Garlic Early Italian Purple

Since most people worldwide sauté or bake their garlic before eating it, the researchers wanted to know if cooking reduced garlic's blood-thinning effects. They also wanted to see what impact crushing the garlic before cooking had on its ability to bust up artery-clogging platelets.

After boiling, baking and microwaving both crushed and uncrushed cloves of garlic and evaluating them for their antiplatelet activity, the scientists learned that lightly cooked, crushed garlic provides most of the health benefits found in raw garlic. The only exception was microwaving, which stripped garlic almost entirely of its blood-thinning effects.

The researchers contend that while heating might be generally blamed for reducing garlic's antiplatelet activity, it's the crushing that enables the beneficial compounds to be freed in the first place.

This information is from the ARS News Service (Agricultural Research Service), USDA.

Oakleaf Hydrangea

DO NOT, I cannot stress this enough – DO NOT cut hydrangeas back in the late summer, fall, winter, or spring. The only time you should prune hydrangeas is right after they bloom. It isn’t necessary to prune them at all unless you want to confine them to a smaller space than they were meant for or to shape them up into a tidy tight shrub.

So, how do you take those beautiful flowers for bouquets and drying? The safest way is to cut the stem only to just before the next set of buds. If you need long stems, then wire the stems to florist picks.

Hydrangea 'Forever and Ever'

For the best size and number of flowers, use a fertilizer with an N-P-K ratio of 10-30-10 or something similar. A high middle number promotes blossoms.

The pH of the soil promotes the pink or blue flower color of big-leaf (Macrophylla) hydrangeas. Low pH produces blue flowers, high pH produces pink flowers. The time of year you apply pH-altering soil amendments will determine if you are successful in changing blossom colors.

First, get a soil test to determine your natural soil pH. This may change over the years as you add amendments to your soil.

Hydrangea 'Nikko Blue'

If your soil is acid and you dream of pink flowers, work lime into the soil in the fall and winter. Lime takes several months to work, so adding it during the growing season will have little to no effect. Pink flowers occur when the soil pH is 6.0 or higher.

Remember, these color changes work on Hydrangea macrophylla only. Oakleaf hydrangeas (Hydrangea quercifolia), Hydrangea arborescens (‘Annabelle’ is a popular one) and the Hydrangea paniculatas like Pinky Winky™ will not be affected by the soil pH.

If you hurry, you might find some of the hydrangeas Buy One, Get One Free at the Park Seed website. The sale ends Friday May 30.

---Posted by Coach Anne, May 28 2008--- 

QUESTION: Zone 9 Gardener from Texas. The turnips and the other greens still haven’t come up but it’s only been about 12 days. We have hard black soil. What’s wrong?

ANSWER: I’ve seen that black soil. It looks so good from a distance, and is so hard up close! This is really late to be planting greens in Texas Zone 9. It is possible that the soil is already too warm for the seeds to sprout. If they do not come up, plan on a fall/winter garden to grow greens. Go to http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/plantanswers/fallgarden/falldirect.html for a list of fall planting dates in your Texas region.

The spring planting guide is here:

http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/plantanswers/earthkind/ekgarden14.html

There is a new way to Go Green, if you do not mind giving your address to strangers! The website it called Freecycle™. It is an international recycling organization. Here you can post what you have to give away – things like lawnmowers, printers, plants, books, furniture, the list is endless.

This is a site where you can reuse unwanted items from your neighbors and keep good stuff out of the landfills. Get rid of an old ladder or those extra plants that have popped up in your garden. Finish a project with leftover material from someone else’s home improvement. Instead of sending those bags of leaves to the landfill, give them to someone who loves to compost.

From the website: "(Freecycle™) is *not* a place to just go get free stuff for nothing. It *is* a place to give or receive what you have and don't need or what you need and don't have -- a free cycle of giving which keeps stuff out of landfills."

The listings are by city and joining is free. The site is non-profit. Each city has a local volunteer moderator. http://www.freecycle.org/