By Elizabeth Olson, CPH

‘Tokyo Gokaku’ okra - Photo courtesy of Kitazawa Seed Company

NEW THIS YEAR! Limited quantities of heirloom okra in 2-inch pots will be available starting Friday, June 4, 2010, only at the Behnke’s location in Beltsville.

Okra thrives in warm to hot weather and thoroughly warmed soil, and these cultivars are ready to grow in your garden.

Okra pods can be prepared in many ways, from grilling to pickling. The plants are decorative and have beautiful hibiscus-like flowers.

The heirloom okra cultivars include ‘Clemson Spineless,’ a great all-purpose cultivar; ‘Silver Queen,’ great baked or grilled; and ‘Tokyo Gokaku,’ for curry dishes, tempura, and stir-fry.

These heirloom okra cultivars are open-pollinated and are excellent for seed saving.

Gardening Basics Simply Put – Hanging Baskets

Hanging baskets, they’re not just for hanging anymore. By all means, do hang them, but consider that basically, it’s a big pot full of colorful flowers or tropical foliage. You can remove the hanger, and set it on a pedestal for an instant “container” plant, or if it happens to be upright instead of trailing, you can set in on a table for a centerpiece.

Another option: take it out of the basket and plant it in a decorative container, or even in the ground for an instant specimen plant. For most basket plants, this will be fine. This works for anything I can think of except for fuchsia. Basket fuchsias are trailers; upright fuchsias, sold in standard pots, are better for planting out.

Basket care:

Light: shade plants will flower better with a couple of hours of early morning sun. Sun plants will do better if they get some shade in the hot afternoon. This is more to keep the pot cooler than for any aversion to sunlight. Hot pots dry out faster and the roots on the sunny side of the pot may heat to the point of partial dieback.

Water: Big plant, small pot.

Your basket will be fine initially, and your primary responsibility is to check daily for water needs. Just lift the pot; if it’s heavy, it’s good for a day. If it’s light, water it. Remember that with any container, that if the plant gets very dry (very light) the potting soil will shrink away from the side of the pot, and most of the water you are applying is just running down the side. In that case, set it on the ground and water it thoroughly several times, 10 minutes apart. Or, set it in a pan of water for an hour.

Baskets that typically need less frequent water include geraniums, trailing geraniums, portulaca, fuchsia, petunias (when the basket is new). Lantana and impatiens dry out pretty quickly.

As the weeks pass, and the plant grows, something funny happens. The roots slowly replace the soil. Some of the potting soil decays further, and some gets washed from the pot with the frequent watering. The plant’s roots don’t hold water like soil does. The result is that you will find yourself watering more frequently.

At that point, say mid-summer, you should either repot it to a larger container, or plant it in the ground. Or, go on vacation and blame the neighbor who was supposed to water your plants while you were gone. [To make life easier for the helpful neighbor, take the baskets down and place them on the ground in light shade, preferably near a water source. That way, the baskets won’t need water as frequently.]

Pruning/Pinching:
As it gets straggly, cutting it back selectively will make the plant more attractive. What I mean by “selectively” is cut back the shoots to different lengths, not straight across like bangs. That way, when it starts to grow again it will look more natural. If you cut back a couple of shoots every two weeks or so you should be able to maintain it without it ever looking like it has been trimmed.

With the frequent watering, your plant’s foliage will yellow after a couple of weeks if you don’t fertilize. I would use Miracle Gro or a similar product occasionally, or Osmocote. Follow label instructions but better to err on the low side. You want to keep the plant green, but it’s not the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. The more growth you push with fertilizer, the sooner you will confront the “too big for the pot” problem discussed above.

By Elizabeth Olson, CPH

Mixed savory and sweet peppers fresh from the garden can be used to make delectable pepper sandwiches.

Each pepper plant will produce many peppers, and pepper sandwiches are a great way to utilize the pepper harvest.

Pepper plants are easy to grow and make decorative additions to any garden.

Behnke’s savory and sweet pepper selection includes:

• ‘Banana Supreme,’ a long, tapered, thin-walled wax pepper. The pepper color changes from light green to red as it matures. It can be harvested when it is yellow-green to red, but still firm. All-America Selections winner in 1941

• ‘Carmen,’ an Italian-style bull’s horn (corno di toro) pepper that ripens to carmine red. It has thin skin and thick walls. Harvest it when it is mature, but still firm. All-America Selections winner in 2006

• ‘Cubanelle,’ a thin-walled, long, lobed pepper that matures from light green to yellow-green to red. Best picked when yellow-green

• ‘Giant Marconi,’ a long, tapered 2- to 4-lobed pepper matures to a deep red. Harvest it when it is either green or mature, but still firm. All-America Selections winner in 2001

• ‘Jimmy Nardello,’ an heirloom Italian frying pepper that matures to a bright red. This long, slender pepper has a small seed cavity. Harvest it when it is mature, but still firm

• ‘Mandarin,’ an extra-large, thick-walled, lobed sweet pepper that matures to a brilliant orange-red. Harvest it when it is mature, but still firm

For a rich and tangy flavor, include ‘Holy Molé,’ a long, slender pasilla pepper that matures to a deep chocolate brown. It should be harvested when it is deep green or mature, but still firm. This cultivar was named an All-America Selections winner in 2007.

Select several different types of peppers. Cut the peppers in thin slices, being careful to remove stems, pith, and seeds. Peeled, thinly sliced sweet onions can be added to the mix. Add enough olive oil or grape seed oil to lightly coat the pepper and onion slices. Gently sauté the medley until the slices start to soften; test for flavor.

Spicy heat can be added at this time with a small amount of either ‘Cayenne’ or ‘Super Cayenne II’ peppers that have reached maturity and that are red in color. It is highly recommended to wear gloves when handling these peppers. Most of the heat is located in the tissues that hold the seeds. Only add a small amount of either of the Cayenne peppers and their seeds, then stir and test for flavor. Repeat this step, as necessary, until you obtain the desired amount of spicy heat.

Continue to sauté the peppers and onions until the slices are tender. The medley can be served warm or chilled as a sandwich filling.

By: Elizabeth Olson, Certified Professional Horticulturist
Behnke’s Vegetable Expert

Sweet 100's photo from Burpee Seed

Cherry, grape, and pear tomatoes are the tomatoes for “garden candy”. They start fruiting early in the season, continue all summer, and are the last tomatoes in the garden in the middle of autumn.

Sun-drenched, delicious, and easy to handle, frequently these tomatoes never make it to the house as kitchen gardeners are increasingly eating them straight from the vine.

Behnke’s selection includes:

‘Juliet,’ a large red grape tomato that is crack-resistant.
‘Santa,’ a medium-sized red grape tomato.
‘Sungold,’ a medium-sized golden-orange cherry tomato with a sweet, tangy flavor.
‘Sweet 100,’ a medium-sized scarlet cherry tomato that is high in vitamin C.
‘Yellow Pear,’ a small light yellow, open-pollinated heirloom that is wonderful fresh as well as pickled or used to make tomato preserves.

Need more help with your vegetable garden? Meet Elizabeth in the Vegetable and Herb section at Behnke’s in Beltsville, this Saturday (May 15th, 2010) from 10 to 4!

One of the easiest and most rewarding things for a gardener to grow is a selection of herbs. It’s fun to use your own fresh herbs in cooking, they are interesting to learn, the most common ones all have the same growing requirements, and animal pests tend to leave them along.

First, cooking. That is when you make your own meal from a series of ingredients instead of buying in at McDonald’s or tossing a frozen bag of pasta into the microwave. Just thought you might want to know. It takes a combination of time and thyme, but on those days when the weatherman has you cowering inside from the elements (Rain today, run for your lives! Hot today, for goodness sake don’t go out there!!), it can be fun to spend some time following a classic Julia Child recipe instead of downloading apps onto your I-phone. But that’s just me.

Anyway: more on herbs as I understand them. Spices and edible herbs are used for flavoring food. Spices are tropical, are often seeds, and often come from trees, shrubs or vines (pepper; cinnamon which is tree bark; vanilla which is the seed pod of an orchid). Our common herbs are more temperate in origin, and look like your standard garden plant, sometimes annuals, usually perennials.

Just because something is called an herb DOES NOT MEAN IT IS EDIBLE. Herb usage was traditionally medicinal, the province of shamans, monks and witches; the flavoring aspect was just a byproduct. (Take two leaves and call me in the morning, if you’re still alive.) Example: Rue is one of the herbs that is usually sold at garden centers. It’s a pretty blue-leaved plant, but can cause a dermatitis reaction like poison ivy on some people (you will rue the day…). So, once you step away from the common herbs like basil and thyme, Google that bad boy before you throw it in the soup.

Right off, I can’t think of any that are North American in origin; they often come from the Mediterranean area, basil originally from India I think. On the whole, they do best in full sun and need good soil drainage. The flavoring frequently comes from oils that develop most strongly in hot weather. That’s why your basil tastes better in the summer than in the winter. When dried, some herbs hold the flavor, others lose it, especially the leafy herbs. That’s why dry basil and parsley are not as good as say, dried rosemary.

Harvest your herbs early in the day for best flavor. Growing them on a sunny windowsill? Some herbs are okay in a south window, but especially in winter, it’s going to be tough to have enough light for them to thrive or develop much flavor.
The strong flavors of herbs should repel deer, so if you have deer problems, try planting some sage or thyme. Let us know if they graze on your basil. We keep lists.

A good place to see herbs in action, so to speak, is at the huge herb garden at the National Arboretum in DC. Depending on what they have going on this year, will be able to observe things like which lavenders or rosemary varieties do better in our climate, and which herbs are more ornamental. The herb garden is near the visitor center and the Bonsai pavilion. The Arboretum is free, of course, and well worth a trip any time of the year.

For beginners, basil is a great plant, and can easily be grown in a pot on a sunny deck. It is an annual, it grows fast, and you harvest the leaves and soft tips. As the summer progresses and the plant matures, clip off the flower spikes and discard them. Make your own pesto. Probably okay to plant now. They are notorious for rotting off at the soil line in cool weather.
Also easy to grow: parsley (grow as an annual); dill (annual); fennel (seeds out badly, watch out for this one); chives (perennial); thyme (perennial); sage (perennial); oregano (perennial); and French Tarragon (perennial).

Rosemary and lavender: perennial but touchy; siting in good drainage is critical, and for rosemary, some varieties are more winter hardy than others. We have a huge rosemary shrub at the exit at our garden center in Beltsville. It is in a raised bed with great drainage, and has the heat of a poorly insulated building for company in winter. Here’s hoping you try some herbs this year!