Gardening got off to a late start here in Minnesota due to late frost, and for us specifically, because we restructured our vegetable garden area. Even though our corn is knee high, our tomato plants are a little more stringy than usual, and our pepper plants are waiting to put on their first surge of growth, our sweet little peas have been very fruitful for weeks. Not Sweet Peas Now, when I write “sweet little peas”, I’m not writing about the sweet pea plant that boasts fragrant blooms that perfume the air with a mix of jasmine flower, orange blossoms, and honey. Sweet pea plants do not have pea pods you can eat. In fact, the sweet pea pods are mildly poisonous and contain a toxin containing lathyrogens. Lathyrogens, if consumed in large quantities, can cause a disorder of the nervous system which leads to limb paralysis, and a disorder of connective tissue, causing either bone deformity and/or aortic aneurisms. I think it’s safe to assume that eating sweet pea pods isn’t a great idea. The peas I am talking about are the sweet little peas that have edible pods, and the thinnest pods of all peas – snow peas. Snow Peas This season we’ve been growing three types of snow peas: Carouby De Maussane, Golden Sweet, and Green Beauty. All three varieties have produced a bumper crop of peas, and have the sweetest little flowers, but the Carouby De Maussane and Green Beauty are equally tasty fresh or cooked, where as Golden Sweet is best sautéed or cooked. All three varieties have climbed our trellis just beautifully, and have created one of my favorite places to harvest vegetables. The Trellis In the throes of summer, when the sun has dipped below the horizon, and the cool of the evening has set in, one of my favorite places to be is harvesting fruits and vegetables in the trellis area. At this point in the growing season, pea plants surround me as I pick the sweet, snappy pods, and both of my pups wait patiently just outside the trellis while I carefully snap the peas of the vine, and string them before placing them in the bowl. From Garden to Table After rinsing the snow peas inside the house, I diced some onions, took half of the peas from the bowl (reserving the rest for dinner tomorrow night), and placed the onions and peas in a pan. Drizzling a little bit of olive oil over the peas and onions, and dusting them with fresh cracked pepper and sea salt is all that is required for this simple dish. Sautéing the peas over medium heat for just a few minutes is all it takes to cook the snow peas to perfection. Tonight I sautéed all three pea varieties (Carouby De Maussane, Golden Sweet, and Green Beauty) together, and served them with jasmine rice and grilled shrimp. Everything was topped with just a little bit of Parmesan cheese. The sweet, delicate flavor of the snow peas was a delight alongside the rice and shrimp, and I am very much looking forward to eating the sweet little peas again tomorrow! Grow Your Own Snow Peas For those of you in the Upper Midwest, snow peas can be planted again in August, so if you’d like to try growing these easy-to-grow vegetables that are almost guaranteed to give you an abundance of sweet little peas – I ask you to give them a chance. The peas are planted 1″ deep and 2″ apart, and the vines need something to grow up on whether it’s a trellis or corn stalk. If you’re planting in rows, space rows 18-24″ apart. Snow peas can withstand light frosts, so you can harvest them late into the fall, and kids love to pick them too! Do you have a favorite way to prepare snow peas? Maybe you like to eat them straight off the vine. Either way, I’d love to read about it in the comments below. Thanks so much for stopping by Unbound Roots today! ~Erin .
Vegetable
Growing Sweet Potatoes in Cooler Climates
Boiled sweet potatoes mixed until smooth and baked with a delicious topping of brown sugar, cinnamon, and oats, –or– fresh sweet potatoes cubed and roasted with just a bit of olive oil and sea salt. Oh my goodness, fresh sweet potatoes are a treat! My whole family looks forward to harvesting and devouring the delicious root vegetable. My son says that harvesting sweet potatoes is like a treasure hunt. “You never know how many potatoes there will be, or what size they will be.” My daughter says that she just likes to “dig and dig and dig.” Not only are sweet potatoes delicious, they are considered one of the most healthy foods as they are an excellent source of vitamin A (214% of your daily value), and very good sources of vitamin C, vitamin B6, manganese, copper, and pantothenic acid, among others. Anthocyanin (a color-related pigment) in sweet potatoes is equally valuable for it’s anti-inflammatory health benefits. Okay, you get the point. Sweet potatoes are delicious and healthy. But, can we grow them here in MN or in other cool climates? Well, I’m so glad you asked! Yes, of course you can, but it takes just a little more work. Sweet potatoes are tropical plants, so they like hot weather, hot soil, and are very sensitive to frost. Here in MN, we have cooler weather with shorter growing seasons, so we need to do a little extra work to ensure that our sweet potato plants are happy enough to grow those delicious and healthy tubers. So, here it goes: Starting Slips Starting a sweet potato plant is probably one of the most easy and inexpensive vegetables to start. You do not start sweet potato plants from seed like most vegetables, you start them from what is called a seed potato (a firm sweet potato that is 1-2″ in diameter). Poke two to four toothpicks into the center of the sweet potato (on opposite sides), place the sweet potato halfway into a glass jar, and fill the jar with water until 1-2″ of the bottom of the sweet potato is submerged in water. Place the sweet potato under a fluorescent light (for up to 14 hours per day) or in a bright window. You will soon see roots starting to form on the submerged portion of the sweet potato followed by what are called sweet potato slips or shoots sprouting from the upper part of the sweet potato. Once the slips are 4-5″ long, gently twist or pinch the slip off of the sweet potato right where it connects to the sweet potato and place the slip into a jar of water until roots form (do not submerge the leaves as they will rot). Preparing the Garden As far as soil quality goes, sweet potatoes are very forgiving. They don’t need nutrient-dense soil. In fact, too much nitrogen will cause too much foliage growth which will inhibit tuber or root develop. So, if you do fertilize, choose a fertilizer with lower amounts of nitrogen. Also, sweet potatoes can have trouble in soil that contains a lot of clay (which is one of our problems here) by growing skinny and misshapen roots. If you have a lot of clay in your soil, a raised bed can do wonders for those sweet tubers. Heat! Sweet potatoes love heat. The more 100F days, the better as far as sweet potatoes are concerned. The slips also love to be planted in warm soil (75F soil or warmer is best). To achieve that here in MN, we cover our raised bed with clear plastic sheeting and tuck the sides down between the bricks and the soil for a few weeks before we plant. Also, sweet potato plants do not like temperatures below 55F, so we typically plant 2-3 weeks after our average last frost date. June 1st is a good estimate of the time we typically plant sweet potatoes here in Minnesota. Once the sweet potatoes are ready to plant, you can make slits in the plastic sheeting (we like to make a cross with slits about 3″ in length), poke a couple of finger down into the soil, and gently lower the slip down into the hole. Feel free to plant slips all the way to the top leaves as sweet potato slips will grow roots on the entire plant stem if plant in the ground. Fill the soil in around the plant and water (we find it easiest to lay a soaker hose under the plastic before planting). We started our slips pretty early this year, so we did plant some slips in 4″ pots indoors. Because of this, we planted these sweet potato plants before re-applying the plastic as large holes in the plastic would have been needed to plant, thus causing a lot of heat to escape throughout the season. Once planted, the slips should be watered every day for a week. Once the plants are established they will need about 1″ of water per week until 2-3 weeks before harvest time. Harvest Time Sweet potatoes usually mature in 90-100 days. Harvest them when leaves start to turn yellow, and/or before the threat of frost occurs. Two weeks before harvesting, discontinue watering, as harvesting is much easier in dryer soil. When you are ready to harvest, gently dig around the sweet potato plant with a pitch fork or shovel trying not to pierce the tubers. Digging works best when you start on the outside of your garden and work inward toward the center. Sweet potatoes need to cure if you want the best sweet, rich, sweet-potato taste. Perfect curing conditions are 90% humidity with a temperature of 85F. After two weeks of curing, sweet potatoes are best stored in cool, dark areas with temperatures between 55F and 60F and humidity at 85-90%. Unheated basements work well for storage, and sweet potatoes should store for six months or more! We still have perfectly edible sweet potatoes in our basement that have been stored for nine months now.
Companion Planting
Companion planting: The act of placing plants together that can benefit each other in different ways. In the spring I like to think that little plant communities are being built when we plant our vegetable gardens. Just as human beings need shelter, food, water, and friends, plants need the same in their communities. They compete for resources, just like we compete for resources. When gardens are planted using the companion planting concept, plants that benefit each other are purposely planted close together, and plants that compete for resources or harm each other are kept separate. A perfect example of companion planting is what the Native Americans call the Three Sisters, which is planting a mixture of corn, beans and squash together. According to The Old Farmer’s Almanac: By the time European settlers arrived in America in the early 1600s, the Iroquois had been growing the “three sisters” for over three centuries. The vegetable trio sustained the Native Americans both physically and spiritually. In legend, the plants were a gift from the gods, always to be grown together, eaten together, and celebrated together. Each of the sisters contributes something to the planting. Together, the sisters provide a balanced diet from a single planting. As older sisters often do, the corn offers the beans needed support. The beans, the giving sister, pull nitrogen from the air and bring it to the soil for the benefit of all three. As the beans grow through the tangle of squash vines and wind their way up the cornstalks into the sunlight, they hold the sisters close together. The large leaves of the sprawling squash protect the threesome by creating living mulch that shades the soil, keeping it cool and moist and preventing weeds. The prickly squash leaves also keep away raccoons, which don’t like to step on them. Together, the three sisters provide both sustainable soil fertility as well as a healthy diet. Perfection! As you can see, companion planting can benefit plants by: keeping pests away, providing support to neighboring plants, sharing or providing resources, promoting polyculture, and attracting beneficial insects. Just as the Three Sisters uses the corn stalks to allow the beans to climb to the sun and the large squash leaves to keep the soil moist, the gardener needs to keep the sun and water requirements in mind when planting different crops close together. For instance, corn should not be planted to the south of a row of potatoes do to the amount of shade the corn would give the potato plants. Or, bush beans may need more water than the squash plants because the large squash leave shade the soil so nicely with their large leaves. Below is a helpful companion planting guide. Click on the picture to download a free copy! Last, but not least, here are some flowers that are great companions for your vegetable gardens: Catnip – Keeps aphids, asparagus beetles, and squash bugs away, but attracts pollinators and parasitic wasps. Clover – Many people have this wild flower growing naturally in the yard, which is great for gardens! Clover attracts many beneficial insects, aids in fighting cabbage worms, and increases the number of predatory ground beetles. A favorite food of honey bees! Cosmos – An annual that provides provides food and habitat to many different predatory insects. Dahlias – Aids in repelling nematodes. Dahlias have a large, beautiful flower head that will attract pollinators and lend beauty to your vegetable garden. Echinacea or Cone Flower – Attract hoverflies and parasitoid wasps, so plant close to the vegetable garden to control pests. Gaillardia – Blooms for a very long period over the summer. Plant this perennial along with other long-bloomers to provide a constant meal for your favorite pollinators! Lavender – A perennial in some zones, and an annual in others, lavender is an excellent general pest repellent flower that repels fleas, moths, and white flies. A wonderful smelling flower for your garden. Licorice Plant – Plant on the outside of the garden to lure cabbage moths away from broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower and turnips. Bees are attracted to licorice plant, but keep this plant away from radishes. Marigold – Marigolds produce chemicals that repel many different insects, along with rabbits and deer, but they attract hoverflies and helpful wasps. Do not plant them near beans. Monarda or Bee Balm – This perennial is a favorite among bees, wasps, and hummingbirds. Yarrow – Attracts hoverflies, lady beetles, and wasps that prey on grubs, but repels aphids.