Western Garden Centers

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veggies

Roasted Artichoke

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Roasted ArtichokeIf you want to impress your dinner guests, serve them this fabulous roasted artichoke!  It may take a long time in the oven, but with only a couple of minutes of prep, it can be roasting while you prepare your meal, weed the garden or take a nap!  And the flavor it develops from roasting is well worth the wait.  As you may have noticed by now, roasting is one of our favorite ways to prepare veggies!  If you like it steamed or boiled, try it roasted and you may never go back!  We served this with a delicious garlic-cilantro-lime aioli that was made in the blender in about 30 seconds!  Click here for this yummy recipe, you will love it!

 

To eat your artichoke, pull the leaves off, dip the part of the leaf that was attached to the artichoke in your sauce, put it in your mouth, close your teeth on the leaf, and pull outward.  The soft, delicious part of the leaf will come off the more fibrous, woody part.  Discard the leaf when you have eaten the soft part.  Enjoy!

Roasted artichoke 2

Baked Zucchini Fries

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Baked Zucchini Fries 2Baked zucchini fries are not only fast and easy to make, but it’s a great way to use all that zucchini in your garden when your plants are giving you more than you can use (and give away!).  This makes a great summer side, and it’s a great alternative for zucchini when you’re tired of zucchini bread, brownies & cake!

These baked zucchini fries can be prepped in less than 5 minutes, then just toss them in the oven while you worry about the rest of your meal.  They are crispy and delicious and they go great with just about any main dish!  Whether you’re grilling burgers or broiling chicken, these will be a great addition to your meal.

Baked Zucchini Fries 1

Berry Green Smoothie

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Berry Green Smoothie 2 If you are looking for a little variety in your green smoothie repertoire , try this Berry Green Smoothie!  It’s loaded with greens, but still has enough fruit to make it sweet for my picky kids.  Green smoothies are the best when it comes to great nutrition that I can actually get IN my kids!

Smoothies are great for getting fruits and veggies in kids and adults alike.  If you have a hard time getting your kids to eat a variety of veggies, try juicing small amounts of your vegetable choice and putting it in a smoothie.  It will give them added nutrition while helping them acquire a taste for those veggies they think they don’t like!  Sometimes all it takes is a little exposure for kids to realized they actually do like it!…

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Roasted Broccoli

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Roasted Broccoli 2 We discovered roasted broccoli last year at our house, and veggies have never been the same.  I don’t steam broccoli anymore because roasting is so easy and delicious, and holds more of the nutrition in.  Great as a simple side dish, or even to go in a casserole, you will love roasted broccoli!

We wanted carrots to go with our broccoli, so I added a big handful to the bag before I tossed it with the avocado oil.  They finished roasting at the same time, and they were a fabulous addition to our meal!  I added freshly ground Real Salt and pepper, and they tasted buttery when they came out of the oven!  Since no butter is used (but we love butter at our house!) it was a healthier choice with all the flavor! Roasted Broccoli main Avocado oil is my go-to oil for roasting because it has such a high smoke point (500 degrees!).  Other oils can be substituted for roasting, but since this is my current favorite, it’s what I list in the recipe.

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Snail Beer Trap

Snail Beer Trap

Ingredients

  • 2 disposable plastic cups
  • an old pencil
  • a can of beer OR DIY Yeast Snail Bait
  • DIY Yeast Snail Bait:
  • 1 Tbsp of flour
  • 1 tsp of sugar
  • 1 tsp of yeast
  • 2 cups of water

Instructions

  1. Dig a hole to fit one of the cups in your vegetable or flower garden, near your plants.
  2. Place one cup inside the hole, making it level with the ground, so the snails don't have to climb far.
  3. Carefully poke 4 drainage holes in the bottom of the remaining cup. Poke two more holes near the top, just under the lip, for the pencil to go through. This will ensure a gap between the cups so you can easily remove the top one to dispose of the snails the next morning.
  4. Place the cup with the holes and pencil inside the cup buried in the ground.
  5. Pour the beer or DIY Yeast Snail Bait inside the cup, leaving about an inch of headspace. The snails will climb down into the cup, and drown in the beer.
https://westerngardens.com/roasted-broccoli/
*I start checking mine at 10 minutes, but it usually takes 15.  Smaller pieces may be done more quickly than larger pieces.

Raised Garden Beds

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Garden Box Collage Main

Raised garden beds have become very popular in recent years, and for good reason.  Growing more food in less space with less work sounds too good to be true, but it’s not!   If you are thinking about taking the plunge and building raised beds for your garden, we’ve included links to 12 different tutorials for raised beds.

Why Raised Beds?

Less Compacted Soil.  Roots (and worms!) need air space in the soil to grow, so if you’re stepping in your garden beds, you are compacting the soil and destroying that important air space!  For more information about compost and soil amending, see this blog post all about it.

Deeper Soil.  The deeper the roots can grow, the healthier your plants will be and the better your harvest.  It is often suggested to line  the bottom of your garden box with cardboard or black weed barrier cloth, but this will prevent your roots from growing as deep as they want.  Try it without and see how your garden grows!

Weed Control.  Your veggies will be further from the grass and weeds in your yard, but you will also be able to plant more densely…crowding out weeds that would otherwise grow.

Grow More in Less Space (with less work!)  Traditionally, our gardens have always had narrow rows for plants and wide rows for walkways.  There is no real reason to design your garden this way, except maybe because it’s how your grandparents gardened.  If you have wider rows for your plants, you can fit much more than if you were to plant single rows.  Utilize your space more efficiently and you can grow more in your garden than ever before!

Here is a great link to another good article about raised garden beds and on how to build a raised garden bed.

Check out these great tutorials for raised garden beds!

Garden Box Collage

 Rectangle Garden Boxes    |   Vinyl Garden Boxes

Garden Bed CollageU-Shaped Garden Box   |   Narrow Garden Box

Garden Box Collage 3Long Garden Boxes   |   Cinder Block Garden Box

Garden Box Collage 4Garden Box with Brick Border   |   Tall Garden Box

Raised Beds Collage 5Rolling Casters Patio Box   |   Painted Garden Box with Cage

Garden Box Collage 5Raised Garden Boxes   |   Vertical Pallet Planter

Let us know what kind of raised beds you have in your garden, or what you plan to try!

Happy Gardening!

Companion Planting 101

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Companion planting can help your garden flourish in ways it never has before.  You can have healthier plants and a better harvest (and even control some garden pests!) by choosing with care which plants go together and which plants to keep apart.  Companion planting isn’t difficult once you have a few basics down.  This is, however, a very broad subject, so we’ll cover the basics here to get you started!  Through companion planting you can:

  • enhance the flavor of your harvest (plants like herbs can enhance the flavor of nearby plants)
  • increase your yield (some plants help others grow better)
  • improve nitrogen (some plants can make nitrogen available to other plants)
  • repel pests (the biochemicals of certain plants can repel insect and other pests)
  • attract good guys (beneficial insects are attracted to or like to inhabit certain plants)
  • divert pests (certain plants attract pests, which can keep them away from your garden)
Companion Plants

{The list looks small, just click on it to enlarge!}

companion plants
Other highly beneficial plants to consider for your garden:
  • catmint: deters ants
  • chamomile: helps keep nearby plants healthy
  • foxglove: lends strength and longer life to nearby plants
  • lavender: attracts bees and deters caterpillars, mice, ticks & rabbits
  • marigolds: deter pests
  • marjoram: repels insect pests, attracts bees
  • mint: repels insects pests, attracts beneficial insects
  • nettles: a weed, but it excretes nutrients into the soil and protects against aphids, black fly & mildew
  • pennyroyal: deters ants & burrowing insects
  • soybeans: nourishes and reconditions soil, and deters corn pests
  • tansy: repels pests
  • tarragon: beneficial to nearby plants
  • yarrow: good for veggies & herbs, attracts beneficial bugs

Bruschetta squareOne of our favorite combinations for the garden is one of our favorite combinations for the kitchen…tomatoes and basil!  Basil will add subtle flavor to tomatoes, makes it more disease resistant, and repel aphids, fruit flies & house flies, and it will attract bees!  If you missed last week’s recipe for
bruschetta, a simple but amazing combination of tomatoes and basil,  be sure to pin it so you can make it this summer!  We will keep bringing you weekly garden-fresh recipes to give some kitchen inspiration for all those delicious fruits and veggies!

Happy planting!

Roasted Vegetable Salad

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If you are in a salad rut, including roasted vegetables is a great way to add color, texture, flavor and dimension…with minimal effort!  Roasting vegetables is not just easy to do, but it also brings out a wonderful flavor that is surprisingly delicious when paired with fresh lettuce and a cooked egg.

Roasted Vegetable Salad main

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Avocado & Slow-Roasted Tomato Toast

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Roasting is one of my favorite ways to cook veggies, as I mentioned in my post about roasted asparagus.  Tomatoes are another reason why.  Slow roasting concentrates their flavors, making even so-so tomatoes wonderfully delicious and tender…similar to how a slow-cooker can turn a tough cut of meat into a tender and juicy dish. If garden-fresh tomatoes aren’t in season but you need a fix, this is a perfect way to prepare them to get maximum flavor from a less-than-flavorful store bought tomato!

slow roasted tomato toast 3 pin

The flavors of roasted vegetables are deep and rich.  The tomatoes come out juicy and soft and the garlic will spread right into the toast.  slow roasted tomato avocado toast collage

Slow-Roasted Tomato & Avocado Toast

Ingredients:

  • 4 medium tomatoes, halved
  • 8 cloves garlic, unpeeled
  • 2-3 Tbsp olive or avocado oil
  • dried Italian seasoning (or 2 sprigs fresh herbs)
  • freshly ground sea salt & black pepper
  • 2 avocados
  • 1-2 tsp lime juice
  • 8 toasted french bread slices
  • balsamic reduction*

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees.  Place the garlic cloves and tomatoes, cut-side up, in a baking dish.  Drizzle with oil and sprinkle with Italian seasoning, salt & pepper.
  2. Roast for about 1 hour & 45 minutes (up to two hours). Tomatoes should be slightly reduced in size and skins should be puckered.
  3. Check the garlic after about 1 hour 15 minutes.  They might be done before the tomatoes.  Remove if done, continue roasting if not.
  4. Tomatoes can be served right away, or refrigerated for up to 5 days in an airtight container.
  5. To assemble the toast, begin by toasting 8 slices of french bread.
  6. Peel and pit the avocado and mash with lime juice.
  7. Remove the peel from a clove of roasted garlic and spread it over a slice of toast.  Spread avocado mixture over the garlic.  Top the avocado with a roasted tomato, and drizzle with balsamic reduction.

slow roasted tomato toast 6 square*To reduce balsamic vinegar, add 1 cup to a saucepan over medium heat.  Stir frequently for about 10 minutes, or until balsamic is reduced to desired consistency.  It will thicken as it cools, so remove it from the heat before it looks completely done.

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Tips for Early Spring Gardening

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Haven’t started thinking about your garden yet for this year?  Still deciding if you should start your very first garden?  Looking for some inspiration?  Now is a great time to start, and we want to make it easier by giving you a few tips we’ve learned over the years.  Whether you are a beginner or a seasoned gardener, you should find something helpful!

Start Small

  • If you have never planted a garden before, start small so you don’t overwhelm yourself and give up.  Choose 3-5 of your favorite veggies or fruits.  If you have more favorites than that, choose the produce that is the most expensive to buy at the store or farmer’s market!

Make it Easy

  • If you are starting your garden from seed, you want to avoid regular soil, which can carry diseases that your tiny seedling won’t be able to combat well.  Use a seedling starter mix.  We like to add some water to the mix before pulling it out of the bag!  This way it stays evenly moist during the germination process.
  • Mike from our Sandy store demonstrated this on a great gardening segment for our local news channel.  You can see him adding the water here before they pull any potting mixture out of the bag.  We are working on getting a link to the actual video so we can show you his other great tips!

gardening news spot

Protect

  • If you want to get your veggies outside and into the ground right now, just be sure to protect them from frost.  A wall o’ water is a great way to protect individual plants, the wall of water surrounding the plant will insulate it from any cold nights that will hit.  The average last frost date in Utah is May 15th, so a good rule of thumb is to protect your tender plants until about Mother’s Day.
  • Ever tried to fill a wall o’ water?  It can be tricky!  Check out our quick video tip to see a fast & easy way to do it.  Subscribe to our YouTube channel for more great gardening tips!

Grow Boxes

  • If you are trying your hand at container gardening/grow boxes/raised beds, make sure they are the right size for you!  You should be able to reach into the middle with your hand…so when you are building them, measure with the span of your arm.  This is so when you are weeding, caring for your plants, and harvesting, you will be able to reach comfortably into the center of the bed.
  • If you are doing a vertical container garden, make your boxes a few inches smaller than this so you can reach the fruits & veggies that are growing up high.
  • Try to get 8-10 inches of soil in your grow box.  The roots of your plants will be happier if they can get this far down into the soil.

Compost

  • Add a 2-3 inch layer of compost to your garden beds, the nutrients will seep down into your soil, and weeds will be kept at bay.

Pace Yourself

  • Try to do a little gardening every day, rather than saving it all for the weekend.  Weekly gardening can seem overwhelming, but 15 minutes a day will keep the weeds down and spirits up!

There are as many good gardening ideas as there are gardeners.  If you have a great tip you want to share with us, please leave us a comment!  We might just feature you in an upcoming blog post!

Happy Planting!

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