Lavender - The Scent of Relaxation in Your Herb Garden

by Hans Dekker

Amongst the many types of lavender, three main varieties stand out; English, French, and Italian lavender. Some have been hybridized and these are easily grown hardy, though you can't grow the seeds, as they will revert back to the original plant. The hybridized plants have larger flowers; so if looks are what you are after, go for it.

If you intend to harvest for the oil, or to make lavender pillows, the English lavender has the strongest scent. It is the most popular lavender, with its compact bushy growth reaching about 3 feet high. It has silvery pointed leaves and tiny mauve flowers grow at the end of long stems. Different colored flowers, from white through to pinks, blues and mauves, are available and the highest concentration of oil is in the flowers.

French lavender is considered the most hardy of all, reaching a height of about five feet. If the spent blooms are snipped off regularly it will bloom for nearly nine months of the year, giving good value for money and time. The blooms cut off can be dried and used for pot-pourri or sleep pillows. So can the leaves. Given a sunny spot, it will reward you with a greater depth of colour in the blooms.

Italian lavender is the baby of the three, growing to only about two feet high. It is a bit scarcer, but well worth cultivating if you can find it. Its leaves are tiny, smooth and pointed and although similar in many respects to the other lavenders, it is still different enough to form a good contrast. It flowers from mid-winter to early summer and will make a most attractive small hedge or groundcover, the deep mauve flowers covering the bush profusely. It is not as highly perfumed as the other two lavenders.

The best time to pick lavender flowers for drying is just before the last flowers have opened. Do it on a dry day while it is still cool to retain the oil essence. Hang in a shady, airy place to dry out and then strip the flowers from the stems and store in airtight containers. Lavender is most effective visually if grown as a hedge or with several bushes grouped together. They all like a sunny well-drained position.

Lavender is used as a remedy for giddiness and faintness. It calms and relaxes and cosmetically is good for oily skin.

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Hans is an avid gardener and writes for Gardening-Guides.com. Visit us for more articles on herb gardening

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Tomatoes: Harvesting History and Health

by Annette Welsford

Spaghetti sauce, ketchup, salsa, and soup--none would be the same without tomatoes. It is hard to imagine a life devoid of this delectable fruit. Fruit? Tomatoes are the reproductive part of the tomato plant, so botanically speaking they are fruits. However, for horticultural and culinary purposes, tomatoes are vegetables because they are most often used in savory dishes. Tomatoes were not always so popular, though. They had a rough history from the mountains of Peru to our dining room tables.

Tomatoes in History: Tomato plants originated in the "New World," or western hemisphere. Most likely originating in Peru, tomatoes were domesticated into the plants we know today in Central America. Hundreds of years of cultivation changed a weedy, seemingly useless plant into a prolific producer of tasty fruit.

Brought to the Mediterranean regions by Spanish Conquistadors, and used widely for centuries, it took much longer for Europeans to embrace the tomato. Tomatoes are part of the plant family "Solanaceae," the potato family. Eggplants, potatoes and tomatoes all share the same genes. The potato family is also the family of deadly nightshade, which contributed to long-held beliefs that tomatoes were poisonous. Tomato plants are similar in appearance to Nightshade plants. Folkloric beliefs relayed that witches used nightshade plants to summon werewolves. The common name for tomatoes was "wolf peach." Linnaeus, upon adopting and applying the modern day system of bionomial nomenclature, named the tomato Lycopersicon esculentum, which translates as "edible wolf peach."

Tomatoes were not widely accepted, cultivated and eaten in European and North American countries until the mid-nineteenth century, when the myth of tomatoes as quick avenues to poisoning were put to rest. In the United States, tomato cultivation took off in 1820, when Colonel Robert Johnson ate a basket full of tomatoes in a public square to put to rest rumors of tomatoes' ill effects. During this time, most people still grew their own vegetables, and eagerly began growing tomatoes in their garden plots. These 19th Century garden plots are where the heirloom varieties of tomatoes, so treasured today, were cultivated, differentiated, and preserved.

Health Benefits of Tomatoes: Once people began growing and harvesting their own tomatoes, there was no stopping the popularity of the vegetable. Tomatoes are great sources of vitamin C and Potassium, each essential nutrients for health. The most celebrated nutrient in tomatoes is Lycopene, the red pigment in tomatoes. Lycopene contributes to health benefits such as reduction in risk of developing many types of cancers. Lutein, another element in tomatoes contributes to health of the retina of the eye, and to heart and vascular health.

Tomatoes are tremendously versatile, and can be eaten cooked or raw, whole or pureed, in salsas, soups, sauces, and in salads. Health benefits are best realized when tomatoes are cooked with a bit of healthy oil. Cooking helps break the cell walls of the plant, releasing nutrients. Healthy oils such as olive oil aid in absorption of vitamins and nutrients in tomatoes.

From their scraggly, weedy and dubious beginnings, tomatoes have become a staple in cultures all over the world. Prized for their flavor and their health benefits, tomatoes are a fixture of modern cuisine.

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Annette Welsford is author and publisher of "How To Grow Juicy Tasty Tomatoes." For more information, and to purchase the book, visit bestjuicytomatoes.com.

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Locavores Love Home Grown Food

by Diana Walker

No it's not a recently discovered species of dinosaurs. The term locavore describes someone that likes to eat locally grown food. It's a trend that is not only good for the environment but good for small farmers and local agricultural industries.

The eat local trend is all about eating foods that do not need to be shipped thousands of miles before landing on your grocery shelf. It's about eating food that does not have to be laden with artificial substances to ensure that it lasts way beyond its natural period of freshness. Most importantly it's about adjusting our diets to eat food that is in season for the regions we live in and it's this last point that can be difficult for some.

Many of us have become accustomed to being able to purchase popular produce like strawberries and asparagus during times of the year when they are out of season for our region. That convenience has a significant impact on the environment when that strawberry has to be shipped via air or roadway from California to Ohio. According to the Washington non-profit group, Worldwatch, food sold in American supermarkets travels on average about 1,500 miles from the farm to the consumer. This represents a 25% increase from 1980.

That is a lot of fuel consumption and pollution creation all to satisfy our penchant for out of season and out of region foods. The challenge for supporters of the local food movement is to discover tasty and interesting diets that can be grown within a 100-300 mile radius of communities.

Do you know what kinds of local produce are available at different times of the year in your community? One of the best places to start this research is at your local farmers' market, food co-op or organic food store. In fact any local food shop that is focused on carrying healthy locally and ethically grown food should be able to give you some advice.

Community Supported Agriculture or CSAs are another new development in the local food movement that is helping to make the locavore lifestyle more sustainable. CSAs are an agricultural business model that helps to connect local organic growers directly with customers. They help struggling farmers to connect with a steady customer base.

Certain seasons are more difficult than others for locavores. It's no surprise that wintertime CSA distributions may have less variety than summertime distributions; but with come creativity and wonderful winter recipes eating local can be very tasty. Winter CSA distributions tend to include root vegetables that the farms have stored in cellars in addition to freshly harvested produce. Choices of produce for those of us in northern climates may include potatoes, kale, carrots, parsnips, leeks, beets and rutabagas.

The popularity of the locavore as a movement is helping to educate consumers about the nutritional and ecological benefits of eating locally. The more consumers know the more they will demand the choice and availability of home grown food. This is great news for small farmers and entrepreneurs who all contribute to the home grown food we've all come to love and to re-discover with great enthusiasm.

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For over 20 years, Diana Walker has assisted people like you in using natural, safe options for creating vibrant health and well-being. Get her gems of wisdom and healthy recipes mini- e-book via her free newsletter at: diana2.com.

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Magnolias in Colorado

Enthusiast Roots For Magnolias in Colorado
By DAVE PHILIPPS - THE GAZETTE
April 11, 2007 - 9:08AM

If anything could have proven that magnolias don’t belong in Colorado, it would have been this winter’s seemingly endless train of storms and subzero mornings.

But on a recent afternoon, the magnolias in Lee Nicholos’ yard started unfurling bright, fragrant flowers.

“The winter tried to kill my girls and tried to kill ’em, but it can’t kill ’em,” Nicholos said as he paced through the 29 varieties of magnolias starting to leaf out in his yard on Platte Avenue.

Nicholos, 41, seems an unlikely evangelist of the flowering tree. Tall and thin, he wears a bandanna, has a wild, pointy goatee and talks with the bravado of a street fighter. But he has a master’s degree in horticulture and has spent years collecting seeds of hardy magnolias from the foothills of the Himalayas and the snowy reaches of Hawaiian volcanoes.

At his small stucco house downtown, he’s planted the seeds and waged a campaign to convince people that these trees, usually associated with steamy Southern afternoons, can thrive in Colorado.

Read the entire article here.