A close up of the powdery mildew on my zucchini leaves.

Powdery mildew effects almost everyone. It occurs when it is hot and sunny outside which means it will most likely effect your plants. But don’t worry, it won’t effect the fruit! It is mostly just a nuisance.

Herbs are put into two different categories: tender and less tender. Tender herbs tend (ha!) to be herbs like oregano, mint and lemon balm. Usually these are herbs that don’t overwinter well (although I’ve never had a problem with mint). Less tender herbs are herbs like sage, rosemary, thyme, lavender and other sturdy herbs. Both of these types herbs can be dried easily but with less tender herbs you will want to dry them in a paper bag when hanging them (more details below). I used a method to dry my herbs that I found on the National Center for Home Food Preservation.

Step 1: Collect and wash your herbs

The best time to collect herbs for drying is right before they start to flower. Herbs that have already flowered will have lost a lot of their flavor. Pick your herbs on a mild day or during the morning. I always use clean and sharp shears to pick and prune my plants because it promotes good plant health. Once you have picked them, wash them gently and lay them out to dry (Fig. 1). You can also blot the herbs with a paper towel to remove any moisture. You will want to make sure that your herbs are completely dry before you start actually drying them. If they are wet they might promote mold and that sure isn’t tasty.

Step 2: Decide on your method of drying

The most common way to dry herbs is to collect them into bunches, tie them with twine and hang them indoors in a well-ventilated area. Try to pick a spot that isn’t too sunny. If you are going to dry tender herbs, cover the hanging bundles of herbs with a paper bag with some holes poked in it. This will protect the tender herbs and promote good flavor. This method can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks to dry your herbs.

Another method of drying herbs–and the method I used for this tricolor sage–is to pick each leaf off individually and dry them between sheets of paper towel in a turned off and cool oven (Fig. 2). This is the best way to dry if you live in humid areas or if you want to maintain the herb’s flat shape. This works best for sage, mint and bay. This method took 11 days to fully dry all of the herbs.

Herbs are done drying once you can easily crumble the herbs between your fingers. Don’t take any risks and store herbs that you don’t think are quite done drying: herbs that aren’t fully dry will get moldy.

Step 3: Store and enjoy!

Once your herbs are dried they are ready to store. Put them in old spice jars or in another air-tight container and keep them away from the sun. Dried herbs are much more potent than fresh herbs, so adjust your recipes that call for fresh herbs accordingly. Home dried herbs also have a lot more flavor than store-bought herbs, not to mention better color, so be careful when using your new herbs.

Dried herbs can be kept for up to a year. Toss out any herbs that have developed mold.

Tip Two: Know when to plant your seedlings. Wait until the seedling is more than 5 inches in height before planting it outdoors. When planting the seedling, make sure to bury the bottom leaves in the soil so they can turn into strong roots to support the tomato plant. You should bury about an 1.5 inches of the seedling underground. It is absolutely imperative that you do not plant your seedlings outdoors until the threat of frost has passed. If you have planted your tomatoes in April and are worried they might get too cold (they don’t like to be in temperatures below 60 degrees), cover them with a glass cloche. Usually, if you are planting your tomatoes in the ground, you shouldn’t plant the seedlings until you can walk on the soil barefoot. I’ve found that since I grow all of my plants in containers and thus the soil is kept warmer, I can start my tomatoes a little earlier than those gardeners who plant in the ground.

Tip Three: Size matters. Know the right container for your tomatoes. I couldn’t afford to buy new containers this year so I used some old 3-5 gallon gardening bins I had leftover from some bushes I bought. Determinate, or bush tomatoes, will usually grow best in that size. Indeterminate, or vining tomatoes, can grow happily in a slightly smaller container. I’ve hear some purists say that you can’t grow determinate tomatoes in containers but I’ve never had a problem, just avoid plants that will produce huge fruits. If you have determinate tomatoes, be sure to stake or cage them when they start growing past 2 feet.

Tip Four: Prune often and prune a lot in the first month. Here is where you will separate yourself from the casual tomato growers and start getting big, healthy yields. Within the first month of growing, prune all of the leaves below the first flower cluster. Prune off suckers that appear in the node where the plant leaflet meets the stem when they reach about 1.5 inches. This will ensure that all of the tomato plant’s sugar is going towards making and ripening fruit instead of making leaves. Always prune off dead or yellowed leaves. Below is a guide to pruning from Fine Gardening which is really helpful:

Tip Five: Don’t be afraid of green tomatoes when the frost comes. Hopefully, come your frost date, most of your tomatoes will have ripened, but often there are still a few green ones left on a plant. If you still have a few weeks left of the season and are noticing new flowers coming out of your plant, pinch them off. This will encourage the ones that are left to ripen. Don’t be afraid of the frost date: my biggest regret was uprooting an entire plant in early October because that week’s temperature went below 60. Sure enough, the temperature shot back up and my tomatoes would have done fine if I had left them intact for the next few weeks. However, if your frost date is fast approaching and things are looking chilly, carefully uproot your plant and make sure some of the roots are intact. Put the plant in a paper bag and hang it upside down in a cool location. The fruits will continue to ripen during the process. You don’t need to mist or soak the roots during this process, just leave the whole thing a lone for a bit of time, checking in every few days to see how things are progressing.

Enjoy your tomatoes! I will do a post about canning tomatoes pretty soon, they are my favorite thing to can.

This jam, from Doris and Jilly cook, is really great. Everyone I offer it to goes mad for it. The sweetness of the sugar is undercut by the tart gooseberry and a hint of ginger gives it a sort of candy-like, but not too-sweet, quality. Perfect if you are trying to avoid saccharine jams. One note, about the recipe since they didn’t make a note about it when it was posted: the recipe will yield about 5 half-pint jars with a half-inch head space.

(photo via Flickr)

After the jump, find out how to collect coriander seeds and tips on growing cilantro.

Fig. 1: Bolted cilantro plant

You will know your cilantro is beginning to bolt when it starts producing delicate leaves (not like the fat, dark green leaves commonly used for cooking) and starts to grow tall (Fig. 1). As you can see, the plant gets very tall, almost two feet in height! The more common cilantro leaves will begin to turn yellow and pink and these leaves have now become inedible.

Fig. 2: Cilantro flower

Eventually the cilantro plant will produce delicate white flowers (fig. 2) which are great for attracting bees and other pollinators to your garden. You still have another month or so to go until you can collect the coriander seeds, so be patient!

Fig. 3: Coriander seeds forming

Eventually, seeds or fruit will form and the flowers will fall off (fig. 3). They will eventually turn a paper bag shade of brown and the stems will become dry and brittle (this usually takes a few weeks to a month). Now your coriander is ready to be collected. What I normally do is dig up the entire plant and snip off the stems with the coriander seeds, leaving about five inches or more from the seeds. Then, I get a large container (I use a yogurt container, but a baking dish or pan would work fine), hold the stems with the seeds facing down towards my collecting container and put my thumb and index finger behind the seed. When you gently squeeze or pinch the section where the seed meets the stem, the seed will pop off and (hopefully) go into the container. It can be a long process, depending on how many coriander seeds you have, so take your time.

When you have all your seeds ready you should try to remove the chaff as best you can. I like to move the seeds from one cup to another in front of a gently blowing fan and let the chaff fall on a newspaper below me. You can also roll the seeds on a piece of paper and just pick up the seeds from the chaff. Once you have done this, I like to spread my seeds on a piece of white paper to let them thoroughly dry: if your seeds go into storage moist they are subject to mold. After that, collect the seeds and put them in an airtight container–like an old spice bottle or a baby food jar–and save them in a cool, dark place.

You can use your coriander for cooking–they go great in a lot of Mediterranean and Indian dishes and they are also often used when making sausages–or you can try to grow cilantro from the seeds when the next spring comes around. Depending on where you got your original cilantro from, the seeds might not produce a plant like the one you got your seeds from. However, it is worth a try to see how the seeds come out.

If you want to keep your cilantro from bolting you can try to prune the flowers once they appear to keep the plant growing (a trick that often works well for bolting basil) but cilantro has a pretty short life span. If you live in a warm climate, you can sow cilantro seeds every six weeks and keep your plan indoors (facing a sunny window, of course) to ensure a long supply of yummy green leaves. In my experience, cilantro doesn’t preserve well and few dishes call for dried cilantro so you are better off continuing to grow the annual plant indoors if you have a real craving.