Your 2024 Garden

[Sally PB]

white sweet potato for making chips out of.

Sweet potato chips!?! Talk to me about making those. I have gobs of orange sweet potatoes, and would love to have more ways to use them!

 

[LTAY1946]

Sweet potato chips!?! Talk to me about making those. I have gobs of orange sweet potatoes, and would love to have more ways to use them!

Must be uniformly slice very thin on an electric slicer or mandolin. I think from their they can get a very light coating of oil of choice and done in an air fryer. We've done some regular sweet potato fries in the air fryer that way a few years back but not the chips yet. I love the chips that are available at super markets in the snack sections but don't like the high price at all.

 

[LTAY1946]

We use a lot of sweet potatoes for stir fry with ham sliced thin and sometimes bacon. The other ingredients are users choice and can be kale, cabbage, onion, mushrooms, carrots, and even pineapple. Pineapple and sweet potatoes go very good together with some brown sugar in moderation. I suppose if you like peppers some strips of poblano peppers would be good too.

Poblano pepper is on our grow list too along with cayenne for making red pepper flakes and powder. Dried Poblano become Ancho and ground Ancho is a great seasoning.

 

[rosemarythyme]

Then reality hits, and I narrow down my list. I have my usuals, but like to try a new variety, especially a new tomato, or two. Or five.

Yeah I'm the same way with tomatoes, to the point that the only single tomato I've settled on is Sungold. Otherwise I change tomatoes every year.

I really would like a dark (black/purple) tomato with a smoky taste. Paul Robeson is close but not exactly there yet.

 

[Sally PB]

I have not had any luck with purple tomatoes. I finally (3rd year) got a Cherokee purple tomato that was "normal" tomato size. I was not impressed with the flavor. To the point that I'm saying, nah, not gonna bother.

I think I'll try Krim next year. I grew them several years ago, but I think I only got one. I'm going to give them another chance.

I also suspect that my sense of taste is pretty dang blunt. Well, if that is my body's main failing, I am Lady Luck's own tot and I won't complain.

 

[LTAY1946]

For a main crop that is to supply what we need to can and make sauce from I will only plant ones that are VFN resistant. I've learned the hard way to many times with others.

 

[fuzzi]

How many folks here have started planning their garden for next year. in the early stages of planning based on how much of what we need to use fresh and preseve by drying, freezing, canning, and pickling.

I already ordered seeds from Baker Creek.

I'm also considering getting a couple more cedar raised beds for next year. Greene's Fence has a 15% off/free shipping Black Friday sale. Their stuff never goes on sale.

Years ago I used to do garden diagrams on graph paper, but just recently got back into vegetable gardening, and have been tracking what I plant, when, and where using my phone's camera. For my small scale raised beds it works well enough.

 

[LTAY1946]

I will order some seed from Burpee and maybe some from Harris. I'll decide soon and get them in. I'll be starting tomatoes on New years day.

 

[Sally PB]

have been tracking what I plant, when, and where using my phone's camera. For my small scale raised beds it works well enough.

Yeah, I've found my phone to be invaluable! So glad I thought to take pics of my garlic and onion beds. Come harvest time, I'll want to know which heads are the "new" stuff, versus the stuff I ordered.

 

[LTAY1946]

Monday I'll stop in at the CoOp and check on Roma bean seed and get enough for 400' of row as we have used the last of our canned stock. We use a quart a week once the fresh one are done in the fall. If memory is not to far off it seems like they bear for 6 to 8 weeks. The last crop we had I remember seeing my wife pull them up as she went down the row so she wouldn't be picking them again.