Moxie Gardener

Fingerling potatoes--a rare find at the farmer's market.

Fingerling potatoes are smaller than regular potatoes and are shaped like fat fingers.  But they pack a whole bunch of flavor into those chubby “fingers.”  Available in purple and red, but most often yellow—like Yukon Gold potatoes—fingerling potatoes have a buttery flavor and waxy texture that make them perfect for salads and hot dishes.

Members of the Solanaceae family, fingerling potatoes’ Latin name is Solanum tuberosum.  They are native to the Andes Mountains in Peru, as are the more familiar, regular sized potatoes.

Fingerling potatoes are grown just like regular potatoes with an exception.  Don’t try to harvest them for “new potatoes,” in mid-summer—they won’t be large enough.  Wait the full 90 to 120 days potatoes take to mature, or until the vines start to die down in early fall, then harvest as full-sized (for them), mature potatoes.

Cut pieces of “seed potatoes” for fingerlings smaller than you would for regular potatoes.  Cut into pieces weighing approximately one ounce and that contain at least two “eyes.”  A pound of fingerling seed pieces will produce about 20 pounds of fingerling potatoes.  That’s more than twice the yield of regular potatoes.

Plant pieces of “seed potatoes” 4 to 6 inches deep and 18 inches apart in rows 36 inches apart.  Fingerling potatoes need loose, deep, sandy soil that has been improved with additions of compost, organic matter, and/or manure.

About 3 to 4 weeks after the sprouts emerge, hill up the soil, leaving only the top third of the sprout above the soil line.  Hill up again two to three weeks later, and keep repeating until flowers appear.  At that time, mulch soil with 4 to 6 inches of straw or other organic mulch.

Provide consistent moisture; even a brief dry period will produce smaller, misshapen tubers.  To control disease and fungus, water potatoes with a soaker hose rather than a sprinkler or other overhead method.

Fingerling potatoes are just as easy to grow as regular potatoes and they taste better and produce more.  Considering their premium prices at the supermarket and farmer’s market, they’re well worth growing in the home garden.

Just after the fourth of July I was walking.  It was hot.  I noticed the sidewalk was purple in places with purple globs all over it.  Mulberries! 

Mulberries

I looked around.  The bush/tree was on the edge of the right-of-way of a railroad track.  I stood there and ate the berries right off the bush until my thirst was satisfied.  Mmmm.

Mulberry trees are all over Minneapolis.  No doubt some were planted by settlers but perhaps many more have been planted by birds.

Birds love mulberries.  Plant as a decoy if you are trying to grow blueberries or raspberries.  Apparently the birds will choose mulberries over any other berry.

Fast forward to today.  Again, I’m walking.  I notice the purple sidewalk.  Different location.  Mulberries.

A month later?

Turns out mulberries can have a very long bearing season.  June through September for some varieties.  Mulberries belong to the genus morus and are either white, red, or black.  The blossom color determines which variety they are.

Unripe mulberry

While some varieties of mulberry have white berries, the majority start out pink, blush to red, then finally turn deep purple when ripe.

After the first mulberry tree I saw today, I started seeing them everywhere.  Those growing in full sun were nearly finished fruiting.  In one case the branches contained only a few fruits and the purple sidewalk had started to fade.  Mulberries growing in shade to part shade were fruiting like crazy!  Their branches were loaded with red berries with just a few already turned to purple.

Mulberries are easy to grow.  Few pests bother them and they’re relatively drought resistant.  They can be pruned into a bush or left to grow to a height of 50 feet or more.  The downside is the berries dropping for a few weeks or longer.  The juice is notorious for staining, permanently.

I want my own mulberry.  I’m dying to try making mulberry wine.  An acquaintance once gave me homemade mulberry jam.  Ever since then I’ve wanted my own tree from which to make wine.

 Didn’t the two “aunts” in Arsenic and Old Lace drink mulberry wine?

Over 7 feet tall!

Nothing says summer like sunflowers.  Their cheery yellowness brightens up any room.  In the garden they stand like sentinals guarding over the shorter plants.

It was getting into June by that time but I planted all four packets in a new garden at my new house.  I was rewarded with a dozen or so varieties of varying heights and colors ranging from yellow to gold to orange-rust, and even a cream colored one.

"Volunteers"

They looked specatular!

Unfortunately, the squirrels were as thrilled with the sunflowers as I was.  They used them as their squirrel-workout area and of course they ate the seeds.  I even found a severed flower head—as large as a salad plate—on the back porch one afternoon.  My hopes of saving the seeds vanished with the squirrel olympics.  The cats enjoyed watching them from the confinement of the kitchen window sills.  (Note to cat lovers:  my cats go outside but in a new house it’s best to keep them inside for a couple months after the move otherwise they try to find their old neighborhood and sometimes can’t find their way back to the new house.)

Over the winter I painstakenly chose four varieties of sunflowers in four varying heights to plant in rows stair-step fashion.  I planted them in early May (normal for Minnesota).  To my surprise, before the cultivated sunflowers came up, “volunteers” from last year came up all over the garden.  I resisted the urge to pull them out, and I’m glad I did.

The cultivated sunflowers are struggling and only a couple of them have bloomed.  On the other hand, the plants the squirrels re-seeded for me have been blooming for weeks!  Unfortunately not all of the original varieties survived, but about half a dozen different heights, shades of yellow, and flower-size did. 

The cats are too old and scared of the traffic (the new house is on a semi-busy street) to go out during the day, but come sunset they demand to be let out.  The effect this had on the squirrels did not become apparent until the sunflowers reached “squirrel-climbing” size and started to bloom.  Because of the feline presence, even though it’s during the squirrels’ normal sleeping time, the squirrels have stayed away from the sunflower garden.  They still live in the tree on the boulevard, indeed, they have built a nest there, but they stay away from my yard.

A supply of paper lunch bags has been purchased and will cover one of each type of sunflower at the end of August.  This year I’ll get some seeds to save.  The cultivated sunflowers?  If they ever bloom I’ll collect some seeds.  Stay tuned.

It always pays to defer to Mother Nature.  If I had pulled those sunflower “volunteers” (some people would call them weeds), I wouldn’t have the beautiful blooms gracing my back yard right now.

Anybody wanna trade for some sunflower seeds?

Despite my energy level, I can be a lazy gardener.  In the case of green onions, also known as scallions, this turned out to lead to a great discovery.

Freshly picked green onions are sweeter and crisper than those that have sat in the fridge for a few days.  I generally only pick one or two at  time—whatever I need for dinner that night.

Because green onions like cool weather, I leave them in the ground until just before it freezes.  One fall I left them in the garden just a little too long. (Translation: I was too lazy to pick, wash, and properly store them.)  The ground froze solid overnight and I couldn’t pick them.  I wrote them off.

The following spring I noticed green shoots emerging in the green onion patch.  I’m glad I left them to see what would happen.

From those shoots I picked good sized green onions weeks before I normally would have from spring-planted seeds here in Minnesota.  Since I was experimenting with them anyway, I decided to leave some growing and see what would happen.  I’m glad I did.  Soon they grew flowers and seeds ripened.  They re-seeded themselves and not long afterward I noticed baby green onions growing.

For the rest of the summer I left the small onions and picked the largest first, starting with the two-year-old ones.  They were delicious even though their diameter was much larger than store-bought green onions.

That fall I dutifully covered the un-picked green onions.  Not only did they survive and come up the following spring, but many self-sown seeds survived the winter and germinated in the cool, wet spring weather.

I kept my green onion patch going for four years, until I moved.  In my garden right now I have green onions which I planted from seed last year.  They’ve already flowered and I manually scattered their seeds before snipping off the dried flower heads.  Hopefully some seeds will germinate this summer and some next spring.  Just in case, I saved some seeds and plan to scatter them in the green onion patch in late fall.

The moral of the story?  Sometimes it’s best to do nothing in the garden, because it could magically turn in to something.  Like a perennial green onion patch.

It’s high summer and wow is it hot!  Time to sit and wait, watch the garden grow, and pick, pick, pick.

In my garden, summer is my laziest time.  After a hectic spring, I can relax and enjoy the beauty.

Everything is mulched so I don’t have to weed.  Water, fertilize, and pick.  That’s what I do in summer.

Ok.  I do other things.  I usually get around to organizing my seeds.  I make sure all the envelopes are sealed and file them by planting season.  Salad and other greens, tomatoes and peppers get their own categories because I grow so many varieties of each.

I try to start some salad greens and cole crops in flats for planting out in mid to late August.  If I’m super busy with other things I’ll keep them inside under lights.  If I grow them on outside, even in the shade, they need water daily, sometimes twice.  Made that mistake before.

One of my favorite garden tools is a sharp pair of scissors.  I use them to dead head flowers, pick beans, and cut the roots off salad greens as I pick them—less dirt makes the greens easier to wash.  While you’re dead heading, don’t forget to use the scissors to cut bouquets of flowers for every room.

Cut your herbs back before they flower and dry for winter use.  They’ll have more flavor because they contain more essential oil before they flower.  Tie in bunches and hang upside down until crunchy.  Strip the leaves from the stems but don’t crush them until you use them in your recipes.  I couldn’t bear to throw away any part of my herbs and I’ve found that the stems add subtle flavor to soups and stews.  Just make sure to fish them out before serving.

Now is the time to dig out the tomato and zucchini recipes collected since last summer.  What better time to experiment with these vegetables than when there are so many of them?