Our fall garden is underway with the planting of cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, onions, and a new entry...
bok choy. The bok choy grew so fast that Judy picked some stems tonight and so we will be trying it out for the first time. Judy was looking at some recipes today. I can't wait to see how the bok choy tastes, since I have never tried it before.
Just for an update on our summer garden, we planted a few slips of a very colorful variety of sweet potato, bred at LSU, called
Evangeline. It has a mix of purple and green leaves. I put it in the garden in early summer after we had harvested most of the spring-planted crops, and it pretty much took over the garden with very little care. It was pretty much growing wild. To our surprise, we got a bumper crop of sweet potatoes, which is amazing considering that we only planted a few slips to begin with. Judy made some pies with the sweet potatoes; the people at work swore they had to be pumpkin pies when I let them get a taste. When it came time to establish a fall garden, we knew we were going to see unwanted sweet potato plants sprouting up like weeds, but it turns out that it wasn't too much of a problem. I guess the sweet potato is related to the morning glory which helps to explain its aggressiveness.
We had some cantaloupe and watermelon plants that hung in there longer than we expected ... another pleasant surprise. Our satsuma orchard consisting of three small trees also had an amazing number of satsumas (a type of Mandarin orange originating from China but brought here from Japan). We have been enjoying them over the past month. Today, Judy harvested two small pail fulls, which will be turned into "orange" juice. I must say that our garden and back yard have surprised us by how productive they have been over the past year.
Just for an update on our summer garden, we planted a few slips of a very colorful variety of sweet potato, bred at LSU, called Evangeline. It has a mix of purple and green leaves. I put it in the garden in early summer after we had harvested most of the spring-planted crops, and it pretty much took over the garden with very little care. It was pretty much growing wild. To our surprise, we got a bumper crop of sweet potatoes, which is amazing considering that we only planted a few slips to begin with. Judy made some pies with the sweet potatoes; the people at work swore they had to be pumpkin pies when I let them get a taste. When it came time to establish a fall garden, we knew we were going to see unwanted sweet potato plants sprouting up like weeds, but it turns out that it wasn't too much of a problem. I guess the sweet potato is related to the morning glory which helps to explain its aggressiveness.
We had some cantaloupe and watermelon plants that hung in there longer than we expected ... another pleasant surprise. Our satsuma orchard consisting of three small trees also had an amazing number of satsumas (a type of Mandarin orange originating from China but brought here from Japan). We have been enjoying them over the past month. Today, Judy harvested two small pail fulls, which will be turned into "orange" juice. I must say that our garden and back yard have surprised us by how productive they have been over the past year.
4 comments:
That's awesome. i would love to plant some of that sweet potato in our garden. Can u buy that variety at a nursery?
Perhaps. Sweet potato can be grown from slips or from the potato tuber. It is asexually propagated, so you cannot purchase true seeds to propagate the variety. Remind me in the spring, and I can send some vegetative propagules to you. I would first need to know whether there are any state-to-state restrictions in doing this.
You guys are amazing gardeners! That watermelon is huge! I'm looking forward to hearing how the bok choy was. Isn't that kind of like a lettuce? I think I get that in vegetable lo mein - if it's what I think it is I really like it.
Bok choy can be cooked like chard/spinach, etc. I found stir fry recipes, also a recipe for deep frying it! It can also be eaten raw in salads. Since this is an oriental-type vegetable, a lot of the recipes have ingredients like sesame oil, ginger, oyster or fish sauce, tofu... Stuff I don't normally cook with! I guess I need to pay a visit to the 'oriental' section at the market.
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