seed the second year.

It is used to flavor rye bread, soups, stews, and vegetable dishes. The roots of the plant can be boiled and eaten like carrots, and the leaves can be used in salads.
Parsley (Petroselinum crispum)

Parsley likes full sun for up to eight hours a day and is a perennial in many warm climate zones.

Far more that just a garnish, it’s great in salads and myriad other culinary concoctions.

Cilantro/Coriander (Coriandrum sativum)

The leaves of the plant are cilantro and the seeds are coriander. It’s also known as Chinese parsley. The plant grows easily and quickly. Plant every three weeks to keep a consistent fresh supply.

Cilantro is commonly used in Mexican, Asian, and other ethnic recipes. The coriander seeds are used as a spice in meat products, bakery goods, gin, and curry powder.
One of the largest plant families in the world is called the Compositeae or Asteraceae family. It’s commonly known as the aster, daisy, or sunflower family. The flowers in this family have the characteristics of having a head that contains a multitude of tiny flowers brimming with delicious nectar. Flowers in this family will attract bees, predatory wasps, hoverflies, and robber flies. Some common herbs in this family are:

Calendula (Calendula officinalis)

This cool-season flower grows easily and provides beautiful color in the fall and early spring.

Calendulas have edible orange or yellow flower petals that are beautiful in salads.
Chamomile

German chamomile (Matricaria recutita) is an annual; Roman chamomile (Chamaemelum nobile) is a perennial. Chamomile is a small, bushy herb that grows flat along the ground. These plants are best known for their ability to be made into a tea, which is commonly used to help induce sleep and is often served with either honey or lemon.

Spanish Tarragon (Tagetes lucida)

Other common names include sweet mace and Mexican tarragon. Mexican tarragon grows to 18–I30 inches tall. The plant is bushy with many smooth, upright, unbranched stems topped with bright yellow daisylike flowers.

Dried leaves are ground into a powder, then used as a tarragon substitute for flavoring soups, sauces, etc. A pleasant anise-flavored tea, popular in Latin America, is brewed using the dried leaves and flowering tops. The petals are used as a condiment.

Herbs in the mint family (Lamiaceae) are distinguished by having square stems and opposing leaves. Many of them are low-growing plants that  provide shelter for ground beetles and other beneficial insects. The flowers will attract a variety of predatory wasps, beneficial flies, and bees.

Lemon Balm (Melissa officinalis)

The apple green-colored leaves and delightful lemon smell make this a great herb garden plant. The plant spreads but not as quickly as regular mint. It can also travel by seed coming up quite a bit away from the original plant.

The lemon-flavored leaves make a good tea.

Mint (Menta sp.)

Mints are a delight in the garden but best kept in their own container to keep their spread in check.

There are many different flavors of mint that can be used for teas and in cooking such as peppermint, spearmint, pineapple, chocolate, orange, and many others.

Thyme (Thymus sp.)

A low-growing herb that is very easy to grow. It is a versatile spice that adds a pleasant taste to many dishes. Thyme comes in a variety of flavors such as lemon, lime, orange, and caraway.

Oregano (Origanum vulgare)

Oregano spreads but not as quickly as mint. It can also be spread to other locations by seed.

This is another common culinary herb for flavoring a great variety of dishes. Honeybees that frequent oregano flowers may even produce honey with a mild oregano-blossom flavor.

Basil (Ocimum basilicum)

This well-known, warm-season annual is available in many varieties and is delicious in pesto, salads, sandwiches, and Asian soups.

A few other notable herbs from various plant families that attract beneficial insects and provide taste and beauty to our food:

Borage (Borago officinalis)

It’s often grown by beekeepers because it’s reputed to help bees make more honey, and of course bees are essential for pollination.

Chives

Onion Chives (Allium schoenoprasum) and Garlic Chives (Allium tuberosum) leaves and flower buds are used fresh in many recipes. They attract bees and butterflies like crazy.

Happy Gardening!

Rita's Monthly Gardening Tips,  March 2, 2015

When adults garden, we focus on the final outcome—the prized tomato, the perfect roses, etc. Gardening with children is more about an enriching process than a tangible product. In this process, a child is spending time with an adult in an activity that is physically and mentally beneficial. Gardening provides an environment for children to learn where food comes from and to gain an understanding of the creatures that live in nature. Children are naturally curious and will enjoy the chance to spend time with an adult doing this important but fun work. Fun is the important part. Always make it fun. Their attention span may be short, so let them enjoy tasks that are within their ability. Be prepared to be flexible in your goals. Serious garden planning may recommend planting in straight rows, and your child’s row may be straight but in a diagonal sort of way. Children may want to plant marigold seeds in a circle instead of a row, and there is nothing wrong with that.

Digging in the soil is a fun activity for kids, although in the book, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, this activity often leads in other directions. You may have planned to add a cartload of compost to the garden bed, but then your child sees a worm, then a butterfly. What started out as one task is diverted into a beautiful experience in wildlife appreciation and a first-hand understanding of the delicate balance of the food web. After allowing time for enjoying the wonders of nature, come back to the task at hand and explain how adding compost to the soil creates food for the worm families to eat and nutrition for the flowers that will feed the butterflies.

Kids also love to water. Giving young children a small watering can to fill and water plants would give them great joy, but know that they water for joy rather than having a concrete awareness of how much water a plant needs. They often think that watering a plant means getting water on the plant itself. It’s hard for them to understand that it is the underground part they can’t see that actually needs the water. Think of the roots of a plant being as big underground as the plant is above ground. Make up for the extra water the plants may need or guide your child in knowing when it is time to share the water with another plant.

Seed planting is more fun for kids when using big seeds they can easily handle, such as sunflowers, nasturtiums, squash, cucumber, chard, beans, peas, etc.

When choosing which vegetables to grow, start with the ones you know your child already enjoys eating and those that will grow in your climate. Then try a new one or two that they may learn to love through the process of growing it. It’s important, as much as possible, to ensure that the children are successful in their gardening endeavors. They are too young to understand that if they forget to water, their plants may not survive. They will come back looking for that special plant they helped to start by seed or planted into the ground. Give children increasing responsibilities for the success of their garden as they gain more experience and patience.

Get children excited about gardening by having tools they can easily manage. Most garden centers carry shorter shovels that are not plastic toy shovels. Magnifying glasses make it fun to observe insects and flower patterns. And there is nothing better than to end the evening by snuggling with your little ones and reading the many wonderful picture books available with a gardening theme.

Some of my favorite garden-themed picture books:

Sunflower House by Eve Bunting

Tops and Bottoms by Janet Stevens

In the Garden with Dr. Carver by Susan Grigsby

The Little Red Hen Grows a Pizza by Philemon Sturges

Growing Vegetable Soup by Lois Ehlert

The Gardener by Sarah Stewart

The Reason for a Flower by Ruth Heller

Jack’s Garden by Henry Cole

Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney

Books by Gail Gibbons

   From Seed to Plant

   Ladybugs

   Monarch Butterfly

   The Pumpkin Book

   The Vegetables We Eat