WOULD THE REAL (BEST) OREGANO PLEASE STAND UP
What’s in a Name
Ripe tomatoes bring to mind tomato sauce; tomato sauce brings to mind oregano. You would think that all that you needed to do to get oregano would be to mosey on down to the local seed store to pick up a plant or a packet of seeds, or send away to your favorite mail order nursery, right? Wrong!
Pizza
Oregano is, botanically, Origanum vulgare, a hardy perennial that sometimes parades under the names perennial marjoram, wild marjoram, or pot marjoram. As you can see, confusion is already creeping in. Marjoram is also the name of another herb. (Pronounce “marjoram,” with the accent on the first syllable, so the word sounds much like “margarine.”) Read more
EVERYONE LOVES GARLIC BUT ME
Influence of Planting Date on Head Size
I no longer grow “stinking roses” but when I did, it was the one vegetable that I was most likely to forget to plant each year. After all, although garlic, “the stinking rose,” is planted at the end of the season along with lettuce, endive, and radish, it’s not harvested along with these other vegetables, which all ripen or are at their best in the cool moistness of autumn. No, garlic ripens almost a year after planting, in the heat of summer. Nonetheless, now is a good time to plant garlic — and here’s a reminder for you.
Separating garlic cloves in head
True, many gardeners plant garlic in early spring and reap decent crops. And those of you who are more savvy — or who have done some reading on the subject — plant in late fall, which is when gardening books and magazine articles direct you to plant.
But let’s examine the logic of planting garlic in spring versus late fall versus late summer. Read more
SMUT POPPING OUT OF YOUR EARS
Spongy Galls, Mmmm
Smut doesn’t sound like something that you would want in your corn patch — anywhere, in fact. The dictionary says that smut can be, among other things, obscene language or anything that blackens like soot. The smut I am referring to is a disease of grasses, and corn, being a botanical grass, can get smut.
You probably have at some time seen smut popping out of your ears. Spongy galls, looking like corn kernels that have been pumped up with steroids and painted silvery gray, ooze from between the husks. 
Within days, the galls darken, then burst open to release powdery, olive brown spores. Not a pretty sight to most corn growers. Read more
