Gardening tips, chic weeds and a festive dessert

(Grilled watermelon stars are topped with a pineapple-mascarpone cream)


There will be plenty of grilling this weekend with the long Fourth of July holiday — and gardening, and partying, and hopefully, some relaxing.

I made these delicious grilled watermelon stars topped with a pineapple-mascarpone cream last year. They were fun to eat and a perfect finish to a festive cookout. You can find the recipe here.

I hope to kick back and relax this weekend along with catching up on some gardening. There is plenty to pick and pack away this time of year. And there are plenty of pests to keep at bay. I am an advocate of organic gardening and try not to harm too many pests that come visit, although those Japanese beetles are likely to take a dunk in a coffee can I keep handy that has a mixture of water and Dr. Bronner's Peppermint Soap in it.



Garden pests come in all sizes and shapes.

Just look at this colorful creature — a parsley caterpillar. He's cute and all, but, boy, can he eat! By the time I noticed him chomping on the parsley, he (or she) had devoured a large stalk and was working his way through another one. Rather than kill something so beautiful that is likely to turn into a black swallowtail butterfly, I plucked him off, parsley stalk and all, and took him to another part of the property where he could eat all he wanted.


Now those families of deer that traverse my yard, nibbling outside the garden fence like it's an open call for the salad bar, they're a bit harder to repel. I try to plant every available inch of space inside and outside the garden, and inevitably, the deer will munch down a row of sunflowers or cosmos in one fell swoop. I've tried various methods of dissuading them, using cayenne pepper in bulk and sprinkling it all over the borders of the garden. It worked for a while, but I went through a lot of cayenne pepper. I think those deer got the message and retreated in a fit of sneezing. But this year I decided to try hanging bars of Irish Spring soap around the edges of the garden. I had read that it works, so I devised a method of putting half a bar in a mesh bag and tying it on a plant support and strategically placing them around the perimeter of the garden.


So far so good, although the first morning after setting out the soap bags, some critter had knocked one down and chewed on the bar! Hopefully, whatever it was scurried off for good, kind of like when Mom threatened to wash my mouth out with soap if I ever talked back to her again.



I think it might be working, though, as I had some extra tomato plants I could not find a home for in the garden and planted them in large pots outside the fence. They are still standing and growing tall.



And speaking of tall, the tomatoes inside the garden are really taking off. I've been going through a lot of tomato ties lately, supporting them to the fence and stakes. Always one to recycle and reuse things, I discovered a use for all those Velcro ties that are used to hold heads of lettuce and other produce together in the supermarket. (I hate throwing things like that away.)



They make excellent tomato ties! Simply cut them to length and twist them around the tomato stalk to the support - you don't even have to tie them, as the Velcro conveniently holds itself in place.

Those mesh bags are also recycled from the supermarket. Save the bags onions and shallots come in - you can reuse them to store bulbs or other crops. And you never know when you might need to string up a line of soap-bar defense.


On another note, I have to mention purslane, a weed that runs rampant in my garden. That's it, pictured, above. I've known for a long time it is one of those edible "weeds," a member of the portulaca family, which I often use in salads. But I had to chuckle the last time I visited the farmers market and saw it selling for $2 a pound. I could have provided a wheelbarrow full of it to sell. Purslane is a juicy succulent that has a peppery flavor. Some folks actually plant it for edible landscaping.

According to About.com:Landscaping, "Not only does purslane have leaves high in Omega-3 fatty acid, but it also has stems high in vitamin C. Omega-3 fatty acids are instrumental in regulating our metabolism. Purslane contains a very high concentration of alpha-linolenic acid - several times the concentration in spinach."

Nature truly is amazing. So next time you're out in the garden weeding, look before you pull. You never know what could end up as a nutritional boost for your salad.

Happy Fourth of July!