Garden Tools and Advice

Add a beautiful, aesthetic touch to your next dinner with tasty edible flowers that you can grow yourself. Many upscale restaurants have adopted the practice of garnishing salads and certain dishes with edible flowers. Edible flowers provide a touch of color, fragrance, texture and taste to an ordinary meal. You too can create a beautiful dish by growing your own edible flowers.

Can you really eat flowers?

The answer is: yes! If you are new to the idea of eating edible flowers, you will soon find that these can make tasty and beautiful garnishes. Think of edible flowers like garnishes. Except like traditional garnishes like parsley, edible flowers provide a dazzling array of colors, fragrance and texture. Many people who come across edible flower garnishes for the first time in their life are often afraid of eating them. Don’t be afraid! They are quite good to eat, often adding a zesty or fragrant flavor to an otherwise dull meal.

The dual purpose of edible flowers

Many edible flowers serve a dual purpose: they are there to look beautiful in your garden, as well as to provide an aesthetic and tasty treat on your dinner plate. You can grow edible flowers and enjoy them in your garden, and you can also enjoy them in the kitchen. Some specialty grocery stores will also offer edible flowers for sale. However, these are often expensive because edible flowers are quite fragile and will not keep their texture for long after they have been picked. You can save yourself the expense and provide a steady supply of fresh and edible flowers to your dinner table by growing edible flowers yourself. You should also be wary about the edible flowers you eatspecifically, make sure that they are organic and free of any pesticides. Here is a brief overview of the most popular edible flowers and how they might be used in your cooking.

Nasturtiumsthe most common edible flower

Nasturtiums are by far the most common edible flower, and there is good reason for this. Nasturtiums provide a bold dose of scarlet and yellow colors. They look and taste great with green salads and come in a wide range of colors, including, cream, orange and many bi-colors. They are also relatively easy to grow. You can grow them from seed or eat them straight off a transplant (making certain that they are safe to eat, of course). What does nasturtium taste like? You will find that they make a flavorful addition to any salad, and can range from slightly sweet to bold and peppery. Many chefs have discovered the unique taste of making flavorful vinegars from nasturtium. Simply add a handful of fresh nasturtium to a high-quality white wine vinegar and let the mixture sit in a dark cool place for several weeks.

For a minty flavor, choose pansies

Pansies are popular annuals that can provide a mild wintergreen flavor to any dish. Use pansies in order to create cake decorations, or make a luxurious cream cheese appetizer.

Marigoldsa useful substitute for saffron

Pot marigold, also known as calendula, can be easily substituted for saffron. Simply cook them with oil, which will bring out the flavor and color of the flowers. You can cook them with a bit of olive oil and some chopped onions and add these to rice or broth for a unique and flavorful combination. Marigolds are quite inexpensive and easy to grow, making them a good choice if you are new to edible flowers.

Eat healthy with squash flowers

Squash flowers are one of the most popular and common of the edible flowers. You can use squash flowers, zucchini flowers, acorn and patty pan squash in various dishes. Squash flowers have been used in traditional Mexican and Mediterranean cuisine for many years.

Your Berries are Not for the Birds—How to Keep Them Flying By

If you have berries in your yard or garden that often do not ever make it to your kitchen table because the birds have always gotten to them before theyre fully ripe, there are several things that you can do in order to make your berries off-limits to the birds. There are several different ways of deflecting the birds; some have to do with visually warning the birds away, while others actually make noises that birds will not come close to. Whichever type of device you plan to use to keep the birds away from your berries, keep in mind that birds are quite intelligent, so youll have to outwit the birds if you are going to keep them away from your berry crops.

Birds are scared of certain birds and animals. For this reason, placing a hawk or a fox/coyote in your garden near the berries will usually keep the birds at bay. However, youll have to move this type of visual diversion quite often if you hope for it to be effective at scaring the birds. If the hawk stays in one place for a few days, the birds are smart enough to realize that its just a stationary thing, and therefore not to be feared. Moving this type of visual diversion is a necessary evil if you want it to be effective. The upside, of course, is that the visual diversion only has to be used during the season when the birds would be after the berries. Its a hidden blessing that it would not have to be done all year round, so this inexpensive option can be a good thing if you dont mind moving the diversions around every day or two.

Another option that is a visual scare for birds is to put something shiny that will catch the sunlight around the area of your garden where the berries are. Sunlight glinting off such objects will inevitably scare birds away from landing in your berry bushes and eating up your tasty fruit. Good options are old pieces of silverware, old broken mirror bits, or old CDs that are scratched or broken. All of these items will catch the sun and cause birds to fly away from your berries instead of toward them.

These options are all quite low-cost options, but there are more sophisticated options that are, of course, more expensive, than these do-it-yourself ideas. In home stores, youll find devices that make noises that will deter the birds away from your berry bushes. These devices can be as sophisticated or as simple as you want. For example, if you are willing to pay a pretty penny for the device, you can get one thats ultrasonic, meaning that the birds will hear it and be scared away, but you, and none of the other humans who venture into your garden, will hear it. This type of device is not only sophisticated enough to only be heard by birds, its also very good at varying its emissions so that birds will not become accustomed to a certain pattern of sounds in your garden and realize that theres nothing to fear, just like a hawk that never moves will eventually be recognized as not being a threat.

If this type of device is too expensive for your garden, there are also similar devices that are not ultrasonic, so if you can handle hearing the noises that will scare the birds away, this type of device could be the right option for you. These devices work in much the same way, but are not ultrasonic and they are also not as sophisticated when it comes to varying their noises. One runs the risk that the birds will grow accustomed to it and will come eat the berries anyway.

Whichever one of these options you decide to try, enjoy those summer berries when they are ripe!

Using Heat To Kill Those Pesky Weeds in Your Lawn and Garden

Weeds are sneaky, unattractive and are guaranteed to ruin any type of lawn or garden. They kill your flowers and take over all your beautiful gardening. Lots of people use pesticides and other chemicals to kill those weeds. However, a lot of people prefer not to use chemicals, so as not to ruin their plants. If you are one of those people, then here is the solution. When you are growing a garden, it is a good idea to make sure that the soil, dirt, fertilizer, etc is not contaminated with weed seeds. This will help minimize the weed problem. But, if your garden ends up having weeds, there are a few safe ways to get rid of them effectively.

Heat is a great way to kill those pesky weeds. It is easy to do and it does not utilize all sorts of toxins and chemicals. There are a few different ways to do this. They are all safe and non-poisonous.

Flamers

Some weed-killers choose to use the method of flamers. This is sort of a mechanical torch. They will not contaminate, loosen or ruin the soil in any way. This is why this method is so popular. Safety, of course, is an issue. Never use a flamer around anything that is even remotely flammable, as this will surely result in a fire. How does this work? The flamers do not actually burn or set anything on fire. It is a gas-fueled torch that can reach temperatures around 200 degrees Fahrenheit. These torches work because they actually boil the weeds cells and cause them to explode, thus killing the weed. Killing larger weeds requires more heat, thus a different method. It is a good idea to kill the weeds when they are small and young.

Radiant Heat Weeders

These weed-killers use almost the same method as the flamer, but they do not actually have an open flame. Still, certain precautions should be taken. You should hold either the flamer and/ or the radiant heat weeder about a half-inch from the weed, so as not to burn or scorch it and set a fire. Radiant weeders and flamers are also good because they are easy to use. For the vast majority of these weeders, it does not take a lot of effort to apply. Please be cautious! Make sure you are using these weeders in a safe area and keep all pets and children out of the way.

Soil Solarization

This is a method that utilizes sunlight. This is done by mulching the soil with some sort of cover, such as polyethylene. This not only kills the weeds and contaminants, but it also helps your other plants to grow, as it aids in photosynthesis.

Boiling Water

This is an effective and rather rudimentary method. It is simple; use boiling water to kill those weeds. This method is most effective in cracks and patios.

All methods of killing weeds by heat are safer and more effective than pesticides. This is because these methods will not use toxic chemicals. These chemicals can be harmful not only to your garden and other plants, but also to pets, children, etc. This will contaminate the soil, possibly to the point that nothing else will grow in the affected area.

Heat is more efficient also because it does not pollute the earth. Most heat-related weed killers use methods of energy that will not take fossil fuels away from the earth and help pollute it. They use energy such as sunlight. Using heat is safer and more effective in any garden, and would be recommended over any pesticide.