Blessings Darlings!
While we DID have a dry month early this summer, on the whole this summer has been coolish and dry. There have been less days over 90 degrees than usual, and rain levels have been more than usual since the early hot dry spell.
So now I have issues from those factors in my garden! I've only lost a couple of zucchinis to end rot from the rain, but on top of those losses some of the zukes haven't been well pollenated - they grow right the first few inches then sudden narrow and don't develop the rest of the way down the fruit. Others, while properly pollenated have seemed to started to hibernate instead of finishing growing. And my tomatoes are not just waiting for a few hot days to suddenly have hundreds of them suddenly ripen all at once - the indetermanent ones that ARE coming ripe one at a time all have big cracks at the stem end, the standard sign of too much water.
I'm concerned I won't get any of the sweet potatoes, as they need rather a lot of days over 90 degrees to move from forming vines to forming tubers.
By the way, the DE didn't do squat for any of the bugs on the beans. I don't think I'll be getting even enough beans for a dinner side dish, let alone freeze or can any. The leaves of the beans look like delicate lace. And the daily rain means that anything I use on the plants gets promptly washed off.
To paraphrase the folk saying: humanity proposes, nature disposes.
Frondly, Fern
Showing posts with label sweet potatoes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sweet potatoes. Show all posts
Thursday, August 8, 2013
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
Today's Haul
Blessings Darlings!
Just in from the garden and tabulating today's frugal harvest:
2 cucs, 9 oz total
1 zuc, 12 oz
green beans, 12 oz
Tomatoes are still totally green. Vines from the purple sweet potatoes still trying to take over the garden, but I have no clue if the sweet potatoes are growing under the earth. No sprouts yet from the lettuce and spinach.
We ARE falling behind in eating the beans and cucs, so Suz is going to get some as gifts. If we can work out our schedules!
Frondly, Fern
Just in from the garden and tabulating today's frugal harvest:
2 cucs, 9 oz total
1 zuc, 12 oz
green beans, 12 oz
Tomatoes are still totally green. Vines from the purple sweet potatoes still trying to take over the garden, but I have no clue if the sweet potatoes are growing under the earth. No sprouts yet from the lettuce and spinach.
We ARE falling behind in eating the beans and cucs, so Suz is going to get some as gifts. If we can work out our schedules!
Frondly, Fern
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Purple Sweet Potatoes
Blessings, Darlings!
I removed all the sweet potato vines from my garden. They go into compost unlike the tomato vines which, due to risk of blight, don't get composted. While removing the vines I found yet MORE potatoes. Bringing my harvest up to about 18 pounds. I'm VERY happy with those numbers, given I had NO idea what I was doing and planted only 3 slips 'lasagna' style over solid clay soil. These are, after all, a crop that loves SANDY soil, the opposite of what I have!
So, I hear you asking, how are they for eating? Remember - I've grown these in the wrong soil and in a drought/heat wave, so YMMV. Not as sweet as most orange sweet potatoes to me, and while the skin on most of them is thin ... just under the skin is a fair amount of fiber which can be nasty. But I'm sure that I'll learn how to deal with that better soon.
I expect that the leaves are edible, too, but haven't tried them yet. The deer LOVE them. I let the deer in at the end of the season, so they could help remove the vines. Working WITH nature rocks!
So, again - nice flavor, GREAT color, GREAT yield.
Frondly, Fern
I removed all the sweet potato vines from my garden. They go into compost unlike the tomato vines which, due to risk of blight, don't get composted. While removing the vines I found yet MORE potatoes. Bringing my harvest up to about 18 pounds. I'm VERY happy with those numbers, given I had NO idea what I was doing and planted only 3 slips 'lasagna' style over solid clay soil. These are, after all, a crop that loves SANDY soil, the opposite of what I have!
So, I hear you asking, how are they for eating? Remember - I've grown these in the wrong soil and in a drought/heat wave, so YMMV. Not as sweet as most orange sweet potatoes to me, and while the skin on most of them is thin ... just under the skin is a fair amount of fiber which can be nasty. But I'm sure that I'll learn how to deal with that better soon.
I expect that the leaves are edible, too, but haven't tried them yet. The deer LOVE them. I let the deer in at the end of the season, so they could help remove the vines. Working WITH nature rocks!
So, again - nice flavor, GREAT color, GREAT yield.
Frondly, Fern
Monday, September 27, 2010
We Shop
Blessings, Darlings!
My name is Fern, and I'm a farmer's market addict.
Today the Chubby Hubby and I went to the Bowie Farmers Market, a producer-only market. Oh, could we have bought!
Our favorite vendor there is Unger Farm. Their early and late season peaches are wonderful, but their midseason peaches are the most amazing peaches we have ever eaten. Bursting with flavor, often huge, always deeply colored, there are peaches you have to eat with a bib. You will eat them even without one, and the trails of peach juice they will leave on your shirt is a minor price to pay.
[Fern's hubby here: the thing that's really special about an Unger peach is that it has this deep flavor that is so far above any other peach we have ever eaten. The flavor doesn't just say "peach," it says "PEACH!!!" It's like the difference in sound between a cheap fiddle, vs a Stradivarius played by a master. The cheap fiddle sounds tinny and tentative, but a Strad has a rich full-throated sound that is as smooth as velvet. Yeah, Unger mid season peaches are THAT good. ]
Alas, it is too late in the year for ANY MORE peaches from their farm. We 'settled' for apples: a half-peck bag of Golden Delicious for both eating out of hand and for a pie I plan to make this week, and small box of Smokehouse, a heritage apple..
I've never run into anyone selling Smokehouse apples before. Firm but not rock hard, they have an intriguing sweet/tart/apple flavor. To me, they cry out to be eaten with slices of a sharp cheddar. No one else in the family feels they need to be paired with anything. Unfortunately, the Ungers have few boxes of them to sell, as they have had to remove many of their Smokehouse trees. The variety is not resistant to black spot. It's a shame, so, sadly, to allow more shoppers can enjoy the variety I limited myself to one box.
Our next spot is Barbie's Breads, who sells breads and pastries from Uptown Bakers http://www.uptownbakers.com/. Yes, long-time readers know that I bake most of my own bread, even grind much of my own grain for my own breads. However, Uptown Bakery makes better artisan bread than I do. Way better. Way, way better. So, for the 6 months or so that Barbie sells them at farmers markets, I buy one loaf a week. This week we bought a seeded rye. We somehow managed to resist the pastries ... this time. However, I can assure you that even their oatmeal cookies are special, their wonderbars ARE a wonder, and their unique tea cakes are the well-blessed result of a culinary ad lib.
There were no leeks to be had yet (I'm hoping that the drought hasn't toasted them, but booths were so busy I didn't have a chance to ask). We settled, after a survey of all stands, for adding beets, sweet potatoes, spinach, peaches from a different provider, and hard squash to our haul. CH and I had a spirited debate over getting some fresh unpasteurized cider, but ultimately had to admit we didn't have room in the fridge for the gallon jug. We also deferred buying asian pears, more peppers, hubbard squash (excellent for strudel!), and a whole host of other enticing produce.
And I do believe I'll also get some leeks at the grocer, as I feel a fall chicken pot pie coming on.
What's fresh and local and wonderful in your area now?
Frondly, Fern
My name is Fern, and I'm a farmer's market addict.
Today the Chubby Hubby and I went to the Bowie Farmers Market, a producer-only market. Oh, could we have bought!
Our favorite vendor there is Unger Farm. Their early and late season peaches are wonderful, but their midseason peaches are the most amazing peaches we have ever eaten. Bursting with flavor, often huge, always deeply colored, there are peaches you have to eat with a bib. You will eat them even without one, and the trails of peach juice they will leave on your shirt is a minor price to pay.
[Fern's hubby here: the thing that's really special about an Unger peach is that it has this deep flavor that is so far above any other peach we have ever eaten. The flavor doesn't just say "peach," it says "PEACH!!!" It's like the difference in sound between a cheap fiddle, vs a Stradivarius played by a master. The cheap fiddle sounds tinny and tentative, but a Strad has a rich full-throated sound that is as smooth as velvet. Yeah, Unger mid season peaches are THAT good. ]
Alas, it is too late in the year for ANY MORE peaches from their farm. We 'settled' for apples: a half-peck bag of Golden Delicious for both eating out of hand and for a pie I plan to make this week, and small box of Smokehouse, a heritage apple..
I've never run into anyone selling Smokehouse apples before. Firm but not rock hard, they have an intriguing sweet/tart/apple flavor. To me, they cry out to be eaten with slices of a sharp cheddar. No one else in the family feels they need to be paired with anything. Unfortunately, the Ungers have few boxes of them to sell, as they have had to remove many of their Smokehouse trees. The variety is not resistant to black spot. It's a shame, so, sadly, to allow more shoppers can enjoy the variety I limited myself to one box.
Our next spot is Barbie's Breads, who sells breads and pastries from Uptown Bakers http://www.uptownbakers.com/. Yes, long-time readers know that I bake most of my own bread, even grind much of my own grain for my own breads. However, Uptown Bakery makes better artisan bread than I do. Way better. Way, way better. So, for the 6 months or so that Barbie sells them at farmers markets, I buy one loaf a week. This week we bought a seeded rye. We somehow managed to resist the pastries ... this time. However, I can assure you that even their oatmeal cookies are special, their wonderbars ARE a wonder, and their unique tea cakes are the well-blessed result of a culinary ad lib.
There were no leeks to be had yet (I'm hoping that the drought hasn't toasted them, but booths were so busy I didn't have a chance to ask). We settled, after a survey of all stands, for adding beets, sweet potatoes, spinach, peaches from a different provider, and hard squash to our haul. CH and I had a spirited debate over getting some fresh unpasteurized cider, but ultimately had to admit we didn't have room in the fridge for the gallon jug. We also deferred buying asian pears, more peppers, hubbard squash (excellent for strudel!), and a whole host of other enticing produce.
And I do believe I'll also get some leeks at the grocer, as I feel a fall chicken pot pie coming on.
What's fresh and local and wonderful in your area now?
Frondly, Fern
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