From Now For Later: Garden and Cooking Projects for Summer's End
© Leda Meredith
As the end of summer arrives with its honey-colored afternoons, I reluctantly start to realize that cold weather is going to return...not yet, but soon enough that I feel an urge to stock up on what is ripe and good now. Pesto goes into the freezer (see recipe below) and tomatoes get dried (how to's are at the end of this article), canned, turned into salsa and chutney. Bundles of herbs hang to dry on nails in the walls of my apartment. I start collecting seeds from my lettuce plants and having the first dreams of next year's garden. Now is also the perfect time to spend a day planting edible garden delights for next year.
On a day when you need a change from canning tomatoes and picking berries, grab a spade and start digging. Many gardeners will be thinking about planting bulbs for flowering ornamentals, but this is also when garlic needs to go in the ground and when daylilies get divided and planted. If you will be planting daylilies for the first time, you can order them from Paradise Garden.
To plant garlic, simply divide a bulb into its separate cloves and plant each one a couple of inches deep. Larger cloves will yield larger garlic bulbs next year. You want the plants to get a good start before frost arrives in your area. Next year, clip any flowers that develop so the plants continue to put their energy into bulb-making. Harvest your garlic after the tops have died back by at least 50% (that happens sometime in mid-July here in New York). "Cure" the garlic for two weeks by spreading it on a screen in a dark, airy place. Or braid the stems so that no two bulbs are touching and hang the braid away from heat and light sources. You can order organically grown garlic for planting from Seeds of Change, or you can simply buy it from the farmer's market or health food store. Once you find a variety of garlic that grows well in your garden, you can save your own for replanting each year. If you have a container garden, you can grow garlic in deep pots left outdoors over the Winter.
By now your daylily leaves have died back. Dig up the roots, and harvest some of the tubers to eat (see 'Daylilies: An Ornamental Edible'). Replant the roots further apart than they were growing, with a few tubers still attached. Next year's plants will be happier and flower even more gorgeously for having a bit more room, and meanwhile you've got a delicious crop to enjoy immediately. Some people prefer daylily tubers raw, but I like them best steamed like small potatoes and served with a bit of butter, salt and pepper. This is another garden ally that can easily be grown in containers.
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