Root Vegetables: Beets, Turnips, Carrots

dirt on my face, family, garden, gardening tips

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Am I the only one that pronounces veg-ed-i-buls in my head every time I write it?

No?

Oh, wait, yes?

Oh, you did say no. Okay.

MOVING RIGHT ALONG

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IMG_3240After the Zucchini Disaster of 2017 I decided to plant BEETS. They grew rapidly, and I hardly had time to take a picture before it was time to yank them out of the ground, let them sit for a while on the porch (because, again, I’m more willing in growing things than actuallyIMG_3268harvesting and eating them), let them sit out there a little longer, listen to my family nag me to go get the beets off of the porch and do something with them Alex, for crying out loud!, and then take them inside, peel them, roast them, cube them, cover them in feta cheese and asqueeze of orange juice (TRY IT! SO GOOD! WHOLE30 MEANS I MISS FETA CHEESE SO MUCH! FETA EMOJI IF THERE IS ONE, AND IF THERE ISN’T ONE THERE SHOULD BE!) eat them and then a few weeks later write a blog post about it and NOW YOU’RE HERE!

(Hmm. I feel like I might have covered everything in that sentence. I hope I can think of more things to add to this post. Oh wait, I never run out of things to say. ONWARD!)

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CARROTS

Brother T brought some heirloom seeds from Baker Creek. In fact, they were these seeds: the Cosmic Purple Carrot. They grew and they grew and they grew…one thing I have grown to appreciate about root veggies is that they are willing to wait for you to be ready for them. Lots of veggies are READY WHEN THEY’RE READY (tomatoes, squash, beans etc.), but the root veggies can hang around a little while until you’re ready to use them. These were a big success and we even boxed up a few and mailed them out to Brother T and Sister KT in Portland so they could experience the sweet purple and yellow carrots for themselves.

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Stole this photo from Sister’s phone.

Turnips, turnips, turnips.

I love turnips, but these didn’t go as well as I hoped.

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I planted the turnip seeds between rows of potatoes, then transplanted them because the potatoes took up way more room than I thought they would, they actually survived the transplant and they THRIVED* but then I didn’t realize it was time to pluck them out of the ground and they got too big and kind of bitter and sort of woody. According to Uncle Gee they would taste better if they grew in colder weather. According to my Mom they would taste better if we bought them at the store, peeled them, boiled them, smothered them in butter and salt and pepper.

According to my dad they would taste better if they didn’t exist.

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That being said, I will never cease to be amazed that I can put a tiny seed in the ground and it will grow into exactly what it is supposed to be, if given enough time and the right circumstances. It is truly a miracle.

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I also thought this would be a good time to display one of the only Zucchinis that survived the Zucchini Disaster of 2017 as well as the ONLY CUCUMBER I GOT BEFORE THE BUGS RUINED MY CHANCES OF CUCUMBER HAPPINESS!!!

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I will have to make a separate post for the potatoes but (spoiler) they were good. I also have a few posts languishing in the drafts folder about tomatoes, peppers, furniture refinishing, art, raspberries, more photos of riding horses, July 4 (I know.), climbing a mountain, climbing a different mountain, kale, flowers, waterfalls, Norman Rockwell, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., the county fair, peaches, and MISCELLANEOUS.

Huh. I’d better get busy.

 

*throve?

 

 

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Potatoes: A Post for Mom

family, friends, friendship, garden, gardening tips, photography, Uncategorized

Hi Mom,

I know you love potatoes. Here is a post just for you.

Love,

Your Favorite Daughter

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There is only one place around here where you can buy seed potatoes and we were a little late to the party, so there were only two choices left. Fortunately, the Kennebec variety seems to be one of the most versatile and tasty types around.

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So many numbers. So many instructions. I did MOST of them, but I don’t like it when people tell me what to do 😉

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It didn’t smell very good, this bag. There were lots of potato eyes looking back at me and, nestled lovingly in the bottom, a completely rotten potato.

It was really gross.

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Then I chopped them up into the little pieces and set them aside, carefully avoiding the rotten ones.

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It’s pretty cool that we are going to get pounds and pounds of delicious potatoes out of these old hunks of starch.

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Planting potatoes takes up a tremendous amount of space. The little hunks of potato have to be spaced pretty far apart, and the rows themselves are spaced pretty far apart, so in the end I decided to only have two rows so that there was room for the other veggies. I planted them in the ground, on top of a handful of worm castings, with the eyes facing up. Later, as they grow, I’ll continue to mound the dirt around the plant. I learned from a gardener (possibly the wise old lady who told me young people would die if they had to go forage for salad ingredients, but she knew exactly what to pick out of her lawn) that if the hunk of potato you plant is too big, you won’t get many potatoes from it, because it’s happy to just stay the way it is.

And that’s all for now, folks! Tune in next time for more gardening anecdotes.