Dividing Mediterranean Spearmint

by Renee Shepherd and Lindsay Del Carlo

Mediterranean Spearmint is a vigorous, hardy perennial that will grow happily in a container all year long. Mint plants spread by roots that will eventually fill the container.

In just one growing season, this vigorous grower can become root bound, with roots filling up the container and leaving little soil. The plant becomes stunted, doesn't thrive and produces only small leaves.

Mint will do best if the root ball is divided each year in early spring.



Step-by-step instructions for dividing  mint plants
First, lay down a tarp because this is a messy process! Remove the entire plant from the container. You will need a tool to help pry the plant out if the container does not have straight sides like this one. We use a Hori Hori (Japanese Digging Knife) but an old serrated kitchen knife will work as well. You will likely see that the thick roots have started to circle around the sides of the container and they may be quite bound together.

Remove mint from pot using a Hori Hori

Thick roots of mint bound in the pot

Next, with a Hori Hori or knife, cut the root ball first in half. Then cut one of the halves in half again so the you have 1/4 of the root ball to replant.

Cutting root ball in half with a Hori Hori

Piece of root ball to be replanted

Use new, good quality potting soil to replant the piece of root ball in the same pot.

New bag of potting soil to replant into same pot

First, put a layer of potting soil in the bottom of the container. Then set the root ball into the pot, then fill around the sides. You can shake the container back and forth to settle the soil down around the sides.

Fill the bottom layer first

Replace piece of root ball in center of pot

After the soil has been filled back in, trim the stems back by half so that it will grow back fresh new thick leaves.

Refill with new potting soil

Trim back old stems

Make sure to water it in thoroughly right away. This will help the roots recover quicker and will also help to settle the new soil in around the roots. This is an easy way to manage your Mediterranean Spearmint container. Dividing mint is a good way to control the container size that you need. It is not necessary to keep moving it up to a bigger and bigger container.

Watering in

Newly divided and replanted mint

6 weeks later, grown back after dividing

Mint will quickly begin to re-grow and produce large bright green leaves for you to enjoy all year. You can also replant extra pieces to have more containers around your garden, or cut them up and give them away to mint loving friends.

For pieces you are not keeping but want to compost, you should first shake out the potting soil from the roots and let the roots dry out in the sun for a few weeks so that they will not continue to grow. Mint roots are very resilient! Once they are completely dried out they can be thrown into the compost.

Making Lavender Gifts

by Renee Shepherd and Lindsay Del Carlo

If you love the scent of lavender, you will want to preserve and share your summer harvest of sweet smelling florets. Here are the quick and easy ways we dry our lavender every season to make perfumed dry bouquets and pretty, useful sachets. The following Renee's Garden varieties are L. angustifolia, the sweet-scented type you can use for crafting: French Perfume, Hidcote, English Munstead and White Ice. Here is an article about growing lavenders from seed; be sure to follow the packet directions.

Cut lavender stems roughly from the plant to collect
for making bouquets and to dry the florets for sachets

Lavender has significant aromatherapy properties that both soothe and relax, so lavender bouquets make welcome gifts that have real functionality. I like to keep several on my car's dashboard and give them an additional squeeze to release the fragrance.

The delicate scent of lavender sachets will gently perfume the cupboards where you keep pillowcases, sheets, blankets and towels, and it also helps repel moths from stored woolens.

The best time to harvest lavender is when the shrubs have come into bloom with ¾ of the florets open on the stems. This is when the aroma of the essential oils is most intense.

Begin by roughly cutting long stems of blossoms from the plants.

Making Dry Lavender Bouquets
Match up the flower heads until you have a nice sized bunch. Pull all of the stems straight and cut them all off at once evenly at the end leaving a long handle.

Match up the flower heads until
a nice big bunch is formed

Pull the stems straight and cut
them off evenly all at once

Then fasten a rubber band right below the flower heads, and another one at the bottom of the stems to hold them tightly bunched together so they will dry this way.

Twist a rubber band tightly just below the flower heads and
another an inch or two from the bottom to hold stems tightly

Now you need to hang the bunches upside down to dry in a cool, shady, airy place. Ordinary coat hangers can hold the bunches while drying: use opened up paper clips as hooks, hooking one end in the bottom rubber band and the other on the hanger.

Hang lavender bunches to dry in a cool, dark place;
a wire hanger and paper clips work great

They should be quite dry to the touch in about a week. The finished lavender bunches look very pretty wrapped with colored tissue paper and tied with a bow; the tissue paper also helps to catch any florets that drop off. Any time you want to refresh the scent, just give the bouquet a little squeeze.

Lavender bunches wrapped and ready to give as gifts

Dry lavender on a sheet in a sunny place,
covering with a sheet for protection

Making Sachets

To dry the lavender for sachets, scatter the cut stems of bloom (in a single layer as much as possible) onto a sheet in a sunny place like a driveway and put another sheet on top to keep out falling leaves and other debris.

The lavender will take about a week or 10 days to dry fully, depending on how humid your climate is, but check it often and plan to remove as soon as the florets are thoroughly dry, because the essential oils will begin to dry up and lose pungency if left too long.

When the lavender is completely dry, bundle it in the sheet and
smack it on the ground until the florets separate from the stems

Now this is the fun part; after they are dry, bundle all of the flower heads up into the bottom sheet and smack the bundle on the ground until all of the florets have fallen off of the stems.

Spill all of the lavender, stems and all, into a sifter on top
of a wheelbarrow to separate the stems from the florets

Then you need to separate the stems. We have made a sifter that is a simple 2x4 wooden frame with a piece of ½ inch hardware mesh stapled to it.

We spill all of the lavender, stems and all, into the sifter and shake it over a wheelbarrow. The dry lavender florets spill into the wheelbarrow and all but the smallest stems stay in the sifter.

Then we use a smaller sifter with 1/4 inch hardware wire mesh to separate out the remaining stems. When the lavender is fully sifted, we collect it in a bag or pillowcase and store it until we are ready to make sachets.

Use a smaller sifter to remove
the remaining small stems

Sifted lavender is ready to be
sorted for later use

 












We put the lavender in decorative sheer nylon bags available at most craft stores or on the Internet (our current source is www.bagsandbowsonline.com - search for 3" x 4" lavender organdy bags). You can also use the inexpensive but decorative little socks made for babies and toddlers, filling the feet of the socks up with lavender and then stitching under the cuffs to keep them closed.

Lavender sachets made with decorative bags

Fill the little bags with loose lavender florets and tie them securely. They make great hostess gifts and stocking stuffers. They are nice to put in lingerie drawers, car glove compartments or anywhere you want that lovely lavender scent.

Final Pruning of the Lavender
After you cut the flower stems roughly from the plants to use for crafts, then you can go back over the plant and fine prune it into a nice, rounded shape. To keep lavender shrubs from getting too leggy, prune the stems to a low point on the older stems where you can see new growth. This helps them to grow back fresh new stems each season and prevents them from developing thick woody bases.

Pruning lavender shrubs to a low point on older branches where
new growth is coming out will help renew its growth each season

Summer in Seattle at Last

by Sue Shecket, Webmaster and NW Trial Garden

It seems unfair to complain when I hear horror stories about the brutal heat in other parts of the country, but here in the Northwest, where we have just emerged from June Gloom (our typically cool, wet and garden-challenging month of “pre-summer”) we have only recently been able to shed our polar fleece.

I was out of the country on a vacation most of the past month, and had my neighbor poised to water my garden, but he never even turned on the hose, given the almost daily natural irrigation provided by Mother Nature. So when I returned, I was confronted with a lush jungle of leafy greens of both of the edible and the weedy types, but also with anemic tomatoes, slumping squash, and bare beds where the baby cucumbers and beans had been devoured by our ever present population of slugs.

After many hours of hacking with my trusty CobraHead weeder, I managed to get things back into reasonable shape and happily on July 5 the rains stopped, the temperatures hit the mid-70s and the sunscreen came out at last. Everything immediately perked right up and took off, and it now looks like we may be on track for a good year after all.

CobraHead Weeder

I replanted the Lemon and Armenian cucumbers and my absolute favorite "Musica" beans, which all popped right up and took off – another reminder that waiting to plant until the days and nights are consistently warm is always best. Of course the lettuces and greens loved the June weather, and my neighbors have been supplied with plenty of salad fixings. I am given bottles of our fine Washington wine in return, so it’s definitely a fair trade.

"Rhapsody" butterhead lettuces are thriving next to my potato patch
and I've been harvesting the "Farmer's Market" mesclun daily.

My "Sugar Snap" peas flowered and set nice pods within days. They are delicious when stir-fried with ginger and my young onion thinnings.  The "Wasabi" arugula has been great fun to share – nobody expects that kick at the end and I always get a wide eyed “wow!”.



"Super Sugar Snap" peas on steroids!

I put black plastic on my tomato bed this year to gather and hold heat, and it definitely does help. I am particularly happy with the performance of the "Stupice" tomato, a variety that we are offering this next season in our new organic seed line. It soldiered right through the tough weather and stood up to the rain and chill without missing a beat.

"Stupice" tomato - a real trooper

The "Astia" zucchini squash also impressed me with how quickly it burst out in bloom and fruit as soon as it got a bit of sun and warmth. Its compact size is great for that corner spot in the garden bed or in a container. 

"Astia" container zucchini - great for a small space

In the floral department, I tried a technique recommended by the Clematis grower that Renee and I met at the Farwest show in Portland several years ago. He encouraged me to plant Clematis right next to the climbing rose as well as near the base of rhododendron and azalea bushes. The vines twine and climb up among the branches and cover them in bright blooms all summer long. It’s a great way to get double duty out of those spring blooming shrubs, and provides a beautiful compliment to the roses.

Clematis make a lovely compliment to the climbing rose

The azalea bush is perfectly happy under it's Clematis cover

Now that the sun is shining, I have to pay close attention to my containers, as our rain doesn’t get under the cover of leaves and into the pots. Hard to remember, since I’m usually carrying my own umbrella to keep that water out and not in!

Growing Great Crafter's Gourds

By Lindsay del Carlo, Trial Garden Manager

Growing Crafter’s Gourds is both easy and rewarding if you follow some simple guidelines. Gourds need full sun and fertile soil, hot weather and a long growing season to reach full maturity. They are vining plants that look great twining up structures or strongly supported fences and arbors to hold their vigorous leafy vines.

You can also allow the vines to ramble along the ground given enough space. Once harvested, gourds are easy to cure and dry and fun to use for a variety of crafts, making into birdhouses or traditional drinking vessels. They can be left unfinished, painted, or stained different colors.

Organic fertilizers (L-R):
Liquid kelp, Sustane granular,
earthworm castings, fish emulsion

Soil Prep and Fertilizer Needs
Good soil amendment is essential for these large, heavy-feeding plants.  Prepare the soil with plenty of compost (to help retain moisture, add nutrients and improve soil condition for better growth) and a good granular organic fertilizer.

In the Renee’s Garden trial garden, we like to use a slow release, organic granular fertilizer called Sustane, which has an N-P-K of 4-6-4. This will give the large gourd plants plenty of nitrogen (N) for healthy vegetative growth, and enough Phosphorous (P) and Potassium (K) for growing healthy roots and setting fruit. There are many good certified organic fertilizers on the market with a similar N-P-K ratio.

We also add earthworm castings which contain essential nutrients for healthy growth. (Earthworm castings are the end product of worms digesting organic material.)

We also recommend supplemental feeding for gourds every 2 weeks with liquid fish emulsion and kelp at a rate of 2 tablespoons of each per gallon of water. Liquid fertilizer will work quickly to give plants a boost while the granular fertilizer breaks down over time and becomes available for the plants.

The Crafter’s Gourd seeds in the Renee’s Garden packets are color coded with food grade colors to mark which variety they are. Pink seeds are Birdhouse Gourds, undyed seeds are Dipper Gourds, and green seeds are Corsican Gourds. Before planting, separate the varieties so that you can keep track of each one and eliminate the chance of thinning out all of one variety.

Seeds are color-coded to easily differentiate varieties

Sowing and Growing the Seeds
In hot summer areas with a long growing season:
Where summers are long and hot, you can easily start your gourd seeds directly in the garden in full sun once night temperatures in spring stay comfortably above 50ºF (10ºC). Sow the seeds 1 inch deep in a group of 2-3 seeds, with each group spaced at least 12 inches apart and 4 inches away from the base of your vertical supports, fence or arbor.

Sow groups of 2-3 seeds of each variety
1 inch deep, space groups 12 inches apart

Place berry baskets over each
group of seeds to protect from birds

Plastic berry baskets work great to protect germinating seedlings from birds, and also to mark the space where they are planted. Place a basket over the seeds once they are planted.

Once the seeds germinate and they are large enough to handle, remove the strawberry baskets and carefully thin the group of seedlings, leaving just 1 strong seedling to grow to maturity. It’s really important to thin the plants to the one best seedling, because you want to give your gourd plant plenty of room to grow a large root system and ramble without any competition for sun and nutrients.

Remove basket and thin to strongest seedling

Starting Early Indoors in Areas with a Short Growing Season
If you want to get a head start on the growing season, you can start gourd seeds indoors several weeks before the last expected spring frost. Sow 1 seed 1 inch deep per individual 3-4 inch container, and keep them evenly moist while they germinate.

Sow seeds in 3-4" pots several weeks before
last spring frost. Sow 1 seed per pot 1" deep

Once gourds have a few sets of true leaves, and the roots have fully established in the container, and all danger of frost is past, they should be acclimated to outside conditions, then they can be transplanted out in their permanent location in a warm, sunny location. Space each plant 12 inches apart if you are planting in rows on a vertical structure. If you are planning in a hill, allow 3-4 plants per hill, spaced 12 inches apart in a triangle or a square.

After acclimating to outdoors, transplant seedlings 12" apart
in rows to grow vertically, or in hills to ramble along the ground

Training Your Young Gourd Vines to Climb Up
Gourd plants ramble out many feet over the growing season, and you can easily train these luxuriant vines to grow vertically, but they need substantial supports. A wire fence or a sturdy metal or wooden trellis or arbor works well; the vines can also be used to cover unsightly structures.

Gourds trained on a wire fence. Plants are spaced
12" apart along the fence line.

Initially as plants start to stretch and grow, they will need a little initial training to get them to grow onto the support. After that, their tendrils will do the rest of the work. Keep an eye on them throughout the season for any additional training they might need.

Gourds need initial training to grow onto supports

Gourds are very attractive growing on garden
arbors. They can also be used to cover structures.

Gourds growing on a metal arbor

Growing Your Gourd Vines to Ramble on the Ground

Groups of 2-3 seedlings are sown
1" deep & 12" apart in a hill.

If you have a lot of garden space and want to let the plants ramble on the ground, try growing them in hills. To prepare the hills, put down a few large buckets of compost and a generous helping of organic fertilizer and a few cups of worm castings, and mix it thoroughly with the existing soil. Then heap it up into a nice big pile and flatten the top so that it is about 8-10 inches tall and 2-3 ft wide.

Each hill should be about 6-8 feet apart to provide ample space. Plant a group of 2 or 3 seeds of each variety 1 inch deep, with each

Once large enough to handle,
thin to 1 strong seedling per group,
leaving 3-4 plants in each hill

group spaced 12 inches apart a triangle or a square, and place a strawberry basket over the seeds.

Once the seeds germinate and they are large enough to handle, remove the basket and thin the group of seedlings to just 1 strong seedling, leaving 3-4 plants per hill. Hill planting allows the roots to spread out and gather more nutrients. To encourage vigorous feed every 2 weeks with liquid kelp and fish emulsion. When the gourds form, you may want to elevate onto a plastic flat a piece of wood to avoid damage from soil dwelling critters that may create holes in the gourds causing them to rot.


Harvesting Your Gourds
Begin to harvest your gourds when the stems and tendrils start to dry out and turn brown and the gourd rinds are tough. Cut each gourd with several inches of stem intact. Be sure to harvest your mature gourds before a hard frost to avoid damage. If you have any immature gourds left on the vines, they are best composted, because they cannot be cured and will only decay in storage.

Harvest gourds when the stem and tendrils
start to turn brown and the rind is tough,
leaving a few inches of stem intact.

Curing Gourds For Practical and Decorative Uses
To cure gourds, put them in a cool, well-ventilated area, elevated to allow good air circulation from all sides. As they dry, mold will form on gourd exteriors in the form of dark-colored dusty splotches. Don't let this concern you; gourds are about 90% water, so it is normal for natural mold to appear on their surfaces as they dry from the inside. You can easily brush or wash off the mold when the courts are completely dried and ready to use. It will actually make a pretty pattern on the gourd rinds.

Gourds are dry and ready to use for crafts when they
are lightweight and the seeds rattle inside. Note the
pretty mottled patterns that result from the drying process.

During the drying process, which can take 3 to 6 months depending on your climate, your gourds should remain completely hard, and any that begin to soften should be discarded. When gourds are very light weight, sound and feel hollow and their dried seeds rattle inside, they are completely dried up and ready to wipe off and use. Gourds are useful for many crafts; let your imagination be your guide in decorating and painting them.

Painted in bright colors these large Crafter's Gourds
make a handsome garden display

Beth’s Guide for Growing the Cucurbit Family: Cucumbers, Summer & Winter Squashes, Pumpkins, Melons & Gourds

We get many questions from gardeners about members of the cucurbit family, so our expert Garden Advisor, Beth Benjamin, has summarized her advice for successfully growing these mainstay garden vegetables. I am very pleased to add Beth’s knowledgeable and experienced voice to our blog.

Seedlings growing under a berry basket

Gourd seedlings sown 3 weeks before last frost

Ornamental Gourds

Planting: When you plant is important: all members of the cucurbit family simply won’t grow happily in the garden until the nights are staying at least 50ºF (10°C). Wait until then to start seeds in the garden to get successful germination and good growth.

When planting cucurbit seeds directly outdoors, it’s wise to cover them with netting or plastic berry baskets to keep birds or other critters from eating the seeds before you even see them.
If your growing season is very short or you have problems starting seeds outdoors (or if you are just eager) you can start cucumbers and squashes in individual pots and transplant them when it’s warm enough. They are fast growing seedlings, though, and will suffer if they get too crowded, so don’t sow them any earlier than 3 weeks before you expect to transplant them outside. (Remember that if they are grown too long in the pots, they’ll be so slow to recover from the move that you won’t have saved any time.)

Note: Unless you have a very long growing season, gourds do need to be started ahead as the fruit takes a very long time to mature. Most climates get cold weather too soon to allow enough time if the gourd seeds are sown directly.

Be careful when you are transplanting cucurbit seedlings. Don’t leave them in the containers too long to become root bound and stunted. The soil should be moist (but not soggy) in both the pots the seedlings are coming out of AND the ground they are going into. That way the roots will loosen up and lower nicely into the hole. Take care not to damage the roots, and plant them at the end of the day when they can rest after transplanting in the cool of the evening.

Seedlings growing in a mound

Planting in Depressions or Mounds: Enrich the soil in a 3 foot diameter planting circle which can either be raised up or depressed, depending on your climate. If you are trying to conserve water in a hot dry place, then scoop the circle down a little to collect water.

If it is more important to have good drainage, make a flat raised mound (only a couple of inches high).
Plant 2 or 3 plants in each circle. If you are planting the seeds directly into the garden, plant 5 or 6 and thin them out, leaving only the 3 best seedlings to grow to maturity. Properly thinned plants will be healthy and won’t need to compete for nutrients and light, so you’ll get much better results.

Vining squash growing in a bed

You can also plant squashes and cucumbers in a bed or a staggered row, leaving room for the vines to spread across the bed and a path beside it. Sow 2 or 3 seeds about 1½ feet apart, thinning to the best seedling in each group. All the cucurbits need rich soil and enough water - mulching is a good strategy to hold in soil moisture and keep down weeds at the same time.

Trellising: In a small space garden it’s a good idea to grow cucumbers up a trellis or fence. Growing the vines up also protects fruits from damage or disease from lying on moist ground. Gravity helps long cucumbers grow straighter as they are hanging down.

Gourds growing on a fence

Melons and mini-pumpkins can be trellised also, but the fruits need to be supported to keep them from tearing the vines as they get heavy. Gourd vines are very amenable to growing up wire fencing, as they are sturdy plants with strong tendrils that twine well. Vining winter squash and larger pumpkins do best left to trail on the ground with plenty of space for the vigorous vines.

Gourds growing on a metal arbor

Pollination: I get a lot of questions from gardeners concerned that they are getting flowers but no fruit.

Male & female squash flowers

Cucurbits have both male and female flowers. The female flower has a small embryonic fruit between the stem and the blossom that will fall off if it isn’t pollinated. The male has no little fruit; the flower joins the stem; and it has the pollen. Both must be blooming at the same time for the insects (bees or other little winged pollinators) to carry the pollen from the male to the female. Very often one type will bloom before the other, so if it is early in the plant’s life, I usually advise patience.

Hand-pollinating squash blossoms

If there are no flying insects to do the pollination, you can hand-pollinate in the early morning after the dew has dried but before it gets too hot, either by picking off the male flower and kissing the female flower with it, or by using a small watercolor type paintbrush and dabbing pollen from male to female flower.
 
Harvesting: It is important to harvest cucumbers, especially lemon and Armenian, before they get too big and mature. Lemon cucumbers should be a very pale yellow – when they get fully yellow colored, they are overripe and usually seedy with tough skins. If your cucumbers are bitter, it is probably because they didn’t get enough consistent watering. They need to be watered regularly; if you put your finger in the soil and it is dry beyond the first joint, the plants need water. If the fruits are misshapen, they probably didn’t get fertilized well, or are stressed from not enough water.

Summer squash like zucchini and patty pan can be picked when quite young, even before the flowers fall off, but I think the taste is best and yield is better when zucchinis are no more than 5 or 6 inches, and scallops about 3 inches. While you can pick them a little bigger, it’s important not to let them get so big that seeds develop and rinds are tough because both taste and texture will really suffer. If you check every day or two, you will rarely be trying to give away baseball bat size zucchinis. Now and again you miss picking one and you’ll have a giant to stuff or make into zucchini bread.

Hard-shelled winter squash is ready to pick when the stems are hard and the rind can’t be pierced with a thumbnail. They continue to get sweeter if they are left on the vine as long as possible, though. Before heavy frost, cut the stems about an inch above the fruit, and let them mature in the sun for 7-10 days to harden and toughen the skin. Then store in a cool dry place with good air circulation.

Do Make A Second Planting: Except in the very short season areas, it is really worth making a second planting of summer squash and cucumbers, both for salad and for pickles, in early to late June. These heat lovers grow so quickly with seed sown directly into warm summer soil and begin to ripen fruits around just six weeks! Why waste your precious garden space on old, declining squash plants, when you can plant new ones and have continuing delicious harvests to enjoy throughout the season.