Sweet Potato Fries

It's sweet potato time, and I'll be digging some from my own garden soon. I still have some of last year's harvest stored in the basement (my sweet potato storage tips are below), so I've been cooking them a lot lately. Here's the best method I've found to make sweet potato fries which are crispy on the outside and soft on the inside, just the way I like them… without any frying.


Sweet Potato Fries

Recipe type: Vegetable dish
Cuisine: Vegetarian, dairy free, gluten free
Makes: 2-3 servings
Note: Ingredients in red type are detailed on the "Ingredients" page of this blog


INGREDIENTS
2 large sweet potatoes (about 1-1/2 lb)
1 T coconut oil
1 t salt
1 medium garlic clove, finely minced (about 1 t)
1 T of mixed herbs and spices of your choice (for example: Italian herbs, cajun spice mix)

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 450°F. Peel the sweet potatoes and cut into sticks like fries. I cut mine about 3/8" to 1/2" thick. Boil water in a 3 qt saucepan. Add the cut potatoes to the water and cook at a rolling boil for 4 minutes. Remove from heat and drain off the cooking water.

Put the potatoes and all other ingredients into a bowl or bag and mix until the potatoes are coated thoroughly. Line a baking sheet with parchment and spread the cut potatoes in a single layer. Bake for 20 minutes, then turn the sticks over and bake for about 20 minutes more, until the outsides are browning and crispy. Remove and serve immediately.

One of these days I'll try this recipe with my sweet potatoes cut with my spiralizer cutter… yum, sweet potato curly fries!

NOTE:  For long-term storage of sweet potatoes, here are my tips:
The longer the potatoes are in the ground, the sweeter they will be. If a heavy frost kills the above-ground vines, dig the roots within days or the potatoes will begin to rot. I dig my own sweet potato roots a few days after a rain, so the soil has been softened by the rain (our Tennessee clay soil is very hard when dry) and when the roots are not too moist from the rain. I dig them up carefully, loosening the soil about 2 feet from the main plant, then mostly digging by hand so I won't pierce the potatoes with my pitch fork. Don't wash the potatoes, just carefully brush off the dirt. If necessary, set them in the sunshine until the dirt is very dry and it will come off more easily. Use any bruised ones right away.
     I "cure" my harvest by laying them on layers of newspaper on my covered porch. Our daytime temperatures are usually still in the 80's at this time of year. I allow the potatoes to dry this way for at least 1 week, since this helps heal the places where they were separated from the roots. I've also read that you can do this curing in the oven, so check that option online. If you buy your sweet potatoes from a farmer, ask if they have been cured similarly. Once the curing is done, I put the potatoes in a large corrugated cardboard box, separating each single layer with plain brown kraft paper, and I store this in my basement which remains about 60 degrees year-round. Below 55° can make the potatoes darken and change texture, so don't refrigerate them. Check your storage occasionally and remove any which are rotting and use any which begin to sprout new growth right away.
     With these steps for curing and storing my home-grown sweet potatoes, I can easily enjoy them until the next year's harvest is ready.

Slip Sliding Away

Note to self: start sweet potatoes on March 1st.

Sweet potatoes, a fabulous garden crop here in the Southeast, are planted as "slips", which are individual pieces of the leafy sweet potato vine, just a few inches long. These days it is possible to buy bundles of sweet potatoes, ready to plant. But old timers would keep a few potatoes from the previous year's harvest, and grow their own slips from them in early spring. The mature potato would be used to sprout these vines in early spring either by:

• planting the sweet potato in loose fertile soil (in a pot or in the ground) and watering it
OR

• submerging a portion of the sweet potato in water

Either method will stimulate the "mother" potato to sprout leafy branches, each of which grows its own root system at its base. When these short sprouts are a few inches long, they are carefully pulled off the "mother" potato to be planted in the garden or in individual pots awaiting transplanting when the weather warms.

My efforts to grow my own sweet potato slips in the last few years have been marginally successful, using the "planting-in-soil" method. So this year I switched to growing them in water, and, VOILA, I have successfully grown my own slips.

I started this project at the end of February, by buying organic sweet potatoes at the health food market. I searched the bin carefully until I found two potatoes which had some dry stringing roots already hanging off one end. By the way, there are many many varieties of sweet potatoes (different colors, different textures, different number of growing days, etc.) but the most common supermarket variety is Beauregard. One year I grew about 5 different varieties, and Beauregard was one of the top two for taste and productivity.

I saw the instructions for suspending the sweet potato so the bottom portion would be under water, with room around the potato for roots to grow easily. So I speared each one, found suitable containers, and sat them in my south-facing window where my other garden seedlings were growing. And nothing happened.

Patience is a virtue in this process (or being too busy with other stuff works too!) After what was probably a few weeks, I began to see some tiny green growth. On one of the potatoes the sprouts only formed on the very top, and that's all it has done over the last 2 months. (I recently turned it upside down and the sprouts, now submerged, are sending out roots!) On the other, the sprouts burst forth from the sides, and quickly sent white strands of roots into the water. As each sprout on this second mother potato got longer, I twisted it off at its base and transplanted it into a pot with loose soil.

Fast forward to the end of May. The first potato continued to grow little vines at the very top, none sending out roots of its own. The second potato has provided me with over a dozen slips! So I consider this experiment a success, and plan to use this method each year, perhaps starting from my own stored potato next year.

I wait until the weather is very warm before I transplant the sweet potato slips to the garden, meanwhile letting them harden off in pots I keep next to the hose so I won't forget to water them. Last year I covered my sweet potato patch with thin mesh fabric which successfully kept the grasshoppers from devouring the vines over and over (which ruined my harvest of the potatoes themselves), and also helped to restrict the spreading of the vines over a large area. If you live in the south and you haven't started sweet potato slips yourself, go buy some and get some nutritious, easy-to-grow sweet potatoes in the ground!

P.S. It has been a long time since I did any posts on this blog, and I have an excuse... all my "spare time" has been spent in the gardens. We took on two major gardening projects:

1 - making our front yard into an edible garden

2 - removing all my winter crops from the veggie garden, rotatilling it (for the first time in 3 years), enlarging it, moving it, and replanting it
3 - number 2 above also lead to the creation of a new "border" flower garden, to define the new edge of the veggie garden.

The photo on the left below is a portion of the new front yard. We moved blueberries, strawberries, red raspberries, and thornless blackberries there last fall. Since then I have also relocated many many perennial herbs and flowers. I have too many gardens all over the yard, so it's an effort to consolidate. My iris and daylily beds, along with other perennial flowers, needed dividing and thinning, so I've had no trouble filling the new space - except to find time to do it all! In the end, I think the front yard will be like an English country garden. And the re-done veggie garden, with its new bordering flower bed (shown on the right below) is finally coming along. I'll be reporting more on that in future posts. Happy gardening!

November in the Veggie Garden

Goodness... November is nearly over, and I haven't done my garden post. Life has been busy, even with my gardening work greatly reduced. My November garden looks empty, compared with previous months, but there's actually lots growing now. This autumn's weather has been the nicest in the seven years I've lived in East Tennessee. The first light frost didn't hit my garden until Nov. 10th, with a heavy frost one week later… late for our zone. Day length is short, but the leaves are off the trees so the garden gets lots of warmth from the sun. The warm weather crops have been dug up and added to the compost bin, and I've covered tender plants when the temps dipped below 32. I'm not certain about  some new things I've planted surviving the cold, but they will be on their own from now on, I'm not going to bother covering them any more. Here are the details:

1. BEETS - The chioggia heirloom beets went to seed and replanted themselves, so I"ve been harvesting both the roots and the greens continually. The heirloom "bull's blood" beets which I planted from seeds didn't germinate real well, but I have about a dozen plants growing so I've been harvesting the leaves for salads. I'd like to let them reseed, but I'll need to be sure both varieties don't flower simultaneously or I won't get new plants true to the parent.
2. LEMON GRASS - I moved the biggest clump of lemon grass to this part of the garden, and I also planted a clump in my "surplus garden" where I can let it grow without restriction. I am not certain it is winter-hardy here, so I've also taken a pot inside and it's growing well enough for me to harvest leaves occasionally… this way I'll have some to replant outside in spring if necessary.
3. STRAWBERRIES - The main strawberry bed is still looking very healthy, and I bought some half-price Halloween straw to nestle around the plants, protecting them better from the winter cold. I loved my strawberries, and I want to be sure they produce next spring!
4. CALENDULA - Also known as "pot marigold", the pretty yellow and orange flowers of the calendula are medicinal as well as edible. My summer plants bloomed profusely and I must have been neglectful in removing spent blooms, since I discovered many seedlings at the end of the summer. I organized them in a small patch, surprised that they would grow in fall. Mother Nature has her own tools for keeping growth to specific seasons; some seeds can lay on the ground for months, needing the freezing and thawing process to prepare them for warm weather growth. I had thought of calendula as a summer plant, like french marigolds, but this self-seeding might prove me wrong. In the meantime, I have some color in the garden, and I can harvest the petals, extract their vital components in oil, and create some nice salves and lotions with the filtered oil.
5. BRUSSELS SPROUTS - The four seedlings planted a few months ago all have formed lovely little brussels sprouts at the intersections of the main stem and each leaf. A little cold is supposed to "sweeten" them, so I am anxious for harvesting soon! The plants I started from seed are still alive, but only a few inches tall, so I should have started them much earlier… next year I'll know better.
6. ROMAINE - All the lettuce I started from seed is doing well, although everything grows much more slowly this time of year. Our occasional salads have been wonderful. Most recently I mixed lettuce greens, the dark red bull's blood beet leaves, the last tomato which ripened on the kitchen window sill, the last of the sweet green/red peppers, some crunchy sliced raw jerusalem artichokes, and fresh sprouts (alfalfa, clover, broccoli) grown in a jar indoors. Topped with my homemade Olive Garden style dressing it was a great meal. Lettuces can generally withstand temperatures as low as the mid 20's. I've also planted some in the cold frame, along with a few bull's blood beets, spinach and parsley.
7. KALE - I haven't witnessed a return of the "woodchuck" type critter spotted eating my sweet potato vines in October, but something ate the gorgeous curly leaves off my kale plants. To protect them from further damage, I have covered them with the collapsable net hampers which I used last summer to ward off fleas from my eggplants. So far it's working, and I just pull up the stakes to harvest leaves.
8. SPINACH - I love spinach, and I've now got it growing well in many areas of the garden, some still too small to show up well in this photo. This is one plant I know grows continually all winter, although slowly, and then takes off fast once the days lengthen in February. Yum!
9. PARSLEY - The curly and flat leaf parsley will likely grow all winter too, and since the onions have strong green tops I can harvest and I still have mint in the herb garden I plan to try using dehydrated tomatoes to make some taboulli.

OTHER GARDEN NOTES:
SWEET POTATOES - I had only planted half as many sweet potato hills as last year, since I was overloaded, but my harvest this year was very disappointing. I am blaming it on the grasshoppers, zapping the energy from the plants to grow more leaves instead of roots.

WINTERING OVER PLANTS - Where I have empty space in the vegetable garden, I have submerged some potted outdoor plants in the soil. Plants in pots are more susceptible to freezing, but burying them gives added protection. I've done this with a lilac bush I had rooted during the summer as well as with some chrysanthemums. By spring the temperatures will be warm enough for me to dig them up and plant them in permanent locations.

HORSERADISH - Two years ago I bought a big ugly horseradish root from the supermarket and planted it in the veggie garden. It grew! Beware: it can be very invasive. So this spring I replanted the major root elsewhere, where it can flourish, and I kept digging up all the little volunteers which popped up. It grew vigorously all summer and I've dug up some roots recently. I'll do a later blog post on how I've preserved some of this spicy condiment.

HERBS - Many of my herbs, besides the parsley and fennel still growing in the vegetable garden, can be continue to be harvested, such as mints, thyme, rosemary, and lemon balm. I discovered a few years ago that cilantro is a cold-weather plant, when I found it had reseeded and was growing strong in the fall. So this year I planted cilantro seeds directly in the veggie garden. They are very slow to germinate, but I have a two foot bed of seedlings growing now. I'd rather have it when the tomatoes are ripe, to use in fresh salsa, but I have other recipes for which there is no substitute for the taste of cilantro.

October in the Veggie Garden

If you think this gardening season is over, you have to see my veggie garden. It's filled with plants still growing from summer and those planted for fall and winter harvests. I love gardening this time of year - everything grows slower with the shorter days, longer shadows, and cooler temperatures. There are no bugs bothering my plants (or biting me) and plant diseases seem non-existent. Hardly any weeds germinate, so that cuts back on the maintenance. This is extra-good, since work and life have been keeping me very occupied lately, and my gardening time has been very limited.

Plants which like cooler weather are primarily leafy vegetables, since there aren't bees around to pollinate fruit. Some, like brussels sprouts, won't grow in hot weather and supposedly taste better after a light frost. Others, like lettuces, will survive in temperatures down to the 20s F, even though they won't grow noticeable when it's really cold. Still others, like spinach, will continue to grow throughout our winter here in Zone 7. We've passed our average annual first frost date of October 24th without frost on my garden, and the next ten days don't show temperatures changing much, so the fall crops are in for great growing weather.

Here's what's growing for me now:

1. AUTUMN - Notice how the leaves have turned color in the last month; our fall weather has been gorgeous this year, and the garden loves it.
2. JALAPENOS - Everyone I know who has grown peppers this year has a bumper crop. My two jalapenos have produced over 200 pods each and are still going. The one in the red Kozy Koat was earlier to ripen, but production seems equal in both.
3. SWEET POTATOES - I dug a couple of plants and was disappointed to find very few small potatoes had formed. Now I suspect the plants kept putting energy into regrowing the vines which were eaten by grasshoppers continually all summer, and the energy didn't go into creating roots. I am leaving the remaining plants in the ground for as long as possible, hoping more time will allow potatoes to form.
4. ONIONS & GARLIC - The onion sets and starter garlic cloves I planted in September have come up great (see closeup photo). Both of these seem to pop up in the garden randomly if you have grown them in the past, so I've also dug and moved some volunteers around. I won't harvest the bulbs until next summer, but I can cut the green tops continually.
5. BRUSSELS SPROUTS - These plants which I bought as seedlings are now beginning to form their little sprouts at the junction of each leaf with the central stem. The ones I started from seed are only about 2" tall, so I might not have enough growing weather to get them to maturity before winter.
6. ROMAINE & LETTUCE - I set out seedlings I started indoors for baby romaine and black seeded simpson lettuce, and the Little Gem lettuce I grew last spring and let go to seed has also reseeded itself. I've been picking leaves and am looking forward to good harvests of all these.
7. SWEET PEPPERS - For many nights when the temps were dipping below 40 degrees I have covered the pimento pepper and Chinese giant pepper plants with heavy black trash bags, since they don't like cold weather, so I am still picking lots of sweet red peppers.
8. KALE - The kale seedlings are growing strong and I've harvested lots, in addition to the collard plants just below the pointer line. Both are highly nutritious and I am primarily using them raw in my green smoothies.
9. COLD FRAME - I replaced the cold frame covers when the nighttime temps began to drop below 50 degrees. In the cold frame now are one tomato plant (all curled up on the ground), several parsley plants I will continue to pick from all winter, and one sweet potato plant in a pot (I'm hoping to be able to pick its leaves; might need to move the plant indoors when it gets really cold). I also have potted tiny CELERIAC seedlings in the cold frame, and they are extremely slow growers. I have to watch the temperatures, raising the cold frame tops when it's sunny and warm, and lowering or closing them when the temperature drops.

ELSEWHERE IN THE GARDEN:

COLLARDS - These greens have been phenomenal. I think I'd see the leaves grow if I sat a watched! I've only been eating them raw and in smoothies, but I'm getting such strong growth that I'll be trying them cooked soon.
SPINACH - I think I finally found a good way to insure germination of spinach seeds. First of all, they will not germinate in the garden until the temperatures are cool - all my efforts to plant them in August proved futile. I have tried cold stratification (putting seeds in and out of the freezer to simulate winter conditions) and don't know for sure if this helps. But I've had the best success by soaking the seeds in a cup of water for a day or two, then putting them on a damp paper towel and into a loosely closed zip bag on the top of the refrigerator (for warmth) for a few days. By then, nearly every seed has a tiny sprout started. When our daytime temperatures drop to the 70s, I plant these under about 1/4 inch of fertile garden soil, and keep them moist… They all seem to grow. Spinach is one plant which will actually continue to grow all winter here, and I usually have a huge harvest during early spring when their growth accelerates. I've already picked a few leaves to use fresh - takes a lot of spinach to make a serving of cooked greens.
BEETS - Some of my chioggia
SQUASH - One butternut squash is about 6" long, but I might not get more than that, due to my late planting and battles with insects. But my friend Susan was kind enough to share her harvest, so I won't go without!

CARROTS - The first bed of fall carrots I planted from seeds only grew one seedling. I'll blame it on bad seeds. So I've replanted a bed this month, with seeds that have grown well for me previously. I mulch the bed so the seeds stay moist since they are slow to germinate. I used old growth from my daylily bed as a mulch, so if this planting is not successful I'll be suspicious that the mulch was a problem, hindering growth.
CASABA - I only got one melon off this plant so I probably will not grow it again. The fruit was very tasty, perhaps would have been a bit sweeter if left on the vine longer.
MUMS - The pre-July cuttings have grown and flowered profusely, and I planted some elsewhere around the house. Most of those in the veggie garden I've cut for arrangements I bring when visiting friends. I'll move the rest of the plants early next spring, to permanent flower beds.
CALENDULA - This edible flower reseeded and it's growing strong. I didn't think it was a cool weather crop, but I've moved the volunteers into a bed and look forward to seeing how long they keep growing.
EGGPLANT - So delicious! Still getting a steady harvest to cook myself and share with friends too.
BASIL - The Thai basil will last until a freeze. It's purple flowers are lovely in my flower arrangements and the flavor of the leaves is very strong and delicious. I'll grow this again next year.
FENNEL - Reseeded itself and going strong. This plant should survive the winter here, as it did with two snowstorms last year.
CILANTRO - I struggled for several summers trying to grow cilantro and keep it from flowering. Then I discovered that some which had gone to seed began to grow again in October and survived all winter, without going to flower. So now I purposely plant it only in the fall. Just disappointed I don't have it fresh when tomatoes are ripening for salsa, but there are loads of other recipes for enjoying it.
CORN SALAD "MACHE" - This is a macro green for salads, and I tried sowing seeds for the first time. So far no sign of life.
JERUSALEM ARTICHOKES - I thought these were best dug after November, but my friend Judy was trying to move some in her gardens and discovered the tubers had formed already. So I dug up under one renegade stem I wanted to remove, and have been enjoying the handful of "chokes" I dug.

So if you live below the Mason-Dixon line and north of Florida and you've dug up your garden, go out and sow some spinach seeds for a bonus harvest with very little effort.

September in the Vegetable Garden

My September garden looks empty compared with previous months, but it's a time of transition. I have pulled up plants which have stopped producing and I'm busy nourishing the soil with composted manure and lime for my fall plantings. The weather turned a bit cooler (highs in the low 80s) after we got about 8" of rain from the remnants of Tropical Storm Lee, and the soil was nicely loosened up by all the moisture so it's been easy to dig. Last week I stopped at my favorite fruit market to buy fresh produce (they have a ripe banana bin for 33¢/lb so I stock up and freeze them for smoothies) and I was delighted and surprised to find seedlings for many cool weather crops. Even though I'll plant seeds for many of the same crops, the 5" tall seedlings I purchased will give me a headstart. It's hard to see the small plants against the red clay soil in the photo above, but here's an update:

1. One BUTTERNUT SQUASH plant has survived attacks from squash bugs and I am hoping there is time in its growing season for some to mature. For the past 2 years I've harvested about 25 butternut squashes from my garden, and they stored well in my basement until I used them all in about 9 months. I'll surely not get many this year, but I'd love a few!
2. Both JALAPENOS are producing profusely (the second one is in the red Kozy Koat). The plants were so heavily laden with maturing peppers that they leaned over in the last windy storm. Now each one is in one of my largest tomato cages, anchored down with rebar. Remember, jalapeno and sweet peppers are not ripe in the green stage, even though that's how they are sold; let the jalapenos turn red/black, and bell peppers turn red (or purple, yellow, orange, depending on the variety). If you look at my Facebook page, you'll see my photo of a big bowl of red jalapenos I harvested recently. I dehydrated them and ground them into hot powder.
3. The grasshopper raids on my SWEET POTATO bed seemed to have stopped and I am looking forward to digging lots, probably in October.
4. I bought and planted a 4-pack of ROMAINE lettuce, planted on the edge of the garden so I can easily harvest a few leaves at a time.
5. I pulled out the THAI LONG BEANS, since they were taking over everything. They were sold as a "bush" variety, but grew as long trailing vines for me. I got a decent harvest, and they are long and tasty when cooked, plus growing beans adds nitrogen to the soil they are in. But I am once again convinced that blue lake bush beans are my favorite green beans to grow - short plants, heavy yields, great taste, freeze well, and I like how they taste raw. In place of the long been plants, the CHRYSANTHEMUM babies, MARIGOLDS, FENNEL, and HOLY BASIL, which all were being covered over by the vines, are now happy. Every one of the 30 mum cuttings I planted last spring rooted, and the continuous pinching back now finds them loaded with flower buds, just in time for fall flowering. I need to move some into pots and other garden areas soon! I cut back the fennel plants after harvesting loads of seeds, and new young plants are growing from the root. I'm sure some of those seeds I missed will start new plants there too, and I'll be harvesting green fronds this fall.
6. The red plastic mulch where the tomatoes had grown is now removed, up to this sprawling CANTALOUPE vine. Lots of flowers on it, but I haven't seen any fruit form, so it might have been planted too late. This plant hasn't been bothered by squash bugs … maybe it's due to the red mulch?
7. I've planted nine seedlings of KALE here, and I'll be starting kale seeds elsewhere in the garden, as well as setting out seedlings I started indoors. Many fall (or early spring) seeds will not germinate in soil above 70 degrees, so I'm waiting for cooler temps to plant seeds directly in the garden so I won't waste seeds, as I have in the past due to my ignorance.
8. I tried growing BRUSSELS SPROUTS unsuccessfully last spring; the weather warmed and the "sprouts" flowered right away. I knew it was a fall crop, but I tried anyway. Now I've planted 6 purchased seedlings and I will transplant the smaller seedlings which I started indoors last month when they get a bit stronger. I am looking for success this time!
9. I've never grow COLLARDS, but I bought seedlings and planted them here. I will try them in my green smoothies as well as in many cooked recipes. The more veggies I eat, the more I like. Also in this area of the garden are small PARSLEY plants I purchased. Parsley is one of the only plants I have discovered which grows nearly year round in my garden, and it's yummy and nutritious. I love to make tabouli salad, use it in green smoothies, and use it as an herb in salads, sautes and soups.

   I have pulled out all but two TOMATO plants, after they succumbed to blight. I've already purchased two blight-resistant tomato seed varieties for next year, "Old Brooks" and "Legend". I have searched, unsuccessfully, for organic ways to rid my soil of the fungus which causes blight (the same blight which caused the Irish potato famine in the late 1800s). What's a garden without fresh tomatoes?
   The EGGPLANTS have also been under attack by grasshoppers, so I've had a lull in my harvest. Each plant has a couple of maturing fruit, so I am looking forward to making more Eggplant Parmesan with my new favorite recipe.
   One of my photos is a bit gross, but shows a TOMATO HORNWORM. When I discovered this one I was happy to see it covered with a natural parasite. The "braconid" wasp lays eggs on the hornworm and the larvae feed on the inside of the hornworm until the wasp is ready to "pupate" into a cocoon. The white, rice-shaped protrusions on the green hornworm are the cocoons. The wasps will kill the hornworms when they emerge and will seek others to parasitize, so I don't squish the hornworms when I find them in this state.
   The LEMON GRASS plant is enormous, and the lemon flavor is the strongest of any lemony herb I've grown. I hope it will survive the winter here.
   One CASABA melon plant is growing well, and I've warded off the attacking bugs with dustings of diatomaceous earth and sprayings of diluted kaolin clay. One melon has formed which is about 6" in diameter, but still green. I am hoping it will ripen to golden without being eaten by any critters except me!
   Some of my chioggia BEETS which had overwintered from last year grew flower stalks. I let them go to seed; some seedlings are starting where the plant dropped them and I have also spread some seeds which I harvested. In addition, on the south edge of the garden I've planted seeds for another variety of beets called "Bulls Blood" whose red leaves are recommended as colorful and good raw for salads.
   I've planted 100 seeds of a CARROT variety called "little fingers." I've also planted SPINACH seeds after using cold stratification to help them germinate better. I'll be planting lots more spinach - we love it, and it's one plant which grows here continuously all winter.

   I was happy to find some ONION SETS, more rarely sold in the fall than in the spring, so I'll be setting them out this weekend. It's about time to plant GARLIC also, and I have some heads left from my own harvest, which I'll divide and plant each clove about 3" deep and 5" apart.
   'Still harvesting lots of Thai BASIL to use fresh and to give to friends; there's lots of pesto in the freezer from last year, so no need to make more.

   I've transplanted the slow growing CELERIAC seedlings I started into larger pots. Only 7 plants germinated They are puny, and still in the basement window until large enough to go in the garden. My experiment with CELERY failed, due to the very hot weather, but I'll try it again under different conditions.

Don't stop gardening if you are in Zone 7 like me. The season is just beginning!

July in the Vegetable Garden

July has brought successes and failures in my veggie garden. The sun is strong, the temperature is very hot and the humidity is high, so I try to be out early when I need to do some garden work. Rain has been fairly regular, most often in heavy downpours. Despite all this, I've been eating, freezing, canning, and dehydrating my harvests, and the vegetable garden is free of weeds and looking good. (Can't say the same about some of my flower gardens, unfortunately!) Here are the details:

1. SWEET POTATOES - My plants are still surviving attacks by leaf-eaters - probably grasshoppers, as reported early. Leaves grow back, pests come again, and the cycle repeats. I don't think this is harming the development of the sweet potatoes themselves, since the abundant green leaves can be harvested and cooked like spinach.
2. EGGPLANTS - I took off the protective covers, and the leaves looked better than if I hadn't protected them, although some flea damage is still evident. Purple flowers have now formed into glossy eggplants and I picked the first one today. Anxious to try a new eggplant parmesan recipe from my sister Jean tonight!
3. LEEKS - Growing well, while being fully ignored.
4. BEANS - I harvested loads of delicious Blue Lake Bush green beans, and pulled up all the plants last week. The yellow beans, planted as seeds at the same time, are only just flowering now, but the plants are healthy. Overflowing the north side of the garden is a bed of Thai Suranaree "Long Beans", now in the flower stage. They were described in the catalog as "bush" but seem to be growing in long vines, so I am letting them trail. My beans need constant attention this year, to keep away whatever eats little holes in the leaves and beans. I spray with Garlic Barrier and keep scattering marigold petals over the beds. So far, so good. I froze 12 bags of green beans and I've started another small crop which will be great to eat fresh next month.
5. FENNEL - I over-wintered fennel plants and now I have a huge flourish of flower heads, which I am letting mature so I can gather the licorice-flavored seeds. I'll have enough to supply an Italian sausage factory! The seeds are good for digestion.
6. TOMATOES - I am now deep in battle with tomato blight, spread by a fungus in the soil. All the organic measures I have employeed to avoid it have only delayed the inevitable. I've already removed two of the plants, and three more are fighting blight. I've got some cherry tomato plants growing from my friend Sherry's seedlings, and they are healthier so far. I picked 13 beautiful half-pound tomatoes today, and in the last month I have harvested enough tomatoes to make lots of salsa (fresh, frozen, and canned) and salads, as well as eating them warm from the garden, like biting an apple. I plan to spoon a homemade bruschetta over the eggplant for dinner this evening. The white line points to a row where I've covered the soil with a garden weed-barrier cloth and transplanted 3 new tomato seedlings, so I hope to get a late crop, and I wish it to be blight-free!
7. CUCUMBER - One cucumber plant succumbed to "wilt" which is spread by the cucumber beetle, a bug about 1/4" long with yellow and black stripes or dots. You'll see the leaves begin to wilt, one by one (see photo to the right). I delayed the damage by cutting off the bad leaves, but eventually it killed the plant. My other cuc plant, a different variety, is doing ok in comparison. I've planted seeds to start another plant.
8. PEPPERS - In the collage of photos above, you can see the jalapeno plant which has been in the red Kozy Koat since I planted it last spring... it loves the heat and is loaded with peppers, with the plant growing tall above the red jacket. I've also picked a couple of sweet pimento peppers, but the sweet "Chinese Giant" variety (the tall one I've pointed to in the photo of the whole garden) hasn't formed any peppers yet. Funny thing, a friend to whom I gave one of these seedlings reports picking peppers already.
9. MELONS & SQUASHES - I've started my late crop of cantaloupe - one here where I removed a tomato plant - as well as casaba melon and zucchini, next to the cold frame. I've put in 2 butternut squash plants also. I am hoping these late plantings are beyond the season for squash bugs, and our growing season is long, so I should have plenty of time for the fruits to mature.

In other growing news, I continue to plant successive rows of carrots, which I really like because they are content waiting underground until I decide to harvest a few for fresh eating - unlike other crops which need immediate picking when ripe. I'm still digging up beets, as needed, and some I had over-wintered are sending up flower stalks. I transplanted a few beets which I dug that were tiny, and some have re-rooted for a late harvest. Onions seedlings I planted last month are providing me with scallions while the bulbs form and grow. The Little Gem Lettuce started sending up flower stalks, as the leaves became too bitter to use. I'm letting it go to seed, since it's the only lettuce in the garden now; the seeds will not have been crosspollinated with another variety, so I can save them for future plantings. I've not been successful starting lettuce lately, even varieties described as heat tolerant. I even resorted to buying romaine last week, to have a big salad with all the other garden goodies. The flat leaf and curly parsley, as well as the Thai basil, are big bushy plants now, which do best with frequent harvesting by cutting off the plant tops. I picked enough parsley to dry some last week.

I found loads of ripe grapes on my two concord grapevines last week, and devoured a few handfuls. When I anxiously went to harvest a bucketful today I discovered some critter wiped out the entire crop (raccoon? deer?). I was so disappointed, after my careful pruning last February, fighting off a wormy thing in the spring, and saving the vines from Japanese beetles recently. I'll need to correct my timing next year. My garden education continues, and I hope you learn something from my experiences!

June in the Vegetable Garden

June has seen many changes to the vegetable garden. We've had about 1" of rain in the last week, after nearly 8 weeks of dry hot weather. I resorted to watering with the sprinkler, which you can see outside the corner of the garden. On the longest day of the year, June 21st, our area officially got 12 hours and 34 minutes of daylight, with sunset at 8:56pm. Here's the garden update:

1. SWEET POTATOES - I planted 11 sweet potato plants, half as many as last year: two which I grew from last year's potatoes (my other efforts failed) and a 9-pack of "slips" I bought,  all "Beauregard," a dependable variety for our area, and the most common supermarket sweet potato variety. I planted where the edible pea pods had been, after they had stopped producing in late May. About 2 weeks ago I noticed the sweet potato leaves were being eaten, and, when I sprayed my Garlic Barrier on them, I saw grasshoppers jumping away. I've never had a grasshopper problem, but I've heard they can devour the garden. In addition to spraying, I've also been scattering cut-up garlic greens around the plants and this seems to have solved the problem.
2. EGGPLANTS - I bought 2 mesh laundry hampers and turned them upside down over the wire cage on each eggplant to help protect the plants from the bug which eats the young tender leaves. I used wicket-type garden stakes to hold the handles of the hampers in the soil. It's helping so far. I'll have to remove the coverings when the plants flower, so the bees can pollinate. As the season progresses last year, the bugs became less of a problem and the plants flourished, so perhaps I can go into flowering with healthier plants this year. These laundry hampers do not have netting on the top, but rain or sprinkler spray gets in on all sides. They fold down flat for easy storage too.
3. JALAPENO - I kept one jalapeno plant in the red Kozy Koat and it already has pods! Couldn't resist planting a second seedling I had started, but there is a noticeable difference in the size of the two plants.
4. MELON - One "casaba" melon is growing well and has a green fruit about 6" big already. I keep checking the plant for insects which attack squash family plants (see photo and zucchini info).
5. LEEKS - Most of the transplanted leeks didn't survive, but I'll still have plenty. Don't think I'll try them again though.
6. CUCUMBERS - My attempt to grow the cucumber plants in vertical cages is going well. They send out tendrils, and I usually just have to coax them to grab and wrap around the cage wire. The fruit is clean and perfectly shaped. I've been picking both varieties, one pickling size and the other a 6-8" salad cucumber. I keep watching the undersides of the leaves for the brown eggs of the squash bug (see photo), and discard any leaves with eggs.
7. TOMATOES - The photo shows the growth of the tomato plants in the past month, but I nearly lost them to an attack by big fat healthy tomato hornworms. The earliest plant I had put in the garden, which had looked gorgeously healthy just one day earlier, was totally defoliated. The other 5 plants each has one or more worms eating away. Fortunately, I caught them right away (it pays to visit your garden daily) and successfully treated with "Dipel," an organic biological insecticide for leaf-eating worms and caterpillars ("bacillus thuringiensis"). I dug up the defoliated tomato and replaced it with one of 3 cherry tomato plants a friend gave me, which I had planted in the cold frame. I've also kept the bottom 10" of the tomato plants trimmed to the center stem, which seems to be helping me avoid tomato blight, which is a fungus spread from the soil to the lower leaves. When I see a leaf with yellow spotting I immediately pick it off and discard. With all this effort, I've now been picking juicy red tomatoes for 3 weeks from the Riessentraube and the Al Kuffa heirloom varieties. I'm keeping a close eye out for pests.
8. BEANS - My favorite variety of green beans is Blue Lake. I plant the "bush" version vs. "pole" beans, which grow only about 12" tall and don't need trellising. Blue Lake tastes great and freezes well. I planted marigolds around the beans and keep breaking up the spent marigold flower heads on top of the bean plants, to deter an invisible insect which eats holes in the bean leaves, and potentially, in the beans. L:sat year the bugs ruined my crop. I've picked just a couple of ripe beans in the last couple of days and eaten them raw, and I'll have lots to harvest for dinner starting in a few days. I've also started a small bed of Golden Wax bush beans and a long bean from Thailand.
9. GARLIC - Before we got last week's rain I harvested about 2 dozen garlic heads. Garlic is ready to dig up when the green tops turn tan and dry. It's best to dig them when they are not wet. I rinsed them off right away, which is not recommended, but our clay soil is either like peanut butter when wet or like concrete when dry. Then I dried them in the sun for a few hot dry days before moving them onto newspapers in the shade of the porch to dry for a few weeks. This prepares them for storing.

Also in the garden...

CARROTS - I've finally been harvesting carrots and they are delicious. I like that it's a crop I can leave in the ground, just pulling what I want to use immediately. I've decided I have the patience to grow them, and I've continued to do more plantings from seeds.

BEETS - We ate beet greens initially, and now I've been roasting the pink and white zebra striped Chioggia beets. I'm proud to say I successfully grew them from seeds I harvested from my own plants in their 2nd year. The size of the beet root seems more dependent upon how much room you allow between plants than on how long they are in the ground.

ZUCCHINI - Pulled up the one zucchini plant which had quickly gone from lush and healthy to wilted and sickly. I think it suffered from a squash vine borer. I'll try another plant again in July.

BRUSSELS SPROUTS - I also had to dig up the brussels sprouts. Just as the little Barbie-doll size cabbages began to form on the stem, the leaves unfolded immediately. This is due to our hot weather. I'll try growing it again in the fall, which is what is recommended for my zone.

LETTUCE - We ate the last of the romaine and Little Gem Lettuce. So far I haven't been able to get any of my heat-tolerant varieties of lettuce to germinate well. :-(

BASIL - With lots of pesto still in the freezer from last year, I only put in 4 Thai basil plants, which have a really strong flavor. This way I have some to pick fresh, which I love in a Salad Caprese, with tomatoes and mozzarella.

FENNEL - I moved small fennel plants which had over-wintered and now they are flowering. I will save the seeds which follow the flower, a licorice taste used in Italian cooking, and I've been slicing up the stems and adding to roasting vegetables.

PARSLEY - Both curly and flatleaf parsley plants I started from seed are growing well. This week I picked lots and made tabouli, and I'll share my recipe on this blog soon.

POPPIES - In another garden bed I am growing "Breadseed Poppies" and the flower is an old-fashioned purple shade. I grow red poppies and the seeds they produce are tiny, so I am hopeful that this variety will be larger and suitable for me to use in cooking.

GARDEN HUCKLEBERRIES - My two garden huckleberry plants have suffered from bug-eaten leaves since I first set the seedlings out, but this hasn't hampered the production of flowers and berries. I picked a cup full one day recently, put them in a saucepan with a small amount of honey and some cornstarch dissolved in blueberry juice, to thicken as it cooked. I mixed the cooled sauce into plain yogurt and it tasted great. The raw berries sort of taste like blueberries but with a slightly bitter bite, but were great when cooked.

STRAWBERRIES - My strawberries ended production in late May, and I dug up approximately 12 dozen plants from the big mass I had left to grow at the west end of the strawberry border. I am trying to keep the baby plants clipped off the established bed, but will allow some to root later in the summer for more friends who want to start their own bed. Let me know if you want any.
I removed the coldframe covers, and the frame itself is permanently attached to the garden corner. Two little cherry tomato plants are all that is growing inside now.

Happy gardening!

April in the Vegetable Garden

 

Take a tour of my vegetable garden! Starting with this post, I'll photograph it during the first week of each month, and describe what's growing. Keep in mind that I'm in Tennessee, USDA gardening zone 7, with an average last frost date of April 15th, and a frost-free growing season of nearly 200 days. My "birdseed view" is taken from my east porch.

This year I'm starting all my vegetable plants from seeds, either indoors to get a jump on the season or directly in the garden. Indoors, they move from the south-facing windows in our dining area to the south window in the walk-out basement, which is at about 55 degrees this time of year. From there they move into the cold frame to harden off with cooler nighttime temperatures.

The garden is about 20' x 40', running east-west. Big poplar logs hold the soil and I dig walking paths between raised beds which are about 3-4' wide. The garden is on a slight downhill slope.

Here is the April tour:

1. A thin red plastic mulch warms the soil and cuts down on weeds. I laid this down in mid-March, burying the ends with soil. I planted 3 tomato plants yesterday, cutting a 5" slot into the plastic, inserting the plant, and placing 4 rocks around the hole opening, to keep the wind from getting under the plastic. The south end has one tomato plant in a "Kozy Koat" - a red plastic sleeve with pockets filled with water to permit solar heating for the plant. I'll remove the Koat when the weather warms. (The other Kozy Koat shown with a white feed bag for mulching was planted in mid-March, to attempt a headstart on tomato harvests). The mulch is one of my attempts to prevent tomato blight.
2. The yellow flowers are on my Chinese cabbage, planted last fall along with the kale in this row. As soon as we got some early warm days, the cabbage set flowers. I've left them growing for several reasons: the flowers are pretty and attract bees; the flowers are edible, tasting like raw broccoli; the flowers produce tiny edible seed pods, which I have cooked in a stirfry. I just need to remove them before the pods ripen and drop hundreds of seeds into my soft garden soil!
3. Eight rows of snap peas were planted as soon as I could work the soil in February. This east end of the garden is where I have grown my sweet potatoes for the past 2 years, allowing the long vines to grow out the back end of the garden. I am growing the peas here not only to harvest their delicious pods, but also to utilize their ability to add nitrogen to the soil. I grow "bush" varieties, which grown only about 24" tall, and I push branches into the ground for the tendrils to wind up. By June, when it is warm enough to plant the sweet potatoes, the peas will be harvested.
4. My June-bearing strawberry bed runs along the north wall of the garden, and the plants are flowering profusely now. The big mass of greenery above the word "north" is an area where last year's strawberry babies congregated! I'll dig these up after my harvest; strawberries produce best when not too crowded. If anyone nearby wants to start a strawberry bed, please let me know and I'll provide loads of healthy plants. I think the variety was "Tennessee Beauty".
5. Next to the strawberry crowd I sowed seed beds in this row in March for black seeded simpson lettuce, kale, bok choy, and spinach - all cold-hardy plants. They have all sprouted and are growing slowly.
6. Nine brussel sprout plants, started indoors in January, are growing here. I have sprayed a few times with garlic spray, fighting an insect which is eating holes in the leaves. Otherwise the plants look good - this is my first try at growing this veggie. I never really liked it, but a friend prepares it in a very tasty way. I figured if I liked his store-bought brussel sprouts, I'd love home grown! The brussel sprouts are bordered by romaine lettuce and yellow onions (I put in about 150 onion sets in Feb). Along the south border are loads of spinach plants which I started directly in the garden by seed last fall. The little spinach plants didn't grown much in the winter, but they survived two snow storms and lots of freezes and are now growing strong… great raw and cooked!
7. Garden fresh carrots taste so good, that I am giving them another try this year. I planted 5 close rows and covered them with the tall grass I cut from my blue flax in the flower gardens - there were no seeds in the grass and it is fine and lightweight, so it has kept the carrot seeds moist and encouraged good germination. I started another 4 rows next the the first planting, and hand raked the grass clippings over them. Next to that tan mass are some garlic, planted last fall, with a row of Amish Deer Tongue lettuce. Along one side of the carrot bed is a late winter planting of Chinese cabbage, and along the opposite side is pak choy, a mini bok choy.
8. The front of the garden has been planted with loads of garlic since last fall, which will be harvested in June-July, in addition to more onion sets, Chioggia beet seeds set out for harvesting the greens as well as the roots (they are pink and white inside), flat and curly parsley, and fennel. 
9. My Juwel cold frame is permanently set in the corner, where I can easily adjust the lids according to the weather, harvest the red romaine and spinach that grew in it all winter, and move pots of seedlings in and out. Behind the cold frame I've planted some cilantro, hoping the shade will keep it cool enough so it won't bolt (cilantro likes cold weather, but I like it when the tomatoes are ripe for salsa!)

Have fun in your garden on these gorgeous days of spring.

Judy's Sweet Potato Spice Bread

This is a moist, finely textured quick bread I created to use some of my huge sweet potato harvest. Cook extra sweet potatoes without any seasoning when you are preparing some for a meal, and set aside enough to make this recipe. I've frozen zip bags with 1-1/4 cups of mashed cooked sweet potatoes for future use. The next time I make this bread, I think I'll also add one chopped apple. Yum!

• 3 c whole wheat white flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 2 tsp ground ginger root
• 1/2 c golden raisins
• 1/2 c chopped nuts
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1/4 c oil
• 1/4 c honey
• 1/2 c molasses or sorghum
• 1-1/4 c cooked sweet potatoes
• 1/2 c apple juice or milk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and spices in a large bowl. Stir raisins into the dry mixture. I use the food processor for the wet ingredients - but you can mix by hand if preferred. Pulse the eggs to beat slightly, add the rest of the wet ingredients and process until the potatoes are well mashed into the liquid. Pour the wet into the dry ingredients, and mix by hand until everything is moistened - the batter will be thick. Pour into one greased standard loaf pan or three greased mini loaf pans. Back large loaf for 60 minutes, small loaves for 45 minutes, until the top is browning. Freezes well if you don't eat it all fresh from the oven. I like this for breakfast.

Sweet Harvest

 

This photo might not look too exciting to you, but it is to me… it's just one of the two wheelbarrows I filled with my sweet potato harvest earlier this week. I was delighted to have so many, from just 11 plants. If you have garden space and you live in the South, grow sweet potatoes! They take very little care, and don't seem to be susceptible to insects or blight or other garden problems. They taste fabulous, can be used in many different dishes, and they are good for you too!

I timed my harvest on November 1st according to these criteria:

• The vines had been in the ground since mid June, well over 120 days maturity time
• The weather has been dry for several days, so the soil and the potatoes were relatively dry
• Rain was predicted in the next few days, and potatoes dug wet won't store as long
• Night temperatures down to 28 degrees are forecast for late this week; frost will kill the vines and start the potatoes rotting in the ground
• It was sunny and in the upper 60s and I had been at my computer all day!

I had started my own "slips" last spring; these are short vines with roots which grow when you put sproutable sweet potatoes into water or damp soil. I will explain the process in this blog next March. I say "sproutable" since, like garlic, some supermarket sweet potatoes are treated not to sprout. Also, certain varieties sprout better than others. I tried growing slips from 5 sweet potatoes varieties I had grown in the garden the previous year, several of which were grown from commercially raised slips. Of these, two rooted and grew best:  Beauregard (the standard supermarket variety) and Hernandez. Then I got one other good slip but lost track of what cultivar it was (if I don't label carefully, I just can't remember!). So I planted 5 each of the first two and the one "unknown" slip which has produced long sweet potatoes with yellow flesh, unlike the other two which are the more common orange flesh. 

My harvest was much larger than in the last two years, perhaps because I continue to work cow manure into the clay soil. I saw worms as I dug, and that's a good sign of organically vibrant soil. Other than making sure the sweet potato vines were watered regularly during our dry summer, I pretty much ignored them as the vines grew and spread. I plant the sweet potato bed at one end of my garden, in a space about 20' x 5', and let the vines freely grow outside the garden border. Incidently, the green leaves are edible and cook up like spinach, although the flavor is very mild. The bunches of potatoes grown from the roots, pretty much centered right below the main stems. Sometimes the long vines send down roots from along their stems and I found a few Hernandez wanderers in the ground a few feet from the mother plants. I dig as much as possible just with my gloved hands, loosening the soil around the main plant if necessary with a garden fork, far enough out where I don't think I'll hit potatoes. The potatoes I dug this year are large, smooth, and nicely shaped… in the past I've dug up many which were so small and twisted they would make good candidates to model for new Dr. Seuss characters!

You don't wash them until you are ready to use them, and the skin is tender and can bruise if not handled carefully. The internet says dry the potatoes at 80-85 degrees for 10 days, but that's not going to happen here unless we get an unexpected heat wave! I have mine drying on my open covered porch, spread in a single layer on newspaper which is on plastic (humidity is good while they dry). At night I cover them with a canvas painting cloth to protect from cold temps. In about 2 weeks, I will put them into plastic milk crates and store them in my basement, which stays around 50-60 degrees year round.

If you grow your own sweet potatoes from purchased slips, be sure to save some of the little finger-sized ones you will dig up. They are too small to eat, but they are the ones you will start slips from next spring. It's an easy process, and makes you a self-sufficient sweet potato farmer.
You can expect to see me post a recipe or two with sweet potatoes, as I explore new ways to use my harvest.