Notes to the Future

We grew two varieties of green pole bean this year: Kentucky Wonder and Blue Lake. The winner of the side-by-side test is Kentucky Wonder. According to Michael (our most devoted bean enthusiast), they were earlier and more prolific than Blue Lake.

Next year, we may grow Kentucky Wonder and the Romano pole bean Garden of Eden on the Pea trellis. Instead of standard pole beans, a dried bean variety (that doesn’t need to be picked until the end of the season) may work better for the Three Sisters plot.

While topping the Brussels sprouts* on Wednesday evening, I happened upon an odd, exotic-looking object that was attached to the main stem of one of our plants.  It looked like something that would fit right in on the set of the movie Alien!  However, as I examined it more closely, I realized that it is something that is very good to find in one’s garden — that is, an ootheca, (i.e., egg case), from a mantid!  In our case, (no pun intended!), based on its size and shape, this egg case is from a Chinese mantid (Tenodera aridifolia sinensis). 

 

Ootheca (egg case) from a Chinese mantid, on a Brussels Sprout Plant

[photo – Susan Doctrow]

The Chinese mantid is the world’s largest mantid, often reaching over four inches in length when fully grown.  They are brown, with green or yellow stripes on the sides of their wings, and they are widely sold through garden catalogs and garden centers because they are carnivorous predators that will often feed on other insects and creatures that are garden pests.

See our earlier post for a photo of the adult Chinese mantid that we discovered on our pole bean trellis:

https://robbinsfarmgarden.org/content/day-garden-september-8-2012

Here’s a Chinese mantid creating an egg case: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyrQSfXiGQY&feature=fvsr

And here’s a mantid egg case actually hatching: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJoNzO0iNVQ

—————————————————————————————————————————

*  We learned, this season, that topping Brussels sprouts and flower sprouts when they are 3-4 weeks from harvest leads to bigger, more-consistently sized sprouts at harvest time.

 

This year’s early-season carrots struggled through an infestation of Asiatic Garden Beetles, a nocturnal garden pest that needed to be painstakingly removed from the soil during thinning and weeding. The early crop took a bit longer than expected to mature, but the beetle-busting efforts paid off with truly lovely carrots.

When our late-season carrots got off to a rocky start, we began to worry. We seeded an area vacated by fava beans on July 7th. Germination was good, the seedlings began growing, but then they all died. All except a few that had been in the shade of the mature carrots at the ends of the rows. We’re not certain, but it may be that the seedlings became too dry at a critical period and quickly withered in the mid-July sun. They were replanted and the second carrot crop now appears to be on its way to greatness. But for my part, I’d like to document a few carrot lessons we’ve learned this year.

1. Favor varieties with short growing seasons. Two crops divides the season into mid-April to mid-July and mid-July to mid-October, giving a generous 91 days for maturity. Yet, carrots grown in the peripheries of the season take longer than the predicted 75 days.

2. Plant the rows close together. The carrots shared a bed with salad turnips this year, dividing one 6′ x 9′ planting bed into two beds 3′ wide. We planted five rows 6 inches apart and the spacing was excellent.

3. Sow plenty of seed. Carrots take their time germinating (1-3 weeks), so they don’t allow much opportunity to infill seed bare spots without paying a heavy price in lost time.

4. Keep the newly-seeded soil moist. We used shade cloth after re-seeding in July and left it in place until the seedlings had a good roothold (at about 2" tall). This may be less of a problem for the early crop.

5. Lightly thin the seedlings each week. Successive thinning doesn’t take long, and it results in the best seedlings surviving to maturity at the ideal spacing of around 1 inch apart.

I love the greens from our garden and, really, never get tired of cooking them in a very simple way.  Usually, I saute onions in olive oil, then add the greens (collards, kale, chard, mustard and turnip greens, in whatever combination was available on a gardening day).  I saute it all a bit, then add just enough water to facilitate steaming, and steam, covered, until the greens are tender.  Usually, I season with just salt, pepper and a little celery salt.  It’s perfect! We not only eat it hot with our dinner but, also, I put it cold on my salads for lunch.

But, tonight, I wanted to try something different.  I turned to Deborah Madison’s “Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone” cookbook, my “bible” over the summer when the veggies are fresh and varied.  I chose the recipe “Kale and Cannellini Beans” but I used a mixture of greens from the Garden, kale along with Swiss chard, collard greens and some turnip greens (from salad turnips) instead of just kale.  I also used a vidalia onion.  Otherwise, I pretty much followed the recipe, though I used a bit more olive oil (2 Tbsp instead of 1.5) and garlic (4 instead of 2 cloves).  I used organic canned white kidney (cannellini) beans from Trader Joe’s, thoroughly rinsed.  I also used dried rosemary from Penzey’s, though it would have been better to have taken fresh rosemary home from the Garden.  I was too lazy to drive back up there to take some.  I used a very yummy Nobilo New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc for the dry white wine.  A bit of overkill, I guess, but it was what we had.  (I drank a glass while cooking the dish, and it was much appreciated.) Enjoy!

Another very interesting plant that I want to recommend that we grow next season is the Egyptian Walking Onion.  They are also commonly called tree onions, top onions, or topsetting onions (Allium cepa var. proliferum ).

A field of Walking Onions 

 

Bulblets forming at the tops of the stems

This hardy perennial onion, unlike most other types of alliums, grows bulblets (small bulbs) at the tops of its leaves.  These bulblets can be eaten (they’re very mild), or they can be planted just like onion sets to produce more walking onions.  The term "walking" refers to the fact that if the bulblets are left on the plant, they eventually get big and heavy enough to cause the stems to bend to the point where the bulblets come into contact with the soil, at which point the bulblets take root and start new plants.  Thus, these alliums can "walk" their way across your garden (if you let them).

For more on this amazing and alluring allium:

http://gardening.about.com/od/gardeningwithkids/ig/Vegetable-Gardening-with-Kids/Egyptian-Walking-Onion.htm

http://www.egyptianwalkingonion.com/

http://www.territorialseed.com/product/1327/80

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_onion

We are growing sweet potatoes for the first time this season, and we’re learning as we go along.  Unlike most of the other plants in our garden, sweet potatoes are NOT grown from seeds.  Instead, they are grown from “slips,” or small clusters of leaves that can be made to sprout on mature tubers.  For info on how to start your own sweet potato slips, click here.

Sweet potatoes come in either bush or vining varieties.  We bought our vining-type sweet potato slips, variety ‘Georgia Jet,’ from Burpee. NOTE:  some sweet potato slips that are sold as ‘Georgia Jet” are, in fact, imposters.  To tell the difference between the imposter and the Real Thing, watch your plants for blossoms.  If you see blossoms, (as in photo, below), then you have the REAL Georgia Jet variety!

Our very own Georgia Jet sweet potato blossoms  [Photo by Alan Jones]

We wanted a variety that would do well this far north (slightly north of Boston, Massachusetts), but also have a relatively short time to maturity (90 days).  To place an order, click here.

Some important things to keep in mind to Successfully Grow Sweet Potatoes:

1.  Sweet potatoes like a slightly acid soil, prefering a soil pH between 5.0 and 6.5.

2.  Sweet potatoes do much better in very warm soil, so covering your soil with CLEAR plastic prior to planting your slips will help to capture extra solar energy, thus raising the temperature of your soil.

3.  Don’t fertilize your sweet potatoes — doing so will result in lots of foliage, but not necessarily more tubors.  Digging in 2-4″ of compost at planting time will supply sufficient nutrients for a good crop.

4.  IMPORTANT:  Give your sweet potatoes about 1″ of water per week, but, to keep the mature tubers from splitting, DO NOT WATER your plants for 3-4 weeks prior to their harvest date.

5.  Be gentle when digging your sweet potatoes — they grow close to the surface. Their skins are tender and can be easily damaged.

6.  VERY IMPORTANT:  Sweet potatoes develop a much better taste if allowed to cure properly after digging.

For more info on growing and curing your very own delicious and ridiculously nutritious sweet potatoes, see:

http://www.diynetwork.com/how-to/how-to-plant-and-grow-sweet-potatoes/index.html

http://gardening.about.com/od/vegetables/p/Sweet-Potatoes.htm

http://www.motherearthnews.com/print-article.aspx?id=2147495722