Shelia Bustillos Reynolds has taught canning classes for Edible San Marcos twice now and she is awesome.  She has started a canning blog called “Put a Lid on It”.  Make sure to check out the link.

Cleaning the interior of you refrigerator should be a easy task  Your fridge can absorb odors if it is not cleaned properly, and you do not want your food smelling or tasting funny.

Dissolve 2 Tablespoons of Baking soda in 4 cups of warm water and wipe out your fridge. Simple and fresh.

Bobcat Build 2011

We have had a busy year so far.  Our school gardens have been doing quite well but they were in need of a helping hand. The school year became quite busy and Bobcat Build came along  on April 9 . It is a great time of  extra help from the students at the University.  They are very eager to help. It is so helpful for the people of the community as well. We had over 72 volunteers help us this year.   They came out to the gardens at Hernandez Elementary, De Zavala, Mendez Elementary, St. Vincent De Paul Food Bank Garden and the Community Garden.

Working at Hernandez

On top of it all we had a booth at the Farmer’s Market on April 9 and Carrie Davis from Davis Photography watched our booth for us.

Hernandez Garden

After that Earth day was right on our tail.  Carolyn Gonzales and Michelle Purvin helped us out at the Earth Day Booth this year.  Pam Priest thank you for coming out to help at the gardens. To all of our volunteers, thank you, we could not do it without you! And to our teachers thank you for teaching our children and guiding them each and every day. 

Now is the season for the coveted garlic scapes that only come around once a year for two to three weeks, so don’t miss it!   Scapes are the tender flower shoots that hardneck garlic produce. You want to harvest them just after they break the soil and start to curl.  Of course if you missed it and they are tall or even started flowering don’t worry.  You are still about to enjoy a wonderful delicacy.  Make sure to harvest the scapes or flowers in the heat of the day.  Yes, you heard that right.  I know it is unusual you never hear me tell you to harvest produce in the heat.  Let me explain why.  If you harvest the scapes in the morning the plant will weep for hours and that is not good .  You want the plant to sear over and heal quickly, this is the reason for cutting in the heat of the day.

If you do not want to give it a whirl and try a new thing, you still need to cut off the scapes or flowers.  The energy needed for bulb formation will go into the flower and you do not want that.  Give your garlic and onion heads a chance to form and cut the flower stalk at the base.  Scape shoots can be used like green onion.

Scapes Cont. from PG 1

Recipes and Preserving

There are a few methods of preserving these little potent gems.  Scapes can be stored in a plastic bag for up to 3 months in the refrigerator. You can also store them by putting them in a jar and alternating them with salt. Let it cure just as you would sauerkraut.  Or you can pickle them using the dilly bean recipe, making sure to blanch them first.  Freezing works but you loose the asparagus like texture.  Stir fry scapes into just about any recipe any you have a great treat.  Scape pesto is the top suggested use by far.  If your garlic scapes have gone too far and now have flowered don’t fear.  The flowers make a wonderful addition to salads.  Both onion and garlic flowers are delicious raw and cooked just snip apart and enjoy!  And Stir fry the green part in anything that I want an onion or garlic flavor with an asparagus consistency.  Here is a good  link for garlic scape recipes

http://www.recipecircus.com/cgi-bin/recipes/category.cgi?category=GarlicScapes&login=garliclady

Scape or Onion Bug Juice

Garlic Stalks For Bug Repellant

Not so hip on eating garlic scapes and onion flowers?  You can still put them to good use in the garden.  Make an aphid repellent out of them.  Take your garlic and onion flower stalks and heads and toss them in the blender or food processor with water.  then add 2 tsp of cayenne pepper.  Put it in a stainless steel or glass container to ferment for 24 hours.  It will turn from green to a brownish color.  Strain it first through a metal sieve to remove the heavy solids,which go in the compost.  Then strain it through a cheesecloth.  Dilute with water and use a hand sprayer. You can add 1/2 tsp of dish soap for heavy aphid infestations.

For garlic scape risotto see this recipe

On May 23 from 6:30-8:30 pm we will learn how to use a dichotomous key to identify woody stem plants. You will receive a hand out. We will be at out new home the Nature Center located at 430 Riverside Drive. This will be a great meeting place with lots of room inside and out close to our mission. Bridgett Phillips will be our guide for our walk and teach us how to use the dichotomous key to identify plants.  We will walk around the nature center and surrounding areas.  We will be having a brief meeting afterward with job descriptions for new officers to be elected. Come and join in on the fun, sign up to be a volunteer or an officer today as well.

A contest can be a lot of fun so we are challenging you to grow tomatoes, and we want to see pictures.  Take pictures of your first tomato of the season.  The person with the first outdoor tomato, not in a greenhouse will win a pack of heirloom tomato seeds. Send your photo with the date into ediblesanmarcos@gmail.com

There is another contest for the plant with the most tomatoes on it at one time, take photos.  Count the tomatoes, and take pictures we want to see how many you have on the plant at one time.  The deadline for the number of tomatoes will be Deadline is July 30.

At another point this summer we will do the biggest and best tasting tomatoes where we will have a judging downtown. So stay tuned.  As you can tell we are interested in your garden.  We want to get pictures and see how your garden is growing. Send in pictures so we can share your garden with others.

If you want to be a successful gardener in Central Texas you need to know what varieties to grow and when to plant them.  These are two crucial items that will play a big role in whether your garden will succeed or not. Let me explain a little further.  Scarlet runner beans are a beautiful bean coveted for the beautiful edible flower.  It grows in the northern states without a problem.  In Texas you can grow it in the very early spring but it is tricky as our weather turns hot so very fast. Therefore it is not a recommended crop as it burn out really fast.  Now the Rattlesnake pole bean however grows like crazy and performs well in the heat.  It is made for  the heat as are tepary beans which are also drought tolerant.

All of the seeds on this list are open pollinated.  This means that you can keep the seeds from the current year and save them for the next.

All of the varieties have been grown and tested for a minimum of three years.  You cannot grow a crop for one year and say it does well.  You need to have a trail that is consistent.

If you grow an open pollinated vegetable that is not on the list please email me and let me know.  Please let me know how long you have been growing it.  I will collect information.  Even if you have only grown it for one year it will help as it will add up if many of you email.  We need to all work together. If you have been growing it for three years it can go directly on the list. Sharing is a valuable resource that gardeners have with each other.

The list is also posted under our Library tab any time you want to go and look at it.

Seed Varieties List Page 1

Seed Varieties List Page 2

Seed Varieties List page 3