Kindra Clineff
21.07.2023 - 22:11 / awaytogarden.com
WE TALKED ABOUT storing tender ornamental plants recently, but what about garden vegetables, now that colder nights and days are not so far off? Each year I need to remind myself what stores best where—which is most of all determining what particular combination of temperature and humidity, such as cold and moist versus cool and dry, and so on.It also takes some experimentation, since our modern homes tend to lack just the perfect place. (Oh, to have a root cellar!) But knowing the basics helps us do the best job we can–and also to grow crops we are capable of storing, or only to grow enough for a shorter period in storage. How to stash homegrown garden vegetables (and which ones, including winter squash, to cure first in a warmer spot for best results):
temperature and humidityMANY VEGETABLES prefer to be stored surprisingly cold, at 32 to 38 degrees F. Notable exceptions: sweet potatoes (55-60 degrees), and pumpkins and winter squash (50-55, after a week or two curing even warmer).
Many also like it humid (root vegetables and potatoes, for instance—like 90 percent or thereabouts), but others such as onions and garlic and winter squash won’t do well where humidity is so high. By the way: Home refrigerators are usually cold and dry (40°F and 50-60 percent relative humidity), says the University of Minnesota Extension, in their thorough bulletin on vegetable storage.
Various extension services and other experts, such as the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association, have extensive recommendations, often with charts to simplify things (this one’s from MOFGA, and the typos in rutabaga and all, it’s part of a comprehensive pdf):
the basics of storageVEGETABLES AT PEAK maturity will store better than underdeveloped or
Kindra Clineff
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Everyone loves falafel—it’s a year-round staple, and the frozen options at Trader Joe’s make it incredibly easy to prepare. But today, you should probably rid your freezer shelves of any Trader Joe’s falafel: In the company’s third food recall this week, on July 28 Trader Joe’s recalled its fan-favorite Fully Cooked Falafel after being informed by the supplier that rocks were found in the food.
Discover the best picks for Fall Garden Vegetables for Texas that thrive in Lone Star State’s unique climate and conditions.
I’ll be roaming the Northeast in the early going, in places as close to home as the Berkshires of Massachusetts and the Hudson Valley of New York, but also across Massachusetts and as far as New Hampshire, Maine, New Jersey and coastal Connecticut. Events here in the garden will begin again in April; stay tuned for a fuller schedule of those, with just the first couple mentioned below.What’s planned already:Saturday, February 19, 2 PM: Lecture to benefit Berkshire Botanical Garden, Monument Mountain Regional High School, Great Barrington, MA.Thursday, March 3, 7 PM: R.J. Ju
100 Great Plants: From the English newspaper The Telegraph, a list of 100 great garden plants. (An aside: Why don’t our newspapers have garden sections like this one?)The Ambergate Lists: From Ambergate Gardens, Mike and Jean Heger’s nursery in Minnesota, a series of great lists covering topics from plants for deep shade to plants that don’t require frequent division.Vinnie Simeone’s Lists: Vinnie manages historic Planting Fields Arboretum on Long Island, my old stomping grounds, and has taught me many things. His personal website includes links up top to lists as desired as deer-resistant plants and plants for
I SAID IT A FEW WEEKS AGO, when I saw a change of the guard at my feeders a couple of weeks ahead of “normal”–do the birds know something I don’t yet? Seemed to me then that winter’s first teases must be close at hand. And now the National Weather Service says it may drop to 33 one night this week, slightly higher the others (not as scary as parts of Wisconsin, the Dakotas, Minnesota and Iowa, where I see–egads!–winter weather advisories and freeze watches and warnings).
“Last year [2012] at the overwintering sites, the area occupied was at only 60 percent of its previous low,” she says. “It had been declining, but that was astonishingly low.”The migration-monitoring program Journey North also reported lower stats in 2013’s cold spring. And though the numbers were only preliminary when we spoke that fall, University of Minnesota’s Monarch Larva Monitoring Program seems to indicate that “we’re at about 20 to 30 percent of our average,” Oberhauser says, acknowledging that these drastically lower numbers might be a “new normal.” But she’s not sounding defeated, by any means.A big positive: A lot of people are interested in monarchs. “Though it will be difficult to make up for all the habitat we’ve lost, we can make that ‘new normal’ as good as we can.” (Ways to help are father down this page.)what going wrong for monarchs?MONARCH
BEFORE IT’S TECHNICALLY GONE, a look at winter in the garden, in words and pictures.
WE DO THIS ON FACEBOOK DAILY: I read something that grabs my attention, and pass it on. Easy: I just insert a link and a comment, click, go. But I realize only about 8,000 so far of you “like” the A Way to Garden Facebook page (care to join us there?), and that I must make an effort to share my random “bookmarks” more regularly with the wider group. And so…
It wasLia Babitch of Turtle Tree Seed, a biodynamic supplier situated in the next town to where I live, who recommended the snowpea called ‘Schweizer Riesen,’ which translates as Swiss Giant. She told me that this Swiss heirloom was one of Turtle Tree’s original offerings, and produces lots of paler but sweeter-than-average pods (below, in the photo next to an open pod of ‘Mayfair’), with various other tasty parts: purple blossoms, tender foliage and tendrils—something delicious and distinctive to add to your salad even before you have a single pod to pick. What a generous plant! (5-to-6 foot vines; 70 days to maturity, but enjoy trimmings much earlier.)When
CRAZY, BUT TRUE: I ALWAYS THOUGHT the quirky “voice” of the Fedco Seeds catalog, named C.R. Lawn—get it? Lawn?—was a fictitious character, the made-up but pervasive green spirit of the longtime seed cooperative’s brand. But he’s not make-believe. He’s the Maine-based Fedco’s founder, and an organic gardener, market grower and seedsman with more than 30 years’ experience, and he took the time to answer some of my questions on what to grow and how to grow it better. The result is a vegetable-gardening Q&A (from peas to potatoes, lettuce, tomatoes, mineral dusts and more), with the very real C.R. Lawn—and the chance to win three $20 Fedco gift certificates I bought to share with you, and say thanks to him. Let’s jump right in: