Harvesting Sweet Potatoes

Sweet potatoes still flowering on day of harvest

Well, it was a beautiful weekend with great days to harvest sweet potatoes.  They look good-- many gigantic!  Even more pleasing is the pest that plagued the fingerling potatoes is less evident on the sweet potatoes. 

Kamal holding a group of sweet potatoes

 Saturday's work was harvesting 1/2 the bed.  Now onto Sunday's work to finish up. 

Uncovering the sweet potatoes is half the battle, as it were

Sweet potatoes like sandy soil.  Thank goodness for me that they grew well in compacted soil.  In growing guides, it was suggested to play with the spacing of the plants.  Those that I spaced closer together went deeper. 

Might look like this.

All and all growing these was a delightful surprise. 

A Tale of Two Fields

Part of the field still in hay, gathered for baling

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  A long-term goal of mine is to lease land for an extended period to learn the land, to steward it and to increase its capabilities.  Currently, I have one more year at this site.  As this season plays out, my observations have turned from theory to confirmation.  Thankfully, I have two fields if one crop does not work as well in one place later, I can try it somewhere else.

Carrots from the lower field

Carrots from the upper field

 It's not just the camera perspective.  The upper field carrots are lush and create a canopy to smother weeds.  While the lower field carrots took so long to grow, I seeded carrots wherever I could in the upper field to make sure that we had carrots.  They've done so well; now I really have carrots.

Chard in the lower field

Upper field chard

 Ah, well, the chard presents a few problems: like, maybe the biodegradable black mulch was too much, this hot summer?  I have less chard in the upper field and just as it got big and sturdy, I found goldfinches landing on it and taking bites while there!

Collards in the lower field

Collards in the upper field

 If you could not see a difference between fields with the carrots and chard, it may be easier here.  I have a hunch that the soil is compacted in the lower field; thereby, making it harder for the roots to penetrate and the plant to flourish.  My mulching did not help either.  Now, we are turning to cooler weather and these crops prefer it.  We'll see.

Height of the Season Leaves No Time to Cook

How I am preserving the harvest for later

Now, in the height of the season, I have no time to prepare (and sometimes eat) the luscious vegetables.  With all the outdoor activities that summer allows, I bet you have little time too. Thankfully, with the help of many bloggers, food writers, newspapers and university sites, there's much information on preserving the harvest.  

Various vegetable quick pickles from the fridge

Using ideas from Martha Rose Shulman  quick pickles link and various pickling books, Kamal pickled cucumbers and onions with pickling spice in cider vinegar.  I pickled beets in white vinegar and roasted peppers in oil when cool I put them in a jar with vinegar. 

Lemon basil drying

If I don't use the herbs right away, they are put in a glass of water in the fridge with a plastic bag wrapped around them.  If I know that I won't use them in a few days, I dry them anywhere and everywhere.  Fresh herbs are especially expensive in the winter and dried ones are not that cheap either.

Genovese basil drying in the stairwell

Because I grow them and I can, I use hot peppers in everything.  Kamal gently chided me as I ruined (word and emphasis mine) the subtlety of a gratin. I like my bold flavors.  These are drying on the counter - waiting to dry more and then be put away and crushed or ground with a mortar and pestle for later dishes.

Various hot peppers

I freeze the hot peppers, too.  In the winter, one Hot Paper Lanterns really spices up a dal or rice and beans.

Cooked down green tomatoes

We had some green tomatoes and we blanched them and put them through a food mill to remove the skins.  I have been using this cooked down sauce as body for salsa.  Add lime, garlic and a fresh red tomato, to the green tomatoes and it's a tasty salsa.

Frozen roasted tomatoes in oil

I roasted the tomatoes to be used later to add depth to a soup or sauce.  The simplest way was from Smitten Kitchen.  You may want to adjust how long you roast them.   I found the juicer heirlooms to take longer - five to six hours at 225 F.

Preserving through freezing

I blanched beet greens and chard. Here's a detailed description on blanching from H. Sawtelle.  Then, I froze the blanched greens.  The other item shown is frozen cherry tomatoes. 

Raw carrots

To prove my point, there's the carrots from last week that I must pickle with hot pepper, sesame oil and rice vinegar. 

What Vegetable Farmers' Dread - Late Blight

Black Krim tomatoes  in the field with signs of Late Blight

Ah,  my tomatoes are loaded on the vine.  I happily walk down the rows counting the bounty, dreaming of canning, and eating fresh tomato sauce.  I actually long for the sign of eating too many tomatoes - canker sores in my mouth.  I love eating and cooking with fresh tomatoes.  Alas, just as some are starting ripen and what do I see but brown crispy leaves near the bottom of the plant.  (I have been trellising the tomatoes and often I break a branch or two and the leafhopper with it's hopperburn has affected so many crops.)  However, our farm manager, Matt, points it out and says that he thinks it is Late Blight.  As he says it, I know.  I have seen it before.  Brown on the stems and leaves, that moves up the plant and onto the fruit.  Not all the plants have it just a section of the 450 plants.  Although if I do not get the affected plants out of the field, it will spread throughout and beyond.

Fruit removed and plants to be put out with the trash

This cloudy, moist, humid weather is conducive to the fungus spreading.  My spraying of copper helped in that the whole field is not affected.

So, instead of harvesting ripe, luscious tomatoes, I am pulling the green fruit off and stuffing the plant into contractor- garbage bags to put in the trash at home.  Also, I remove the stakes and twine and set the pile aside to bring to the house for burning.  This is the last thing, I had hoped to be doing.  Thus far, I have removed 52 plants. 

What the rows look like on August 1

What does this mean for my CSA shareholders?  ...Sadly, less tomatoes and less variety.  I was growing Pink Beauty, San Marzano and the heirlooms of a Rose Brandywine, Black Krim, Red Pear Piriform, orange-colored Nepal and Cherokee Purple.  As a backup, I grew one variety of 36 plants that is Late-Blight-resistant and the cherry tomatoes may have some resistance.   We shall see.

Join the New Entry Open Farms Tour on August 2nd

The New Entry Sustainable Farming Project is having their 5th Open Farms Tour.  It will tour the farms, hear from some of the farmers and provide refreshments. 
Information about the Open Farms Tour on August 2nd

The Weekly Chore - Trellising the Tomatoes

The tomatoes leaning into each other

This season, I spend at least a couple days every week trellising the tomatoes. It gives the vines structure by keeping them upright, which helps with air circulation. Tomatoes are susceptible to many diseases. Trellising, pruning, and mulching makes for less contact with the soil to help prevent soil-borne diseases.  All of these are good things which I try to remember while the string is wrapped around my foot, or my belt or caught on another plant.

"Wrestling" the tomatoes

"Hugging" the tomatoes to wrap the twine around them

The hot, muggy weather and warm nights have been great for the tomatoes.  They have been growing a foot a week.  The cherry tomatoes are already very close to the top of the six-foot stakes.  Soon, I will have to let them flop onto themselves.  By then, I will be heavily into harvest mode.

A little less unruly?

Final Hilling of the Potatoes

French Fingerling or Russian Banana flowering

Over the weekend, we hilled and mulched the potatoes.  They are starting to flower now and with luck, we won't have to do anything else until harvest in September. 

The potato greens were growing tall so we hilled them a third time.  The hilling keeps them cooler, can improve the yield and keeps them in the dark to prevent greening. 

Here's Kamal shoveling dirt around the potatoes.

My job was to make the mounds to support the greens.

Mulching
We searched close by for straw and bought some down the street.  In the end, I used nine bales.  The straw keeps moisture in, keeps the weeds down and makes it harder for the Colorado Potato Beetle to get around.  As we found out last year, it makes some voles happy too.  We'll see.

Here I am putting the straw down

Here's what the potato beds look like now.

 

Featured in New Sustainable Farming Project's (NESFP) Newsletter

Here's the link to NESFP most recent newsletter

More about greens...

Chard ready for harvest

Greens as wraps
With young leaves I sometimes use them as a sandwich wrap for a slice of cheese, ham, roast beef, or spicy tofu  Collards work especially well for this. Put the slice of cheese, for instance, at the edge of the leaf and roll it up.

Greens and pasta
The following is what I frequently do with greens.  Boil a big pot of water for pasta and salt it.  Once it comes to a boil, add the greens to blanch for two to three minutes.  Pull out the greens with a slotted spoon into a colander and flush with cold water to cool.  Set aside.  Bring the water back to a boil, add the pasta to the greens water to capture some of the nutrients from the greens.  While the pasta is boiling chop up the greens.  When the pasta is ready, drain it to a big serving bowl, while still hot add the chopped greens and cottage cheese or goat cheese or ricotta cheese (1 cup or so) mix and serve. 

Martha Rose Shulman has a number of fantastic recipes that are not complicated:
http://www.martha-rose-shulman.com/

Here's what she wrote for the New York Times for Swiss chard:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/18/health/nutrition/swiss-chard-and-rice-soup.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/31/health/nutrition/31recipehealth.html

Please no more rain

During our virtually snowless winter and our dry spring, gardening/farming folks and my mother all said something like," I hope it does not mean we'll  have a wet and cool summer."  I cannot generalize about weather trends, but I can say that we have had a surplus of rain.   

The potatoes were coming up nicely and having dodged the Colorado Potato Beetle, I was feeling good.  On Saturday, Kamal dug up the dirt to make it nice and fluffy in preparation for hilling a third time (just because we had the soil and to buy less straw for mulching).

  But the rain gods had other ideas...

After the hailstorm with an inch rain

 We'll try again next weekend. 
 

What to do with all those greens?

This weekend, Kamal spent three hours mowing between the paths and the field edges. With all the rain the weeds (best habitat for insect pests) were flourishing.  Meanwhile, I was doing the last big planting of fall crops-- that is collards, cabbage and Brussels sprouts.

Eventually, having all the greens folks want ideas for what to do with them.  With the help of the internet, I have found number of ideas.  Here are some greens.

arugula

With arugula, I add it to salad, of course.  However, your young children may not like the taste!  Then, there's arugula pesto -- with extra cheese on the pasta it maybe palatable for kids.  Here's a recipe that I found useful: http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/arugula_pesto/   Maybe an arugula, brie panini (buttered bread and enough brie to cover it and add arugula- a  slice of apple can really tie it together- grill it like grilled cheese, unless you do have a panini maker). I  am pretty sure that kids will hate it, though. 

lemon basil

Genovese basil

Speaking of pesto, lemon basil can add a welcome brightness to pesto.  It's is also good in salads and salad dressing.  Genovese basil  may be the type used for pesto originally.  If you don't have a food processor, I make a roughly chopped pesto of basil, walnuts, olive oil, garlic and grated Parmesan or Romano.  One cup of nuts and handfuls of cheese until, I get the saltiness that I want.

Staying in Italy, there is Tuscan kale (also goes by Dinosaur kale to appeal to kids?) and curly kale.  Both varieties I grow and they can be used in the same way.   Paula Wolfert has so many excellent recipes: http://paula-wolfert.com/recipes/kale_beans.html

Curly kale

Tuscan kale

 Solea in Waltham, MA does this great dish with collards and I use chard, kale or even collards. It is blanched collards, garlic, olive oil, pine nuts and raisins- maybe some heat in the form of hot peppers or chili flakes.  Heat the oil, add garlic and pine nuts (I often use almonds.) and raisins, when you can smell the garlic add chopped greens.


When all else fails there is the simple stir fry with the protein of your choice (chopped tofu or chicken) with oil, onions and garlic, and chopped greens. 

If you have too many greens, I blanch them and freeze them for the winter. They are already washed; all I have to do is thaw and chop to add them to something.

The kitchn blog has excellent instructions on blanching. 
http://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-blanch-vegetables-home-108570

The promise of vegetables to come

The flowers are the promise of vegetables to come.  In the field the cucumbers, summer squashes, winter squashes and tomatoes are flowering. 

I have sprayed a food-grade clay on many of the crops to confuse the bugs. You'll see it in photos.  The clay will wash off when it rains, like today, and tomorrow I will spray it again in hopes of  little pest damage. 

Lemon cucumbers open for pollinators. 

As well as lemon cukes, I am trying a new variety of pickling cucumbers this year that self-pollinates.  I only have to open the row cover to harvest.  With luck, this may mean that I yield more cucumbers and deter the cucumber beetles damage.

It's funny how I am excited at the beginning of the season for little things, like this flowering zucchini.  If things turn out as I wish, I will be so-over zucchini.

zucchini with the baby squash. 

Melons and winter squashes.

Acorn squash with a baby squash

Winter squash spends an awfully long time growing, much can happen before this is ready to harvest.

Spent sometime before the rains to prune and trellis the tomatoes. Some of the sungolds have fruit!

 We'll have to wait until September for the fingerling potatoes.  This weekend we did the second hilling of the potatoes.

 
Let's hope for sun and that I can deliver a bounty for my first CSA delivery on June 21/22.

Time for Landscaping

These rainy days allow the weeds to proliferate and encourage the grass around the field.  The grass makes good cover for rabbits (and other pea-eating) mammals as well as providing habitat to insect pests.  So, it is time for landscaping. 

Here I am with my new weed whacker. I never thought that I'd be doing this but weeks of rain leave us with plenty to do.

Grand Dash to Get All Planted- Done!

Well...it has been a grand dash to get everything planted.  Here's what I have left to do:

Tomatillos, basil, parsley and other herbs, flowers, chard, cabbage and Brussels sprouts awaiting planting.

My mother and my sister helped plant eggplants and hot peppers over the weekend.  In the last week, we planted the last 100 tomato plants, sweet peppers, sweet potatoes (see below), radishes, ground cherries, beets, carrots, cilantro, and more salad greens, cucumbers and summer squash.

Speaking of sweet potatoes, they look rather anemic when the slips come through the mail.  They like heat and dry conditions.  We will see how things turn out for us in September.  The variety that grows best for many Northern growers is Beauregard.

I put these in last week.  By yesterday, some were thriving with new lovely purple and green leaves and some look like they did not survive the transplant.  It's too early to tell. 

The lower field of thirteen 100-ft beds now has less than 60 feet empty.   The upper field has grown to nineteen 140-ft beds, with two beds left to be planted.

Sweet potatoes, two kinds of eggplant, salad  greens sprouting and the ground cherries.
Dashing out of the field before a thunderstorm, this is the bottom of the upper field.

Parsley and cilantro transplants border the slow to germinate carrots and the quick germinating lettuce.   Now, it's time to help them grow by weeding, scouting for pests and fertilizing, if needed.