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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Recipes

15 Clever Ways to Reduce Food Waste & Get More From Your Garden

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Don’t toss that! The USDA estimates that a staggering 30-40% of food in the United States is wasted. While you’re probably already more sensitive about using the produce out of your own garden we went ahead an compiled a list of ways you can reduce your food waste and make the most of your harvest.

Save Scraps to Make Broth

Many vegetable scraps can be turned into delicious vegetable broth. Save scraps like carrot ends and peelings, celery ends and leaves, onions ends and skins, broccoli leaves and stalks, potato peels, and more. If your not going to use them right away they can be collected in a container in the freezer.

Eat your Jack O’ Lantern

Sadly most jack o’ lanterns end up in the landfill which is an enormous waste of nutritious food. This year try to use your jack o’ lantern before it goes bad. The seeds can be baked for a delicious snack, the “guts” can be added to broth, and the shell can be baked and turned into delicious recipes like pumpkin pie, pumpkin waffles, or even pumpkin cinnamon rolls.

DIY Pumpkin Puree & Pumpkin Spice Waffles

Leave the Skin on Cucumbers, Apples, and Potatoes

The skin on cucumbers, apples, and potatoes is actually quite good for you. They’re full of vitamins and nutrients and tasty too. Try using these without peeling them first.

Make Corn Cob Jelly

Tennessee Red Cob Dent Corn

It may sound odd but corn cob jelly is actually really good and certainly makes good use of an otherwise waste product.

Eat Your Beet Greens

Beet greens are just as tasty as other greens and they come free with a beet! Don’t let them go to waste.

Pickle Your Rinds

Squash, pumpkin, and melon rinds can all be pickled. Just like corn cob jelly, pickled rind recipes used to be very common but fell out of use in modern cooking. They may sound a little odd at first but they’re actually pretty good.

Save Your Tomato Skins When Canning

Next time your canning tomatoes or making sauce set the tomato skins aside instead of in the compost. These can be dehydrated and powdered to be used in soups and stews. This tomato powder is wonderful for adding flavor and thickening.

Eat Your Broccoli Stems

The stems are just as good as the florets! They also contains slightly more calcium, iron, and vitamin C than the florets. If you really dislike them you can use them for stock or try searching for broccoli stem recipes.

Make Fabric Dye

From cabbage scraps to black bean water there’s many ways to dye fabric with just food waste!

Planning a Dye Garden: 15 Plants to Grow

Make Fruit Vinegar

Making your own vinegar is actually really easy and can be done with all fruit scraps like peels and cores after a canning or juice making day.

Use Soft Fruit in Smoothies or Baking

Fruit that’s soft but isn’t truly bad can still be delicious in smoothies or baked goods.

Toss Soft Veggies in Soups

Don’t throw out vegetables that aren’t truly bad. Use up produce like soft carrots and potatoes, limp celery, and wilted greens in homemade soups like this Vegetarian Tortilla Soup.

Dehydrate or Can Your Food Rather than Freeze It

While freezing garden produce is an easy way to preserve your harvest for winter it does come with one major downfall, the freezer requires constant electricity. If you live in an area that experiences a lot of storms and power outages it may be worth putting up your harvest in other ways. Canning and dehydrating food is a great way to ensure it stays good.

Feed Produce to Animals

If you truly can’t eat something consider animals. Backyard chickens eat a lot of scraps as do pigs. If you don’t have any yourself talk to your local animal rescue or farmer. They might be interested in produce scraps or even that old jack o’ lantern!

Compost

Produce scraps should never go to the landfill. Composting creates wonderful soil for your garden and keeps produce out of the landfill which releases methane.

Reducing food waste is so important. It helps the environment and your wallet. Let us know if you try any of these tips and how it works out.

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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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Saving the Past for the Future