Sweet Potatoes

Well the weathermen finally got their act together and agreed it was getting cold and not warm. Sweet potatoes don't really like the cold and the roots can start to degrade in temperatures under 55F so it was time to harvest. When I went out to harvest I found a friend on the sweet potatoes. I've never seen a praying mantis in any of my gardens before. I was wondering if they even existed here in Massachusetts. But as you can see they do. I wonder if he will come back in future years. Before taking apart the bed I moved him into the mustard patch.

My first chore was to remove all the foliage so I could get at the ground. The foliage was very very thick.

Then I had to dig them all up. The Beauregard and the Garnet grow like you would expect. With sweet potatoes growing down from the crown of the plant. But the Purple is very different in growth habit. It winds its way all over, often horizontally. There are often no sweet potatoes under the original plant at all. But they go everywhere. For some reason they liked to follow right under the board of my raised bed.

Though some even escaped their box and went into the mustard box. The left side is where that sweet potato started from. The right side is the mustard bed. I found a lot of purples just over the border in the mustards and even some in the path. They also often don't grow like most sweet potatoes in that they are long and thin. The longest was about two feet long and two inches wide. I did break it into several sections as cooking a long sweet potato like that seemed ridiculous. And after curing it will keep just as well.

And here is the final pile. I harvested almost 30 pounds in a 4'x8' section. Last year I got over 60 pounds in about twice that much space, but then I was trialing varieties and many of those didn't perform well. These are the varieties that did well last year, so I expected about 40 pounds. I'll probably talk more about what did best on Harvest Monday.

Applesauce and Gleaning

You might think that applesauce and gleaning go together, but not this time. They are two separate events. The applesauce made above was finished yesterday. Already one and a half jars have been eaten. I think I need to put up more this year as my daughter can go through a lot of applesauce. Between my husband and myself we go through about 20 pint jars a year. With her added I'm sure 30 would be a good amount to shoot for. I know a lot of you non-applesauce eaters think it might be a lot, but it is just a serving every other week. And unlike some of you we love it just plain as a snack, or a side for lunch.

The gleaning would have been nice if it were apples, but it was greens. I volunteered through the Boston Area Gleaners, who glean produce from farmers and it gets sent to area food banks and shelters. This time it was bok choy and chard. We could have picked as much as we wanted to take home too, but I really don't need more chard or bok choy. Obviously I should have volunteered to glean apples. Apples have been gleaned over the last couple of weeks, but I've been busy those days, so couldn't do it.

And who would have guessed that I was good at it? Our leader was shocked when my first box of bok choy was packed so quickly. Yup I'd make a good migrant farm worker. I can pick, clean off the dead leaves, and pack in no time flat. We needed 10 boxes packed up and I had 2 done and had started on my third when he said we should consolidate our boxes as we had enough. And I could fit them in better than most with no space wasted. We had 45 boxes of chard to pick. I ended up picking 8 of them. Somehow I don't think my back would stand up to the labor for very long though. We only had to be at it for a short time, but a real worker would be doing it all day long.

And it was fun. People quickly learned I knew my veggies and started asking me gardening questions. One person grew paw paws in his yard and brought some for us to try. I had wanted to plant paw paws in my yard here, but they are all a bit too big, no dwarfs and you need two for cross pollination. Now I finally got a chance to try one. It was delicious. I think it is a really under used plant. It doesn't have pests like apple trees do, so is easy to grow. No one really knows about them because they are soft and can't be shipped. So you can't buy them from a store. Sadly there is really no place to put them here.

Fall Gardening

In fall I'm working on two things - cleaning up summer crops and harvesting and preserving my fall bounty. One of my big summer crops is my sweet potatoes. Last year I harvested them at the end of September. This year we have been taunted by our weathermen. They have been telling me that this week we would be in the 70s and 80s. So far it has been in the 60s and 70s. I didn't want to harvest the sweet potatoes if we would indeed see 80F weather again. But they keep telling me it will be warmer than it gets. Today the predictions are in the low 80s again. Will it get there? Will the long range forecast turn out warm or cool? Right now they split with some saying sixties in a week and some saying we might hit 80F again.

Sweet potatoes taking over the garden paths.

I'm leaning toward the harvest since I do want to start actually eating the sweet potatoes. I also want to see how they did. Last year they did fabulously in the brick surrounded circle garden, but this year they are in the regular section with wood sides. I really want to see how they do. Though in future years I'm thinking of reserving the circle garden for sweet potatoes on one side and melons on the other. They are my most heat loving crops and do very well there. A two year rotation isn't a very long rotation but I think it will work out.

I finally got out and trimmed up my kale. Last year I let the old kale leaves sit on the plant over the fall until the first frost. Many of the lower ones yellowed up and weren't edible then. So I trimmed all the lower leaves off the plants. I want to eat the kale not lose it. I harvested over three pounds so I blanched and froze it for the winter. Though these plants will survive our winter (for the most part - I do lose a few), and produce again in the spring, they don't grow over the frozen winter. So I can't really harvest much then. A few leaves here and there are fine once it freezes up, but I need to leave enough green leaves on them for them to survive until spring. And to make sure the survive the winter better this year I put up some stakes and started to tie the plants up. Last year the snow was so heavy it pulled the plants down and broke the stems. I'd rather have the leaves break off than the stems crack.

I have two rows of kale, dwarf curled kale and winterbor. I've found over the years that both can survive our winters. I really like Red Russian kale. It is just so pretty. But it only survives our winter if we have a very very mild winter (zone 7 instead of our typical zone 6 winters). It doesn't survive well if the temperatures get below 0F. So sadly I quit growing it. I suppose I could grow it just for the fall, but it is very susceptible to our aphids in the fall. The curly type kales seem to resist them more. I did find a few patches of aphids on the leaves I harvested, but barely any.

I also started cleaning up the garden. I haven't gotten very far, but I took down one of the bean trellises. I haven't cleaned up the ground there yet or put on compost. I'll get to that soon enough. I don't like to leave leafy residue on the garden because of the slugs. I find I have fewer problems if I clean every thing up very well and cover the surface with compost. Totally bare soil over the winter is bad as it can break down the soil structure. So I use compost that the slugs don't seem as interested in. Last year I would have put on a cover crop, but I found those sections totally covered in slugs and cutworms. So I'm going to forgo that route for now. Which is too bad as a cover crop will hold in the nutrients over the winter and add carbon to the soil.

Harvest Monday, September 30th, 2013

I finally got a large zucchini to make into zucchini bread. My zucchinis were such a bust this year. So far I've gotten 10 pounds from three plants. The cilantro finally got big enough to pick. So I thinned it all out and froze all those thinnings. Well not all of them. I did keep some for kitchen use. We had stir fried rice last night and I put some in that.

My lettuce has grown and I've finally picked some. I know a lot of people pick it small, but I love the large crunchy leaves.

And my biggest harvest was the chard. I picked over four pounds and froze it all. Some of those leaves are longer than my arm.

I've gotten good a washing it and ripping off the green parts fast. I used to use a knife, but now I just tear it off.

I cooled it off quickly after blanching in the same large washtub that I picked it in. I use spinach and chard rather interchangeably over the winter. I do like spinach a tad more, but spinach takes forever to process and chard is fast. Last year was mostly spinach in the freezer, but this year I have half and half. 20 packets of spinach and 19 of chard. That ought to be enough to get through the winter. I have about 4 months of frozen soil. And this will let me eat it about twice a week during that time and until the overwintered spinach starts producing.

And speaking of winter, I finally made some more wintery fare this week. This is beef stew, made with very little beef and lots of mushrooms, carrots, and onions. Most people in the US would add potatoes to this for the starchy part but I added some dumplings.

• Beans 0.14 lbs
• Greens 5.21 lbs
• Herbs 0.23 lbs
• Peas 0.08 lbs
• Zucchini 1.29 lbs
• Weekly Tally 6.94 lbs
• Yearly Tally 365.11 lbs, $679.61

Harvest Monday is a day to show off your harvests, how you are saving your harvest, or how you are using your harvest. If you have a harvest you want to show off, add your name and link to Mr Linky below.

Harvest Monday, September 23, 2013

This week I harvested a patch of my Asian greens. I've got two more like it to harvest at younger stages, one of which will be ready to harvest by next week. And one patch that I sowed this week. I don't know if the last one will be ready before it is too cold for them to grow, but I've got my fingers crossed.

I had one of my typical summer harvest baskets with the addition of a few peas.

I picked and shelled a lot of dried beans. This is all the shelled beans so far this year. As you can see I grew a lot of Trail of Tears black beans this year. The large jars are quart jars. Black beans are probably my favorite beans. I eat them in salads, as beans and rice (Gallo Pinto), in tortillas with squash, and in soups. I probably overdid them, but dried beans will keep just fine for a couple of years if I don't get through them this year. The next two beans are Mexican Pinto and Tiger Eye. Last year I didn't grow pinto beans. Not being able to eat tomatoes and peppers, Mexican food is not on my list of things I eat anymore (sadly, as it was my favorite ethnic comfort food). But I've found I still like tortillas with cheese, refried beans, and cilantro. I probably won't make it often, but I will make it.

• Beans 4.49 lbs
• Broccoli 0.24 lbs
• Cucumbers 2.54 lbs
• Asian Greens 9.28 lbs
• Peas 0.10 lbs
• Zucchini 0.06 lbs
• Weekly Tally 17.24 lbs
• Yearly Tally 358.17 lbs, $659.35

Harvest Monday is a day to show off your harvests, how you are saving your harvest, or how you are using your harvest. If you have a harvest you want to show off, add your name and link to Mr Linky below.

Applesauce

Every year I can applesauce. My family loves homemade applesauce. It is so much better than the store kind. Last year I made 21 pints. We used all but one of them up last year. I think last year's applesauce is just a bit better than this year's. This year I peeled the apples with my apple peeler. Technically my gadget should be able to slice, core, and peel the apples, but mine isn't working right anymore. It peels fine though. The problem is that the peels add flavor to the sauce. I'm guessing that is why it isn't quite as good. This batch made 9 pints. I need at least that much more. So my next batch will be made with the peels and put through the strainer to remove them once the apples are cooked down.

Another problem I had this year was the canning. The applesauce expanded too much and started coming out the tops as it processed. Technically they sealed, but I didn't trust that the seals would hold. So I reprocessed them with more head space. I think I put too much head space in some of them at the end. I'll eat those first. I often seem to have trouble with just the 1/2" that they say to use for apples. I don't know why. I don't have large bubbles in the bottom or anything. Oh well. My first batch is done. I'll buy some more apples at the farmers market next week to make my second batch. I'm hoping in a few years I'll get enough apples to make applesauce with my own apples. I can hope at least.

Dried Beans and Fall Crops

I've been picking and shelling my dried beans this week. I found my Tarbais beans crossed last year. You can't tell the year it crosses as the seed coat and the pod are determined by the mother. But the next year you can. And I have three types of beans this year. The beans ought to look like the bean on the left. Large, white and kidney shaped. The middle ones have the wrong shape and the ones on the right have the wrong color. I'll eat the crossed ones and plant the uncrossed ones next year. If I find a lot of them have crossed again I'll have to switch varieties. Most of my beans won't cross even if planted right next to one other, but some insect can obviously cross pollinate that one given the right conditions (the year before it didn't cross).

Most of the beans that I shelled before my vacation were already dry enough to jar up so I did that. But I still have all the beans above to get dry. And more to pick out in the garden. Not much more to pick, but some. Most of the plants are dead already. It has been a hard year for bean diseases.

On better news, the Asian greens were doing well. I picked the first batch of them. Most of them and some cucumbers were put in the cooler and I gave them away to my artist's coop when I hosted a meeting. It was way more than what I needed and my townhouse mates had already taken what they wanted. In their place I planted some radishes and Japanese turnips. I don't know if they will have time to produce, but it doesn't hurt to try.

Also in the Asian greens bed I needed to thin out the third succession, which as you can see above is way too thick. I also planted out the fourth succession. I should have planted that one before my vacation, but again, maybe it will have time to produce. Some recent years have been very warm and sunny late into the fall which is not normal, but may be our new normal.

I also thinned out the spinach and replanted where the seed didn't come up. Spinach can be really hard to get up sometimes. But even if it is spotty, this spinach is Giant Winter. It can fill up a whole square foot on its own and my rows are just 6" apart.

And last but not least I checked on my carrots. As you can see they were very small. We ate them without weighing them. I think I'll check again in early to mid October. I hope they get bigger than last year. But the sun is getting lower in the sky and I'm getting more and more shade every day.

Harvest Monday, September 16th, 2013

I just got home from a six day trip to my parents house who live just west of Boulder, Colorado. Life was interesting to say the least. Luckily my parents live on the mountain so what they are calling the 500 year flood didn't flood the house. It did affect us quite a bit though. For a perspective on the flood, I was told their monthly total rainfall record was 5". I heard a lot of different numbers from people that lived there but I heard of totals while I was there from 12"-18" (30-45cm). 18" is over their normal yearly total. And as we left it had started to rain again.

As to services. My parents have been having trouble with their phones since July. And before I came it was out again and stayed out the whole time. The cell service in the mountains is spotty. We did get bars occasionally, but only enough for text messaging, not phones. The power went down not long after the rain started. My parents have a tower on their property for radio internet that supplies the neighbors, so they have a generator on property to keep the internet up. So we had internet thank goodness as that is how we got most of the news. Sadly they had propane only enough for a week. Hopefully they will get power back soon as they don't have much propane left. The main road to town was blocked. And that is the only paved road. They estimate that road will be back in about 9 days. To get out we had to take the back dirt road. It had the creek flowing over in four spots, but it wasn't deep luckily. Don't tell our rental car agency as dirt roads are not allowed, but the dirt road was the only way to get home.

I did have one harvest last Monday, but I can't find my camera to give you the photo. It was basically a small amount of beans, peas, broccoli and cucumbers.

• Beans 0.12 lbs
• Broccoli 0.14 lbs
• Cucumbers 1.74 lbs
• Peas 0.16 lbs
• Weekly Tally 2.17 lbs
• Yearly Tally 340.93 lbs, $579.93

Harvest Monday is a day to show off your harvests, how you are saving your harvest, or how you are using your harvest. If you have a harvest you want to show off, add your name and link to Mr Linky below.

Harvest Monday, September 9th, 2013

The last of the corn was picked. We ate the corn in the bottom photo fresh, but the others I blanched and froze.

I had two fairly similar harvest baskets. The last one did have the first peas of the season. You can't see them as they are buried. Only five to start with. I'll have to strip the vines today as I'll be out of town for a while. I ate all the greens that I picked a week ago Sunday, but didn't pick any more for this week. I'd pick them for my daughter but she doesn't eat greens.

A couple of pounds of the Trail of Tears beans were weighed in. I have plenty more of those and the Mexican pintos drying. I don't weigh them in until they are totally dry though. I use the hammer test to see if they are dry enough. If they shatter when when hit with a hammer, they are dry enough to store and even to freeze without killing the bean. I store them in sealed canning jars, so drying them makes sure they don't mold.

This week saw some preserving of the crops. Some of those beans were blanched and frozen as I can't eat over two pounds in a week.

And some of the cucumbers were made into dill relish. In the past I made sweet relish, but I've gotten bored with it, so I've switched to dill now. I hope I like it. I made a quarter batch from the Ball book and I still got four half pints (one was in the fridge). I probably only use about two half pints in a year, so I'm guessing it will be too much.

• Beans 4.57 lbs
• Corn 8.48 lbs
• Cucumbers 9.43 lbs
• Peas 0.04 lbs
• Weekly Tally 22.51 lbs
• Yearly Tally 338.76 lbs, $574.49

Harvest Monday is a day to show off your harvests, how you are saving your harvest, or how you are using your harvest. If you have a harvest you want to show off, add your name and link to Mr Linky below.

Three Sisters

The Leaning Tower of Beans

This week has been all about the three sisters. The above sister, beans, is sadly grown without its other sisters in my garden. I tried a lot to make the three sisters work. But this sister wouldn't play well with her siblings. She would grow up the corn and smoother everything in its path.

Especially this one above. The Trail of Tears beans is an aggressive grower and will trample anything in its path. It is also a great producer and I just love black beans. So I grow it every year. The other dried beans come and go, but this one is always here. I've been picking dried beans for a while now. When I have a bag I shell them in front of the TV. Today I picked a large bag of Trail of Tears and Mexican Pinto.

The next sister, corn, was indeed planted with its sibling, squash. We had raccoons in the garden, but they didn't steal one ear of corn. We got to eat it all. I had heard that raccoons don't like the prickly squash, but I hadn't seen it before. As you see the corn stalks have been chopped down. They are now in the compost. We ate 4 ears of corn every day we were home for dinner. There were lots more, but I could tell the corn was going to start to get old too fast.

So they all got picked, blanched.

And frozen. I have seven one cup bags. I'm thinking a salad of beans, corn, and squash would be good.

The butternut squash is all alone out there right now. I've got eight big squash set on the earliest planted squash. And five in the second bed that was planted later. They have powdery mildew right now. I still hope the later ones can set more. They may or may not be able to ripen at this point, but I can hope.

In other exciting news the snap peas are just starting to ripen. Yum.

And do you see my new garden helper under the bean plants in the path? My daughter is home for a year. She was out helping me pick beans. Kronos the dog was chewing on the dill plants I'd ripped up. I think my daughter was more help. At least Kronos is easy to train. Is is very biddable and smart at the same time. Last year when he visited he learned to stay on the paths the first day I tried training him. He remembered when he came back. Of course it helps that there are plants in the beds now. Last time the empty beds were just so tempting to run through.

Harvest Monday, September 2nd, 2013

This week the last melon was picked and eaten. The above melon was seven pounds. I had two types of melons growing this year. Halona which is a cantaloupe which is good for our shorter cooler weather. And the melon above is Sensation, which is a cross between a cantaloupe and a honeydew. I'm not a fan of honeydews as I find them rather tasteless. Sensation doesn't have the more intense flavor of a cantaloupe, but it is much better than a honeydew. And it gets huge and is also very very sweet. It gets a lot sweeter than any cantaloupe that I have had. Though a perfectly ripened Ambrosia comes close.

Our three year old apple tree fruited for the first time. They are Ginger Gold apples, which are very early apples. The weird little brown things are the footies that I covered my apples with to keep the bugs at bay without spraying. It worked wonderfully. As you can see the total harvest wasn't huge. That is because the squirrels ate most of them. I eventually covered the tree with netting which stopped the pilfering. But I did lose 2/3rds of the tree to them before that. Next year I'll stay on top of the problem and net the tree in early August or late July.

I had five harvests like this not two, but who needs so many identical photos of the same thing. I've been picking four ears of corn for every meal that we eat at home. I pick the biggest and best every time, but I think I'll have to pick a lot soon as the corn is aging. I don't have a lot of time to pick the ripest ones.

I had two large harvest baskets with tons of beans and cukes. And just a small amount of broccoli. I gave most of the cukes and beans away.

Mizuna

Chard

Kale, Tatsoi, Red Sails lettuce, Deertongue lettuce, Fun Jen

This week started the harvest of the fall greens. Which of course reminds me that I didn't plant any radishes or turnips. Again. Yes every year I forget. I'll have to find an unused spot to add them if I want any this year. I have no idea why I always forget them in the fall, but I do.

• Beans 2.61 lbs
• Broccoli 0.29 lbs
• Corn 5.51 lbs
• Cucumbers 10.69 lbs
• Greens 4.04 lbs
• Asian Greens 1.81 lbs
• Melons 6.98 lbs
• Weekly Tally 31.93 lbs
• Yearly Tally 316.26 lbs, $530.31
• Fruit
• Apples 8.61 lbs

Harvest Monday is a day to show off your harvests, how you are saving your harvest, or how you are using your harvest. If you have a harvest you want to show off, add your name and link to Mr Linky below.