Gardening: Beat the heat and watch those floppy plants
Jul. 27—Is the garden not what you were hoping for this year? Browned leaves instead of green and half sized plants? Welcome to the club of disappointment my gardening friend.
High heat and low rain this year has made it challenging for our non-desert plants to thrive. Our only hope? Next year will be better?!? Be comforted to know that gardening is an ongoing challenging process ... it's not for wimps!
This week my teenage grandsons are coming to help get things back in shape in my gardens. Weeds. Funny how they are not bothered by the hot, dry weather.
Take note of floppy plants in the garden so next year you can cage them or prune back at the early stages of growth. Balloon flower, Platycodon grandifloras is one that always flops, but looks much better standing up.
Purply blue flowers resemble tiny hot air balloons before the flowers open. They are full sun to part shade and hardy to this area. Like many garden flowers, they have a limited color choice — blues, pinks, whites. The taller varieties can reach 24 inches or more and the shorter types 8-10 inches — which likely have no flopping issues.
Another flopper is one of my favorite garden herbs, Oregano. Its name means "joy on the mountain." Oregano is often confused with its relative marjoram, which is more delicate and floral tasting. Both are from the genus Origanum.
Heavily used in Italian cooking, oregano has a hot peppery flavor — great with tomato products and sauces. Plants are beautiful in the flower garden, and the tiny purplish pink flowers attract a lot of bees.
Flowering stems of the medium height varieties are stiff and dry perfectly upright, and look good for years cut in dried bunches. Taller varieties may flop or lay down towards mid- summer. You can cut them back when they are 6-8 inches tall to encourage more branching so they stand better.
Oregano can spread in the garden, with the base getting larger, so you may consider some type of containment. They are not aggressive like some mints can be.
Plants prefer full sun, average water, and are usually pest and disease free. Oregano plants are not fussy about soil type and are best installed as transplants verses direct seed.
Plants are easy to dig and divide early spring. You can start snipping stems to use when they are only 6 inches tall, don't worry there will be lots, just don't take them all at once.
You will need to cut stems with a pruner, as they don't break easy. You can strip the leaves off the stems and use it fresh, or let them dry then crumble them off the stems. When possible, harvest herbs in the early morning, when oil content is the highest.
When I plan to harvest armloads of herbs to freeze or dry, I prefer to spray plants with a rain head on a garden hose, giving them a good bath a day ahead of harvesting.
Two benefits — stems and leaves will be plump verses suffering when I cut them, and the plants will be clean enough to preserve without washing them again — makes drying them challenging. Dried herbs should be stored in air tight containers in a cabinet/cupboard, out of light.
Flowering stems are also beautiful in fresh bouquets as fillers and in dried floral arrangements. Soak a few dried stems in wine and place on coals towards the end of grilling meat, for a delicious smokey flavor.
Cut plants back to the crown in the fall and use winter mulch the first year. Speaking of plants jumping in the garden — this year has been the worst — or best, depending on what you like.
Asclepias, tall garden phlox, native milkweed, Russian sage and creeping thyme have been on the move popping up everywhere.
Over the years, I have either become more tolerant of the jumpers or too lazy to worry about them. My rule of thumb is: if I get to them before they bloom, they are outta here. If they bloom before I get to them, they get to stay till at least the end of the season. That's fair in my book.
Visit us at the Mankato Farmer's Market! We are located at the Best Buy parking lot on Adams Street. Stop by and get local grown plants, honey, syrup, soaps, textiles, baked goods, crafts, woodworking, pies, hot coffee, jams, cheeses, local raised meats and eggs. Saturdays' 8 a.m. — noon, Tuesdays and Thursdays from 3:30-6 p.m. — both at Best Buy. You can follow my Facebook business page at Market Bakery.
