Deadheading in the Garden

As summer winds down, the yard clean up begins. After your beautiful blooms are done your garden is left with spent flowers. Here is a how-to for rejuvenating your plants.

Deadheading... is not what you think it is in the gardening world. But you can rock out to the Grateful Dead and wear tie dye in the garden if you want to. Deadheading in the garden and yard is removing those unattractive spent flowers. Not only will this make your garden appear neater but it helps to strengthen the plant also.

Almost all annuals and some perennials will continue to bloom if the plant is deadheaded.

Daylilly, Columbine and Echinacea.

 

Deadheading can be done by pruning the ended flowers or even by pinching them off with your fingers. Or my favorite method is to let the stem dry out and just snap or pull the stem out of the plant. For plants with a lot of tiny flowers it is easier to deadhead by cutting back the whole plant. If the stem of the flower has leaves on it, try to prune it back so the cut stem is hidden by the rest of the plant. If the stem has no leaves on it like a Daylily, then trim the whole stem to the ground.

You definitely do not have to deadhead your plants. Your garden should be unique just like you are. Columbine is a great plant that if you let go to seed, there will be more plants next year to love. Then you can just move the new baby plant to another area or let the plant fill the planting bed more. I love leaving the Echinacea for the birds to snack on in the winter and the seeds that drop to the ground just make new plants in the spring. Whatever you preference your garden is a labor of love, so just make it your own.

Late Summer Harvest

It’s late August and back-to-school time is upon us, so we decided to escape the pressures of shopping and head out to the garden to see what’s ready for picking.

The kids learned a lot about gardening and responsibility this summer, so it made us really happy to see them enjoy the fruits of their labor (and ours)!

Looks like the Sugar Daddy snap peas are coming to an end for the season. And yes… we up-cycled an old mattress frame as our trellis. It was free and worked great!

Picking snap beans is a lot easier when you have four sets of hands. This is our second harvest through these plants and we hope to get several more. There’s plenty of blossoms and young beans out there.

“Hey dad… beat this one!”

We were happy with how well our sweet corn variety turned out. This particular variety seemed to have two suckers on some plants. This is common in sweet corn and won’t affect the plant’s yield.

According to Iowa State University, suckers are common on some sweet corn varieties and should be left alone. Another recent study showed that with the right fertilization, these little guys actually benefit the yield, but if removed, can negatively impact yield.

Crazy huh? So put down those knives!

Also, stay tuned for an upcoming post on the benefits of Compost Tea to maximize the yield potential of your crop.

We also learned that standard sweet corn cultivars may lose 50 percent of their sugar within 12 hours of harvest if not refrigerated. So get those guys from field to fridge as quickly as you can.




Unhusked sweet corn can be stored in the refrigerator at 32° F for 4 to 8 days. New high sugar varieties are slower to convert sugar to starch and may be harvested over a longer period of time. The high sugar types also have a longer storage life. Sweet corn may be canned or frozen for year-round use.

This information and more (such as growing baby corn for salads) is available in this free PDF Iowa State University Horticulture Guide – Home Gardening Sweet Corn. We love the simplicity of the research they shared. After all, these guys know their corn!

And finally… our youngest was thrilled that our watermelon plants are coming along nicely as well. This is just one of the 15 melons we have so far. Grow baby, grow!

The kids have been naming each melon, but I think we’ll need to come up with something better for this one. “Fatty-bo-batty” simply won’t due.

As we left the garden, we made one last check to ensure that the electric fence was re-hooked up properly… oh, no need. Rufus our guard dog was having a heart-to-heart with his big watermelon-eating brother Chester.

Marinara Pasta Bake

This recipe is a great way to have a meatless meal and be frugal. And it is easy easy!

Marinara Pasta Bake

1 pound pasta of your choice (used radiatore)
1 quart jar of Sweet Spaghetti Sauce or tomato based sauce of your choice
2 cups mozzarella or Italian blend cheese, shredded
Parmesan cheese 
parsley
optional fillings: 1 cup cottage cheese, spinach, onions, green peppers

Preheat oven to 400 ° F.
Prepare pasta according to package directions. Cook until al dente (the lower time suggestion) and drain. Pour pasta in 9 x 13 inch baking pan.
Combine pasta with Sweet Spaghetti Sauce, stir well. Mix in any optional filling at this time.
Top with shredded cheese, Parmesan cheese and parsley.
Bake uncovered for 20 minutes or until the cheese starts to lightly brown.