Category Archives: Garden Advice

Garden Advice

The Potager Garden

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A potager or kitchen garden is essentially just a backyard, family, garden. However they typically include a mixture of vegetables, herbs, and ornamental plants. While tidy rows may be the most practical for a market gardener you don’t necessarily have to go that route for a kitchen garden. Picture cabbages, chard, and thyme tucked in between rose daffodils and roses. They’re the ultimate blend of practicality and beauty.

Benefits of a Potager

  • Including a blend of different plants helps make potagers pest and disease resistant.
  • They’re gorgeous! Potager gardens aim to nourish both body and soul.
  • You can make the most of a small space. They don’t need a specific size or layout, just work with what you’ve got.
  • They’re easy to maintain because they often shade out weeds once the season gets going and quite often contain hardy perennials.
  • They help attract pollinators, birds, and beneficial insects. Having a variety of plants and structure makes your garden more appealing to these wonderful creatures.

Design

Making a potager of your own is quite simple. If it’s an option you probably want it located close to your house so you have easy access for harvest and enjoyment. Then you can simply start adding your favorite plants! You can also add a nice little pavilion where you can sit and enjoy a cuppa along with your family and see your plants flourish.  You can buy and install pavilions from americanlandscapestructures’s webiste. They have a range of  Vinyl Pavilion Kits and other designs available.

For an interesting look it’s a good idea to blend plants of different heights, colors, and textures. You can also add texture by adding wood or stone raised beds, old iron gates, trellises, terracotta pots and other gardening materials.

Adding Perennials

You may also want to add a variety of perennials. Just keep in mind that some perennials like mint and lemon balm can spread easily and take over entire beds when left unchecked. Fruit like strawberries, raspberries, and currants are great additions. There’s nothing like walting through your garden and enjoying a few freshly picked berries! If you have enough space you can even add fruit trees. You can choose dwarf varieties or espalier (train a tree to a fence or wall) a tree to save space.

Permantent Features

Another important feature of most potagers is permanent pathways. This allows you to easily stroll through your garden and harvest and enjoy your plants. Permanent pathways also keeps you from having to stand in actual growing areas and compacting the soil.

You may also want to consider adding a picnic table or some seating to you potager. Homegrown meals are extra special when enjoying amongst the flowers.

Large gardens filled with rows of vegetable crops certaintly are productive and have their place. However you shouldn’t forget that part of the reason to have a garden is simply to enjoy it. Creating a potager close to your home can help you grow and eat more vegetables and give you a lovely place to relax.

Garden Advice

10 Reasons to Grow Thyme

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German Winter Thyme

Thyme certainly isn’t the most popular herb in backyard gardens but we’re stumped as to why! This little plant has a lot of great things going for it. Check out some of thyme’s benefits to learn more about why it deserves a spot in your garden.

Thyme has medicinal properties.

Thyme may be generally thought of as a culinary herb but it also as a long history of medicinal use. It is primarily used to treat lung and throat issues like colds, coughs, and sore throats. It’s an excellent ingredient for homemade cough drops, soothing teas, and gargles. Thyme can also be used for soothing for upset stomachs.

It’s a hardy perennial.

It’s a hardy perennial. At SESE we offer three varieties of thyme. German Winter Thyme and Creeping Thyme are hardy in zones 4-10 and Summer Thyme is hardy in zones 6-9. If you’d like a low maintenance garden it should definitely be on your list.

Thyme can be started from seed.

While many perennials can be a bit tricky to get going from seed thyme is actually quite easy. It can be started indoors with other garden plants like tomatoes and peppers and set out after the danger of frosts have passed in the spring. It may take a little while to get going but not having to buy transplants may be worth the wait.

It’s delicious.

In the kitchen, thyme is incredible versatile. It can be used in sweets like shortbread cookies or savory dishes like sauces, meats, and beans.

Thyme is beautiful.

Creeping Thyme

Thyme plants a truly beautiful and different varieties offer a plant perfect for every garden. German winter thyme is shrubby and upright while summer thyme is a bit smaller. Creeping thyme is a vining plant that creates an excellent ground cover for rock and herb gardens. Even though they have different appearances all three can be used as culinary or medicinal herbs.

It attracts beneficial insects.

Thyme’s little flowers attract a variety of beneficial insects including native pollinators, honeybees, and predatory wasps.

Thyme makes an excellent companion plant.

It can be planted in with cabbage, potatoes, eggplant, and strawberries. It’s thought that it repels cabbage worms, flea beetles, and tomato hornworms.

It’s good for you.

In case you needed a reason besides its wonderful flavor to add thyme to your recipes thyme is very nutritious. It’s high in iron and antioxidants.

Thyme will tolerate shade.

If you have an area of your garden that’s get’s too much shade to be an excellent vegetable patch you might want to add some creeping thyme. It will do fine in areas that are fairly shady.

It doesn’t need much water.

While you need to water your thyme plants while they’re getting established once they’re mature these Mediterranean plants require very little water. They’re perfect for water conscious gardeners or those in drought-prone areas.

If you’re planning your garden for next year you may want to add thyme to your list! These are just a few of the many reasons this wonderful herb deserves a spot in your garden. What’s your favorite thing about thyme?

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Garden Advice

Seed Saving from Biennial Crops

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Generally when people think of seed saving they think about annual crops like corn, tomatoes, and beans which all produce seed in the fall or at the end of the growing season. While these are great crops for beginners to get started with many other common crops are actually biennial.

Seed Saving for Beginners

What’s a Biennial?

Biennial crops are those that require two growing seasons to reach maturity and produce seed. They need to go through a cold period called vernalization in order to produce seed. These include crops like beets, Swiss chard, bulb onions, cabbage, collards, Brussels sprouts, kale, broccoli, carrots, turnips, and more.

Planting

For most of these crops it is best to plant them in early fall. With the exception of bulb onions, plants that are started in fall rather than spring generally overwinter better.  When planting make sure that you give them enough space. Remember that your plants will be growing beyond the size they normally would for harvest before you’ll be able to collect seed.

You should also consider how much your chosen crop needs to be isolated. For example beets are wind pollinated, can cross with Swiss chard, and need to be isolated by 1/4 mile for home use. For pure seed they need to be isolated by 1/2 mile! Unless you have a large farm it’s probably best to stick with one variety so isolation isn’t as much of an issue. You can find this information for most crops in our growing guides.

Overwintering

Depending on your climate you may have different options for overwintering these crops. In southern zones it’s possible to overwinter some of these crops right in the ground especially if you have a hoop house, low tunnel, or cold frame set up over them. They should also be mulched in heavily to keep the soil temperature warmer. Many biennial crops can survive temperatures into the 20°Fs.

If you live in a colder climate where you cannot overwinter your crop in the ground it is still possible to save your own seed. Before the the ground freezes pull the plants up, being careful with the roots, and store them in moist peat moss, shredded newspaper, sawdust, or sand in a fridge or root cellar the way you would store carrots and beets for winter eating. Leave space between each plant so they aren’t touching each other. In storage you want to keep your plants cold but still above freezing. The high 30s are ideal. Onions however prefer less moisture and warmer temperatures (storage temperatures in the low 50°Fs).

Before pulling them up you can let them get frosted a few times. This will encourage them to go dormant. If they don’t go through a cold period they won’t be triggered to produce seed when you replant them in the spring. You can replant as soon as the soil can be worked in the spring.

Collecting Seed

During their second growing season biennial plants will flower and go to seed. For most crops this seed should be collected when it’s dry and brown. Some crops may have seeds on the same plant maturing at different rates so you may need to harvest your seeds while some are still green. Do no keep any seeds that didn’t fully mature and are green.

While there is a bit more involved in seed saving from biennial crops it’s still not a difficult skill to learn. If you’d like to help save your favorite heirloom variety or adapt a crop to your specific climate you  might consider trying your hand at seed saving.

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