Posted on 03/23/2008 11:36:40 PM PDT by nw_arizona_granny
Americans finding soaring food prices hard to stomach can battle back by growing their own food. [Click image for a larger version] Dean Fosdick Dean Fosdick
Home vegetable gardens appear to be booming as a result of the twin movements to eat local and pinch pennies.
At the Southeastern Flower Show in Atlanta this winter, D. Landreth Seed Co. of New Freedom, Pa., sold three to four times more seed packets than last year, says Barb Melera, president. "This is the first time I've ever heard people say, 'I can grow this more cheaply than I can buy it in the supermarket.' That's a 180-degree turn from the norm."
Roger Doiron, a gardener and fresh-food advocate from Scarborough, Maine, said he turned $85 worth of seeds into more than six months of vegetables for his family of five.
A year later, he says, the family still had "several quarts of tomato sauce, bags of mixed vegetables and ice-cube trays of pesto in the freezer; 20 heads of garlic, a five-gallon crock of sauerkraut, more homegrown hot-pepper sauce than one family could comfortably eat in a year and three sorts of squash, which we make into soups, stews and bread."
[snipped]
She compares the current period of market uncertainty with that of the early- to mid-20th century when the concept of victory gardens became popular.
"A lot of companies during the world wars and the Great Depression era encouraged vegetable gardening as a way of addressing layoffs, reduced wages and such," she says. "Some companies, like U.S. Steel, made gardens available at the workplace. Railroads provided easements they'd rent to employees and others for gardening."
(Excerpt) Read more at dallasnews.com ...
http://www.journeytoforever.org/compost_indoor.html
Composting indoors
Outdoors or indoors, anyone can make compost. If you don’t have a garden, a small space in the garage will do, or on the balcony, or even under the kitchen sink.
Composting your kitchen scraps helps the environment by reducing the amount of garbage you produce, saving landfill space, and gives you a supply of clean organic soil to grow your own healthy vegetables and herbs — and you don’t need a garden for that either (see No ground? Use containers).
There are two ways of doing it:
Aerobic composting, the kind gardeners make: see the other pages in this section to understand what compost is and how to make it. Indoor composting is the same, only on a smaller scale.
Vermicomposting, using red wriggler earthworms — see Vermicomposting for information on indoor worm composting systems. Don’t be put off — it’s clean, nuisance-free and hygienic, and many people do it: worm-compost boxes have even been used as coffee-tables!
This section deals with making aerobic compost indoors.
Think small
Composters (including us) advise gardeners to use bins or boxes with a capacity of at least 10 cubic feet: that’s equivalent to a 24x24-inch box 30” high, or a 24”-diameter tub 36” high.
These are too big for a household with no garden, and therefore no supply of garden wastes. So what is the minimum bulk?
We’ve made hot compost in a 10-gallon box rather than 10 cubic feet — only one-sixth as much. Filled all at once, it got very hot, and was ready in two weeks. It’s a bit different when the ingredients come in dribs and drabs instead of all at once, as they do from a kitchen, but you can make successful compost in a small container.
Actually you’ll need two containers — when the first one’s full and processing, you start filling the second one, and by the time that’s full, the compost in the first one’s ready for use and can be emptied out.
A smallish (10-20 gallons) plastic or galvanized iron garbage can with a lid will do. Drill 10 or 12 holes in the bottom with a 3/8-inch bit, find a tray to stand it in, and put a couple of 1/2-inch slats under it for aeration.
A 15x15x15-inch wooden box made of 1/2-inch ply (untreated) will also do well. So will a 20x20x20-inch box. Again, drill holes in the bottom and stand it in a tray with slats under it to allow an air supply, and put a hinged lid on it. Treat it inside and out with vegetable oil.
Filling the bin
Use uncooked fruit and vegetables, no meat, fish, dairy, or oils — at least at first. Once you’re more experienced you can decide this for yourself.
By themselves, kitchen scraps are too wet to compost — the moisture content averages 85%, and compost should be not more than 65%. So you need dry bedding to mix it with. This can be straw, dead leaves, strips of newspaper (avoid colored inks and glossy paper), cardboard or cartons, sphagnum peat moss, coconut coir, or a mixture. You can also use some sawdust (from non-treated wood) — mix it with other bedding materials. Keep a bucket of bedding handy by your bin. Also keep a coffee-tin full of ordinary soil next to the bucket, and some wood ash is useful.
First, put a few inches of dry bedding in the bottom of the container. Scatter the daily supply of kitchen scraps on top, and cover the scraps with about the same amount of bedding, or a little more. Scatter some soil on top, and a little lime or wood ash. Keep going until it’s full.
Mix the contents up every couple of weeks with a compost poker or compost aerator: buy one, or improvise.
Compost Aerator mixes and aerates your compost — the two hinged wings fold back to plunge deep into the pile, then open to 7” to churn the material, creating new air passages. From Gardener’s Supply Company (Item #31-326):
http://www.gardeners.com
Problems
You shouldn’t have any, but if it starts leaking liquid into the tray, use more dry bedding and mix it up with the aerator. If it starts to smell, again, use more dry bedding and give it a good working over with the compost aerator, then more bedding on top and a little more soil.
Resources
“Real Dirt: The Composting Guide to Backyard, Balcony & Apartment Composting” by Lorraine Johnson and Mark Cullen, Penguin Books of Canada, 1992, ISBN 0140159614
Whether you live in a house or an apartment, in the city, suburbs, or the country, composting is the ultimate way to achieve a greener garden and contribute to a cleaner planet. For the veteran composter or the absolute beginner, this no-nonsense, inspirational guide ensures successful composting. Lorraine Johnson and Mark Cullen are both seasoned Canadian gardening writers. From Chapters.ca:
http://www.chapters.ca/books/details/default.asp?UID= 009768DBDC0111D383BB00508B629EDB&
WSID= 1402009768DCDC0111D383BB00508B62&
AFFID= 103667&ISBN=0140159614
[On line for reading and the list of subjects is long and full of information and ideas....granny]
http://www.journeytoforever.org/farm_library.html
Journey to Forever
Online Library
Library contents
The Soil and Health
An Agricultural Testament by Sir Albert Howard — the works of Sir Albert Howard
The Waste Products of Agriculture — Their Utilization as Humus by Albert Howard and Yeshwant D. Wad
Farming and Gardening for Health or Disease (The Soil and Health) by Sir Albert Howard
The Earth’s Green Carpet by Louise E. Howard
Sir Albert Howard in India by Louise E. Howard
Nutrition and Physical Degeneration by Weston A. Price
The Wheel of Health by G.T. Wrench
The Restoration of the Peasantries, With especial reference to that of India by G.T. Wrench
Reconstruction by Way of the Soil by G. T. Wrench
Nutrition and Health by Sir Robert McCarrison
The Saccharine Disease: Conditions caused by the Taking of Refined Carbohydrates, such as Sugar and White Flour by T. L. Cleave
The Medical Testament
Ill Fares the Land by Dr. Walter Yellowlees
Food & Health in the Scottish Highlands: Four Lectures from a Rural Practice — Dr Walter Yellowlees
Towards a Sustainable Agriculture — The Living Soil by Lady Eve Balfour
Weeds — Guardians of the Soil by Joseph A. Cocannouer
Common-Sense Compost Making — by the Quick Return Method by Maye E. Bruce
Seaweed and Plant Growth — from “Seaweed in Agriculture and Horticulture”, by W.A. Stephenson
This Famishing World by Alfred W. McCann
Voedzame Traditionele Voeding — Dutch translation of “Nourishing Traditions”, Sally Fallon and Mary Enig
Ley Farming
Ley Farming by Sir R. George Stapledon and William Davies
The Clifton Park System of Farming by Robert H. Elliot
Fertility Farming by Newman Turner
Thirty Years Farming on the Clifton Park System by William Lamin
Ploughman’s Folly by Edward H. Faulkner
Seeds mixtures for ley farming
Earthworms
Friend Earthworm: Practical Application of a Lifetime Study of Habits of the Most Important Animal in the World by George Sheffield Oliver
Mycorrhiza
Trees and Toadstools by M.C. Rayner
Tree crops
Tree Crops: A Permanent Agriculture by J. Russell Smith
Soil conservation
Conquest of the Land Through Seven Thousand Years by W. C. Lowdermilk
Humanure
The Specialist by Charles Sale
Man and Nature
The Soul of the White Ant by Eugène N. Marais
Farm Gumption
Handy Farm Devices and How to Make Them by Rolfe Cobleigh
Profitable Poultry Production by M. G. Kains
Energy
Methane Digesters For Fuel Gas and Fertilizer, With Complete Instructions For Two Working Models by L. John Fry
Nepal Biogas Plant — Construction Manual: Construction Manual for GGC 2047 Model Biogas Plant
Jean Pain: France’s King of Green Gold
Micro Cogeneration: 21st Century Independent Power — How to Design and Construct Your Own Independent Power System, by Kirk McLoren
Farm-scale ethanol fuel production plant — the Gildred/Butterfield Fuel Alcohol Plant
The Butterfield Still — the FSB Energy Fuel Alcohol Plant.
Mother Earth Alcohol Fuel, The Mother Earth News, 1980
The Manual for the Home and Farm Production of Alcohol Fuel, by S.W. Mathewson
The Sunflower Seed Huller and Oil Press, by Jeff Cox
Online collections
VITA — Volunteers in Technical Assistance — 160 VITA publications
Agrodok — Series of 44 books on small-scale sustainable agriculture
FAO Better Farming Series — Series of 44 manuals
The Soil and Health
[continued]
http://www.journeytoforever.org/edu_cardboard.html#column
[Note the growing columns, good idea..granny]
What to do with a cardboard carton
Which is best?
1. Throw it in the garbage
2. Send it to the waste-recyclers
3. Turn it into a solar box cooker
4. Use it instead of an oven to bake sweet potatoes
5. Turn it into a composter that finally composts itself — and grow a tree in the compost you make
6. Feed it to compost worms (see Vermicomposting page)
7. Make a Growing Column and grow 50 vegetables in it
8. Hatch 3 dozen eggs in it — make an incubator
9. Make an armchair
10. Build a house.
Garbage
Most cardboard boxes end up in the garbage dump:
* 9% of the average urban garbage dump consists of cardboard boxes
* 1 ton of cardboard boxes is the equivalent of 17 trees
* Recycling one ton of cardboard saves over 9 cubic yards of landfill space
* Recycling 1 ton of paper uses 7,000 fewer gallons of water, saves 35% of the water pollution and 70% of the air pollution produced in making new paper, uses 4100 KWH less energy, and saves 390 gallons of oil
* In Hong Kong, recycling boxes also helps to support the poor old people who make a living collecting boxes for the recycling presses.
Recycling
So it’s better to recycle cardboard boxes. Or is it?
— November 19, 1998: Hong Kong’s only newspaper-recycling company, Concordia Paper Ltd, collapses amid financial difficulties. Waste paper accumulates at the rate of 500 tonnes a day and more than 450 people lose their jobs.
“Even if the [recycled paper] market disappeared entirely, there would be no problem collecting an extra 2,000 tonnes of waste paper a day and taking it to the landfills.” — Deputy Secretary for Planning, Environment and Lands, Kim Salkeld, South China Morning Post
Find out what really happens to the goods you recycle! How can you do that? Find that out too! Ask questions, keep asking until you get the right answers. Don’t just hand it over to someone else to take responsibility, take responsibility yourself!
Just as much to the point: do you use recycled paper? Does your family? Does your school? What about other recycled goods? See Recycling facts.
Solar box cookers
One of the best ways to use a cardboard box is to turn it into a solar box cooker. Recycling 60 or so cardboard boxes might save one tree, but one solar box cooker can save at least one whole tree all by itself, each year. Some people think solar box cookers can save the world, and they could be right!
Solar box cookers for schools
Solar box cookers
Solar cooker resources on the web
It takes three or four cardboard boxes to make a solar cooker — not enough to use up your share of the supply. How many cardboard boxes is each person in your community responsible for each year? How would you find out?
Baked potatoes
So what can you do with the rest of your cardboard boxes? You could burn them, if you have a big enough and safe enough space to do so. Wasteful? What about greenhouse gases?
As far as greenhouse gases are concerned, when you burn a box, or anything made out of trees, you’re not creating greenhouse gases, just recycling them. The CO2 released in the fire is reabsorbed by other plants and trees. CO2 levels in the atmosphere don’t increase as a result.
As far as waste is concerned, it depends what you do with the fire. First of all, cardboard boxes make a really fine blaze, though it doesn’t last long. Second, when the blaze dies down, you’re left with a very mild kind of charcoal, glowing softly with a gentle heat, and if you pile it all together in a fireplace made of a few bricks (you need a good, long stick for this), you can use it as an oven.
Baking potatoes in an oven takes half-an-hour at high heat — and high power bills! Best keep them for the barbecue. But charcoal and wood fires are too hot for potatoes — the outside gets charred, the inside’s not cooked enough, the timing is critical, and the whole thing interferes with the coals you’re trying to grill those chicken legs and sausages over. Better to bake the potatoes separately in another fire — using cardboard boxes. It works much better — yum!
Bake potatoes, sweet potatoes, yams, taro, squashes, Beach House-style
What you need:
* Some newspaper and a little kindling
* 3 cardboard cartons (eg potato boxes from the supermarket)
* foil
* a long stick
* some bricks, or a barbecue, or, best of all, an old car wheel
* a couple of square feet of wire netting
* an open space
* a bucket of water for safety’s sake
Cooking time: anything from 25 to 40 minutes.
If you’re using bricks or stones, make a square about 6” high with about 1 sq ft inside for the fire. Wash the potatoes (6-8 quite big ones) and wrap them up in foil (two thicknesses). Crumple up the newspaper pages, separately and not too tight, scatter some kindling on top. Set the newspaper alight. When it’s all burning merrily, put the potatoes-in-foil in the bottom of the smallest carton and put the carton on the fire. When the carton’s burning well put another carton on top of it, like a lid. Meanwhile the potatoes will fall through the bottom of the first box into the kindling. When the second carton’s burning and before the whole thing starts to fall off the fire, put a third carton over it, again like a lid. This makes a great fire! Stand by with the stick to help all the embers fall into the fireplace — if you get it right, the whole thing should collapse on top of the potatoes. Put some wire netting on top to keep the embers and ashes in.
You can add a dash of the delicious sauce of moral self-righteousness by considering the environmental costs (pollution, global warming, acid rain, etc) if you’d baked all these yummy potatoes in the oven and used up all that energy.
Composting
Still got some spare boxes? Make a composter that finally composts itself. You need two boxes the same size, quite big ones, 18 inches square or more (they don’t have to be square).
Open up the flaps at both the top and the bottom, tape the bottom flaps open so you can stand the box on them. Stand it on some sticks or anything you can find that’ll keep it slightly off the ground, an inch or so is enough (it’s important for compost to breath from underneath).
Scatter a few inches of old dead leaves or something similar in the bottom, they should be slightly moist but not too wet. (You need a lot of old leaves for this, and the drier the better — collect them in autumn.)
Garden wastes that you can compost usually come in quite small amounts. So do kitchen wastes. You can use them both. For kitchen wastes, get a 2-gallon plastic bucket with a lid, drill a few holes in the bottom and stand it in a plastic tray. Again, put some dead leaves (dry ones) or straw or old hay or torn-up newspaper or cardboard in the bottom. Put your kitchen wastes in the bucket every day (avoid cooked food wastes and meat or fish until you get really good at this). When the bucket’s about half full, or when liquid starts to gather in the tray, it’s ready to empty — don’t leave it too long!
Mix the kitchen wastes up with about the same amount of dead leaves or more, and put it in the cardboard box. Add more dry stuff on top. Close the top flaps.
Dry stuff:
Dead leaves, shredded cardboard cartons (cut up into strips), shredded newspaper (tear it with the grain into 1” strips — black ink is non-toxic, avoid glossy paper), shredded computer paper, sphagnum peat moss, coconut coir, chopped-up straw, spoiled hay, yard clippings, dried grass clippings, sawdust, wood shavings (avoid treated wood). Mixed ingredients are better, add a small handful of soil per bucketful.
You can add any garden wastes at the same time. Leave them spread out somewhere dry to wilt until you’re ready to empty the kitchen wastes bucket.
When the first box gets full, add the second box, taping the bottom flaps over the opened top flaps of the first box. When both boxes are full, start a new unit with two new boxes. After a couple of weeks, tip the first boxes over, empty them, mix everything up evenly, add more water if it’s too dry, and put it back in the boxes again.
A few weeks later it should be finished. By now it should be dark, crumbly stuff. If it got hot during either stage, that is really hot, too hot to put your hand in, and it smells earthy rather than rotten, then you can use it in the garden straight away — the plants will love it!
If it didn’t get very hot, leave it under cover for a few months; keep it moist, don’t let it dry out.
After a couple of cycles the boxes will be too rotten to use again; tear them up and use them with the dry leaves. You can use the compost to grow another tree! Or put it in a growing column (see below).
See Composting resources for schools.
See Composting pages.
Feed it to compost worms
Wriggly red worms turn food scraps and organic wastes into nature’s best soil to grow more food — and the worms love eating cardboard cartons (and newspapers). Classroom vermicomposting projects are great for teaching a wide variety of subjects.
See Composting resources for schools and Vermicomposting pages.
Growing columns
Make a column out of 1” chickenwire, 3ft high and 15-16 inches in diameter. You’ll need 5ft of 3ft-wide chickenwire, allowing for a 1ft overlap. Fasten it with twists of thin wire. Line the inside with corrugated cardboard from cardboard boxes.
Stand it up on end, hold a 4”-diameter plastic plumbing pipe in the middle and fill the pipe with sand and stones (builder’s gravel for concrete is ideal). Fill the rest of the column around the pipe with good soil, packed down enough to prevent it sinking too much later (but not too tightly — don’t compact it). Carefully remove the pipe.
Cut slits 2-3” long through the cardboard in a spiral going round the column from top to bottom. The spiral should go round the column 6 or 7 times, with 6-8” between the slits, making about 50 slits or more.
The sand and stone core is for watering — water will sink right to the bottom and then spread out to the sides. After you’ve watered it it will sink a little; top up with more soil and sand.
Plant leaf vegetable and salad crop seedlings through the slits. Water every few days.
This gives a growing area of 12 square feet occupying a very small space. Make sure you put it where it will get enough light, or supplement natural sunlight with growing lamps.
You can make a few columns — plant them about two weeks apart for a steady harvest throughout the growing season. Five will give an average family lots of delicious, fresh, green vegetables.
See School gardens.
Egg incubator
Make an incubator out of two cardboard boxes or plywood — this online schools biology project uses commercial heating elements or light bulbs in porcelain sockets. Expect about a 50% success rate with 3 dozen eggs (commercial incubators: about 80%). See Chickscope 1.5: Resources: From Egg To Chick:
http://chickscope.beckman.uiuc.edu/
resources/egg_to_chick/incubator.html
See Poultry for small farms.
Make an armchair
Corrugated cardboard is strong, especially double-thickness cardboard: this armchair by ReturDesign in Sweden will support anyone weighing up to 100kg. And it sells for US$175!
http://www.returdesign.se/intro.htm
This is a great class project: originality, creativity, and a new way of looking at ordinary things.
Experiment with different designs, see how structural strength can be reinforced. An Internet search for “cardboard chair” and “cardboard furniture” will give you more ideas.
More Swedish designs
Build a house
Recycled cardboard kits for low-cost housing and emergency relief
An award-winning new building system in Canada uses mostly recycled cardboard as its primary component. It is lightweight, inexpensive and strong enough to resist heavy snow loads and hurricane winds. These “Instant Houses” can be assembled by unskilled workers in as little as one day.
They’re targeted at the longer term “temporary” housing market, including emergency relief, humanitarian aid, remote site development, camps, and tourist cabins etc., where quick and easy transportation and set-up are required. But the manufacturers are planning to evolve the system into the “permanent” residential, utility and cottage markets, among others.
Recycling facts
* Recycling one tin can saves enough energy to run a TV for three hours.
* Recycling one glass bottle saves enough energy to light a 100 watt bulb for 4 hours.
* One 20-year-old tree makes 785 paper bags.
* Packaging accounts for more than 30% of your garbage.
* For $11.00 spent on groceries, $1.00 pays for packaging.
* It takes 17 trees to make one ton of paper.
* 11% of America’s garbage is food waste, 9% is compostible.
* Recycling aluminium can reduce energy use by 95% with similar reductions in water and air pollution.
* Percent of energy saved by using recyclable materials instead of virgin materials:
cardboard 24%
newsprint 34%
plastic 88%
glass 5%
aluminum 95%
http://www.journeytoforever.org/garden_con.html
No ground? Use containers
Bushbeans in a special square foot basket, light and easy to carry — ideal for schools with no grounds to start gardening projects.
Container gardening
Container gardening resources
City rooftop gardens
City rooftop garden resources
Container gardening
You can grow plants in virtually anything that holds some soil and has holes in the bottom for drainage. It’s only bounded by your imagination — a chance for some really creative recycling.
We use old bathtubs, 20-litre plastic containers with the tops cut off, baskets of various sizes lined with garbage bags to hold the water in, milk cartons for seedlings, anything that comes to hand. We almost used some dumped toilet bowls, only we didn’t like the color (pink).
— “You can raise a surprising amount of food on your roof, deck, patio or windowsill. The rewards can be large, even if your space is small” — Chuck Crandall and Barbara Crandall, “Movable Harvests”
Grow a pillar of vegetables — 12 square feet of growing area on only 1.2 sq ft of ground. See Growing columns.
Container gardens help to feed the poor in Third World cities — see City farms.
We stuck three sprigs of Creeping Buttercup in a gaily-painted enamel Chinese chamber pot with some holes drilled in the bottom. Now it forms a border round all the growing beds and beyond — what we call our “lawn”. It seems to make its own soil on the cement, catching dust and sand with its hardy roots, it survives trampling and typhoons, and provides a lot of compost material — and no, it doesn’t invade the beds. The chamber pot’s still there, discreetly hidden from view behind the granite rock in the foreground — and by the buttercups.
Container gardening resources
Gardening in Containers: Growing in Small and Soilless Spaces, US National Gardening Association, Growing Ideas Classroom Projects, 2003 — Detailed practical guide online, designed for teachers to use in school gardening projects, useful for anyone. Background, creative containers, plants and schemes, plants for container gardens, special container projects, recommended web sites, books and tools. Chart of vegetables, showing good container varieties, container size, final plant spacing, light requirement, minimum soil depth. Also herbs, annual flowers, bulbs, perennials. 3 web pages, 5,000 words. Online:
http://www.kidsgardening.com/growingideas/PROJECTS/feb03/pg1.html
“Above-Ground Gardens” by Dr. Martin L. Price & Laura S. Meitzner, 1996, ECHO Technical Note (reprinted from Ch 17 of ECHO’s book Amaranth to Zai Holes, 1996), Educational Concerns for Hunger Organization (ECHO)
Urban farming in Haiti — AGUILA Urban Agriculture Research Network Latin America
http://www.idrc.ca/cfp/aguila.html
Urban food production is often overlooked by development planners. There is considerable potential to involve millions of city families in food production, who may not at first seem to have anywhere to garden — where there is plenty of sunshine but either no soil or the soil does not lend itself to cultivation. “Above-ground” techniques can fit the countless hectares of sturdy, flat cement rooftops and many more hectares of tin roofs on insubstantial shanties, steep hillsides, extremely poor soils, yards of rock or cement, spaces around tree roots, and places where land tenure is so unstable that only portable gardens are attractive. Download (Acrobat file):
http://www.echotech.org/mambo/images/DocMan/Abovegro.pdf
Full-length version, in Amaranth to Zai Holes:
http://www.echotech.org/technical/az/aztext/azch17.htm
Harvesting sweet potatoes from a bathtub
GardenGuides’ Container Gardening Guide Sheets are a useful source of instant information: 21 different guides. The two-page basic Guide to Container Gardening covers Choosing containers, Growing mixture, Sunlight, Fertilizer, Watering, What to grow? on the first page, while the second page deals with vegetables: common vegetables listed with type of container and recommended variety, linked to references on each vegetable covering types, conditions, maintenance and harvest, pests, recipes and useful links. The website has hundreds of other guides on all aspects of gardening, and further resources. Guide to Container Gardening:
http://www.gardenguides.com/TipsandTechniques/container.htm
Vegetables in Containers:
http://www.gardenguides.com/TipsandTechniques/container2.htm
Pumpkins happily growing on the roof of the Beach House kitchen
Container Farming — Organic food production in the slums of Mexico City. Fifteen million Mexicans live in extreme poverty — above all in urban marginal areas like the slums of Mexico City. Some seven years ago a group of NGOs launched a project to help people there to grow their own food organically in small backyards or patios, balconies, roof tops — as a way to help counteract the poverty being imposed upon them. This is the report on the project, by sociologist and community worker Rodrigo A. Medellín Erdmann.
Container Gardening forum at Garden Web — active forum for online discussion, search function.
http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/contain/
“Kitchen Harvest: Growing Organic Fruit, Vegetables & Herbs in Containers” by Susan Berry, Frances Lincoln, 2003, ISBN 9780711221352
Grow organic vegetables and fruit, even if you don’t have a garden: all you need is a couple of pots or a window box. Explores which are the best plants for maximum yield; how to provide the best conditions; and how to plan for a succession of edible plants. Includes recipes. Color photos and illustrations. 144 pages. From Powell’s Books:
http://www.powells.com/biblio/6-9780711221352-0
“McGee & Stuckey’s Bountiful Container: Create Container Gardens of Vegetables, Herbs, Fruits, and Edible Flowers” by Rose Marie Nichols McGee, Maggie Stuckey, Workman Publishing, 2002, ISBN 0761116230
McGee, author of Basic Herb Cookery, and veteran gardening writer Stuckey (Gardening from the Ground Up) share their expertise and experience in the art of container gardening. How to grow foods on a balcony, porch, front or back steps, even in a window box or on an indoor windowsill. Detailed information on types of containers, equipment needed, soil, sun and water, fertilizer, seeds and propagation, also advanced techniques such as succession planting. Includes recipes. For beginners and experienced gardeners. Complete, plant-by-plant guide, vegetables, herbs and fruits. Reader comment: “I now have a flourishing garden full of lettuce, beans, squash, tomatoes, and strawberries.” Illustrated, 400 pages. From Powell’s Books:
http://www.powells.com/biblio/62-9780761116233-0
“The Edible Container Garden: Growing Fresh Food in Small Spaces” by Michael Guerra, Fireside, 2000, ISBN 0684854619
British permaculturist Michael Guerra promises fresh-tasting, pesticide-free produce, and the chance to grow a luscious array of fruits and vegetables not available at the supermarket, all in small raised beds, pots, or window boxes. Salad greens, savory herbs, fruits and vegetables for the patio, balcony, or rooftop. Reader comment: “The deck outside our front door is now inhabited by a very good herb garden, pots of courgettes with broad dark green leaves and beautiful yellow flowers, Japanese greens and a tomato vine, making cooking with fresh produce as easy as stepping out the kitchen door for a moment. A very useful book.” 160 pages. From Powell’s Books:
http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9780684854618-2
“Movable Harvests — The Simplicity & Bounty of Container Gardens” by Chuck Crandall & Barbara Crandall, Chapters, 1995, ISBN 1-881527-70-0
Anything that grows in a conventional garden can be grown in a container, fruits and berries, salad greens and root vegetables — even asparagus, pumpkins, corn, and apples, apricots, peaches, pears, figs, and bananas. The authors, seasoned “bucket gardeners”, grow 90% of their produce in a variety of containers. Lots of useful advice from the experts. For city-dwellers and small gardeners everywhere. From Alibris books:
http://www.alibris.com/booksearch?title=Movable+Harvests
“Container Gardening for Dummies” by Bill Marken, The Editors of the National Gardening Association, For Dummies, 1998, ISBN 0764550578
The ultimate guide to growing almost anything in a container on roofs, balconies, or windowsills, written by leading gardening journalist Bill Marken and the experts of the US NGA. Choosing containers, fertilizing and watering techniques, dealing with insects, pests, and diseases, clear, concise, step-by-step instructions for creating container gardens in any climate. For beginners or experienced gardeners. 16 pages of photos, 384 pages. From Powell’s Books:
http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9780764550577-0
“Kitchen Gardens in Containers” by Anthony Atha, Collins & Brown, 2002, ISBN 080699293X
Dozens of different ways to grow fruit and vegetables in containers. The second half of the book is a plant directory, color-coded, divided into herbs, vegetables and fruit, with light requirements, propagation needs and other information, and recipes for each plant. The book is well presented and well illustrated, practical and useful information for gardeners with intermediate skills. 160 pages. From Powell’s Books:
http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9780806992938-4
“Little Herb Gardens: Simple Secrets for Glorious Gardens — Indoors and Out” by Georgeanne Brennan, Mimi Luebbermann, Faith Echtermeyer, Chronicle Books, 1993, ISBN 0811843092
Friendly guide to homegrown herbs by three experienced garden writers. Perfect for beginners. Grow productive herb gardens year round in even the smallest spaces. Growing instructions over 30 herbs. Herb-by-herb description of how to grow the plants, organized according to where you could keep them — on a windowsill or fire escape, inside porch, outdoor pots, pantry, etc. Recipes for culinary herbs, resource directory, a bibliography,seed and plant sources in the US. Colorful photographs, 96 pages. From Powell’s Books:
http://www.powells.com/biblio/2-9780811802499-2
Container gardening with a difference — the “Official” Square Foot Gardening Site by Mel Bartholomew — loads of useful information, FAQs, how-to’s, tips and techniques.
http://www.squarefootgardening.com/
The All New Square Foot Gardening Book, by Mel Bartholomew — Many changes from the original, updates and upgrades from the original, with easier to follow guides and an illustrated “How-To” and “Step-By-Step” approach anyone can understand. History of Square Foot Gardening, all the basic principles, quick start guide, expanded resources on recommended plants and charts showing growth rate and proper plant choice, and more.
http://www.squarefootgardening.com/html/
body_catalogNEW-new-book.html
Container Vegetable Gardening by Bob Polomski, Extension Consumer Horticulturist, and Debbie Shaughnessy, Home & Garden Information Center Information Specialist, Clemson University, South Carolina — from the South Carolina Master Gardener Training Manual. If you do not have space for a vegetable garden or if your present site is too small, consider raising fresh, nutritious, homegrown vegetables in containers. A windowsill, patio, balcony or doorstep can provide sufficient space for a productive container garden. Containers, media, fertilizing, planting, watering, general care. Linked to Vegetable Factsheets and other online resources.
http://hgic.clemson.edu/factsheets/hgic1251.htm
Basics of Container Gardening by Stefani Leto, The New Homemaker
Growing flowers and food in pots is easy — Start with the soil, pick your plants, choose your container, food and water, bag those bugs!
http://www.thenewhomemaker.com/
containergardening
Container Gardening by John W. Jett, Extension Specialist, Horticulture, WVU Extension Service, West Virginia University — While space (or lack of it) is an obvious reason to try container gardening, that is not the only reason people choose this method. Often, convenience plays a big part, especially for vegetables and herbs. Having these essentially at your fingertips is a tremendous advantage. Useful, sensible advice. Edibles (vegetables, herbs, fruits) and ornamentals (annual flowers, perennial flowers, exotic foliage, bulbs). Online:
http://www.wvu.edu/~agexten/hortcult/homegard/cntanegrd.htm
Vegetable Gardening In Containers, by Sam Cotner, Extension Horticulturist, Texas Agricultural Extension Service, Texas A&M University. If your vegetable gardening is limited by insufficient space or an unsuitable area, consider the possibility of raising fresh, nutritious, homegrown vegetables in containers. A window sill, a patio, a balcony or a doorstep will provide sufficient space for a productive mini-garden. Almost any vegetable that will grow in a typical backyard garden will also do well as a container-grown plant. Good general advice, varieties, troubleshooting.
http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/extension/container/container.html
City rooftop gardens
— Green Roofs for Healthy Cities
Growing gardens on city rooftops is a way to take back unused and sterile spaces and transform them into a valuable asset, for the building inhabitants and owners, for the community, for the city, and for the environment. Rooftop gardens make cities better places to live in.
Whether they’re lush green oases of grass, flowers and shrubs or urban mini-farms growing fresh local organic food, or a combination of the two, rooftop gardens reduce the ecological footprint of city buildings and of the cities themselves.
— The Rooftop Garden Project
Rooftop gardens keep buildings much quieter inside, and much cooler in summer and warmer in winter, saving energy — installation costs are soon recovered.
Rooftop gardens are the best solution to the urban “heat island” effect — the gardens cool the unnaturally heated city air and clean it, filtering out the soot. (See Heat Island Effect, US EPA http://www.epa.gov/hiri/).
Rooftop gardens also cut right down on rainwater drainage — the soil absorbs the rain and filters it, the plants expire the water back into the atmosphere. And rooftop gardens are oases for the city wildlife, providing habitats and helping to safeguard a threatened biodiversity.
Composting city organic wastes to provide the soil and fertility for rooftop gardens diverts it landfills and incinerators and returns it to nature where it belongs, in accordance with the “Law of Return” — and composting and organic growing is the best way to sequester the carbon from the excessive greenhouse gas emissions that cities produce. See Compost and CO2.
Greening our cities, rooftops and all, could be a critical factor in helping our planet’s struggling climate to find a balance in the new carbon-rich atmosphere we’ve created, rather than flipping out of control.
City rooftop garden resources
The Rooftop Garden Project is dedicated to empowering urban residents in Montreal, Canada and around the world, “to produce their own food, green their neighbourhoods and build healthy communities”. News, upcoming events, publications, media coverage, resources, links.
http://rooftopgardens.ca/en
Rooftop Garden Brochure — 4-page pdf:
http://rooftopgardens.ca/files/4pagerenglishWEB.pdf
“Guide to Setting up Your Own Edible Rooftop Garden”, The Rooftop Garden Project — Step-by-step guide to creating your own rooftop garden. For groups, individuals and establishments that would like to create an urban edible rooftop garden for educational, social, therapeutic or environmental reasons. Six chapters cover the main factors to consider: project definition, choice of site, setting up the garden, coordination of gardening activity, health choices and a detailed technical guide on rooftop container gardening, plus annexes with descriptions of Rooftop Garden Project gardens and additional information. 80 pages. Download pdf:
http://rooftopgardens.ca/files/howto_EN_FINAL_lowres.pdf
Making Rooftops Bloom: Strategies for encouraging rooftop greening in Montreal — Rooftop Garden Project staffer Rotem Ayalon wrote his Master’s thesis for a degree in Urban Planning on municipal strategies to encourage rooftop greening, focusing on food security policies and programs, urban agriculture and rooftop greening in North America and around the world. This is it:
http://rooftopgardens.ca/files/
Making_Rooftops_Bloom_Final_Draft.pdf
Spreading the Roots: An assessment of the social and enviromental impacts of the Rooftop Garden Project by Rotem Ayalon, Rooftop Garden Project, 2006. Rooftop gardens bring positive benefits to the people in the city, but how much and what kind? Social and environmental impact study.
http://rooftopgardens.ca/files/SocEnvt%20Assessment_jan06_forweb.pdf
Roof gardens from City Farmer News, City Farmer — Canada’s Office of Urban Agriculture: News, project reports, photographs, resources.
http://www.cityfarmer.info/category/roof-garden/
Greenroofs.com resource portal — Large site with loads of information and resources: new events, forums, research, marketplace, greenroofs project of the week, greenroofs video of the week, and much more.
http://www.greenroofs.com/index.html
International Greenroof Projects Database, Greenroofs.com — 683 Projects = 16,279,113 ft2. Search:
http://www.greenroofs.com/projects/plist.php
Greenroofs 101, Greenroofs.com — “Our most popular section”: a detailed FAQ, nuts and bolts information about the earth friendly technology of organic greenroof architecture.
http://www.greenroofs.com/Greenroofs101/index.html
Greenroofs.com Forums
http://www.greenroofs.com/forums/
Green Roofs for Healthy Cities — Green Roof Infrastructure Industry Association, focus on the US and Canada. Offers design courses in many North American cities, symposia, conferences, current events, news, media, education, Awards of Excellence.
http://www.greenroofs.org/
About Green Roofs — FAQ: Lengthy introduction to the benefits and advantages of green roofs.
http://www.greenroofs.org/index.php?option=
com_content&task=view&id=26&Itemid=40
The Green Roofs Tree of Knowledge is a full-featured database on research and policy related to green roof infrastructure. Detailed summaries of research and policy papers in English from around the world.
http://greenroofs.org/grtok/
Living Architecture Monitor magazine, published four times per year and available to GRHC members only. Subscribe:
http://www.greenroofs.org/index.php?option=
com_content&task=view&id=13&Itemid=41
Current issue:
http://www.greenroofs.org/index.php?option=
com_content&task=view&id=214&Itemid=91
“Green Roofs for Healthy Cities — Award-winning Green Roof Designs”, by Steven W. Peck, founder and president of Green Roofs for Healthy Cities — The award-winning roof designs described and illustrated with over 100 photographs, for private homes, businesses, and public spaces. Projects cover a wide geographic range from Manitoba to Florida, from the mid-Atlantic coast to the Pacific. Details about the plants used, growing media, drainage and irrigation systems, and waterproofing, along with descriptions of challenges and innovations.
http://www.schifferbooks.com/newschiffer/
book_template.php?isbn=9780764330223
Midori carrying a one square foot basket with nine cos lettuces
City farms
Organic gardening
Why organic?
Building a square foot garden
Plant spacing guides
No ground? Use containers
When to sow what
Seeds
Garden pond
Gardening resources
[end of page, has other links and information to read/check..]
http://www.journeytoforever.org/garden.html
Other settings
This growing system is ideal for schools gardens and as a resource for school biology and environment projects.
In the US the Square Foot Foundation is working to get a garden in every school, with Internet resource links promoting inter-school collaboration and providing expert support.
Midori transplants seedlings, using yoghurt pots, paper cups and milk cartons.
In Britain the HDRA’s newly launched Schools Organic Network is helping schools to start and manage organic gardens for education. “Today’s children could be forgiven for thinking that bananas come from boxes, peas come frozen in packets, and tomatoes from tins. The real origin of these foods — that they come from living plants which grow in the soil — is not apparent.”
http://www.hdra.org.uk/schools_organic_network/index.htm
Our food-growing and waste-recycling system can also be easily adapted to the community gardens we plan to start in towns along our route.
And the garden served as a test-bed for some of the techniques and approaches we’ll use in village rural development projects.
Village development
Why do small farmers need kitchen gardens? Because they help to ensure the family’s food security.
There have been cases where development efforts have succeeded in increasing farm yields and productivity but this has led to a decrease in the family’s nutritional status. In many societies weeding is “women’s work”, and more crops meant more weeding, and less time to tend the
Close spacing creates a living green mulch to protect the soil.
family vegetable patch (also women’s work), and therefore less food for the children.
Square foot gardening is an engineer’s solution to the problem of how to grow enough food for your family with the minimum waste of space, time, work and resources while getting the best results.
One square foot garden unit measuring 4ft x 4ft — only 16 sq ft — will produce enough high-quality vegetables to feed one person every day.
We’ll try to build at least two of them everywhere we go, in addition to whatever other work the local communities want us to do for them.
UPDATE
Since we wrote this we’ve found that other groups are using this approach, and it’s very effective:
“In Kenya, the Association for Better Land Husbandry found that the farmers who constructed double-dug beds in their gardens could produce enough vegetables to see them through the hungry dry season. According to a review of 26 communities, 75% of the households are now free from hunger during the year, and the proportion of households buying food fell from 85% to 11%.” — Alternative Models (or Approaches) to Food Production, by Jules Pretty and Rachel Hime, University of Essex, UK, Jean Marc von der Weid, AS-PTA, Brazil, October 2001
http://www.forumfoodsovereignty.org/ingleseweb/
documenti_forum/documenti_base/alternative.htm
Technology
Like most Journey to Forever projects, the emphasis is on a mix of technologies. Gardening is an ancient art with a great heritage, and gardeners haven’t mechanized like farmers have — they still tend each plant one by one, the same old tried-and-trusted way. The square foot system just makes it easier.
All the local villagers liked our garden
We also use some sophisticated bio-control, waste recycling and soil bio-activation techniques, but they’re easy to grasp and simple to use.
Many of the local villagers in Lantau still grow their vegetables the old way, and at first they were sceptical of our garden, with all that sand underneath. But when they saw the results they thought it was great, they kept saying so.
Rows are for tractors — it’s hard to see how they benefit gardeners. We planted a deep growing bed in circles. Circle-planting optimizes companion planting, successions and plant spacings for different plants. It’s highly productive but needs a very fertile soil, and it’s much more complex than square foot gardening
The circle bed in full production — high yields of top-quality vegetables and herbs
Different crops grow well together — high fertility allows for close spacing
The square-foot idea is easy to grasp. Any farm women only has to see a square foot garden to understand how the system works, and can easily adapt it to local crops and conditions: deep, no-dig, raised beds; a different crop in each one-foot square; small plants in the front (facing the sun), bigger ones in the middle, climbers up a trellis at the back.
Apart from a companion planting chart (some plants love each other, others hate each other), a plant-spacing chart showing how many of each species to plant in one square foot, and a cropping calendar, that’s really all you need to know.
Soil fertility
The key is to make the soil fertile enough to keep pushing up that many healthy plants — square foot gardens need rich soil, at least 12 inches deep (these beds “grow” themselves deeper), or 16 cubic feet per unit.
So we’ll also build two compost heaps (at least!). There’s always enough waste material around to make compost.
One heap will be a quick-acting one — we’ll put a cubic metre (half a ton) of wastes through a power shredder, greatly increasing the surface area of the material and speeding up the rate of decay. Rapid bacterial breakdown will drive the temperature inside the heap well above 60 deg C within a day.
After a week we’ll shred it again, and a week after that it will be ready — rich, black, crumbly stuff that looks nothing like its origins and has a clean, earthy smell, the ideal soil, enough to build our two demonstration square foot units and plant them. No need for expensive chemical fertilizers!
But few villagers have power shredders, so at the same time we’ll make another heap the low-tech way, in layers, which works just as well but takes longer to cure. This heap will get just as hot after a couple of days, and after two weeks we’ll turn it, using ordinary hand tools, mixing it in thoroughly. A few weeks later it will be ready for use.
City farms
Organic gardening
Why organic?
Building a square foot garden
Plant spacing guides
No ground? Use containers
When to sow what
Seeds
Garden pond
Gardening resources
Composting
Making compost
Composting resources
Composting indoors
Vermicomposting
Humanure
Composting for small farms
Small farms
Small farm resources
Community-supported farms
Farming with trees
Farming with animals
Pasture
Pigs for small farms
Poultry for small farms
Aquaculture for small farms
Composting for small farms
Controlling weeds and pests
Small farms library
[part of the page]
http://www.journeytoforever.org/sc.html
A solution
It’s a complex problem, like all environmental problems. But there’s one simple answer, that can save millions of trees, provide clean, safe drinking water, doesn’t smoke, and costs very little — solar box cookers, which can be made from cardboard cartons.
Midori cooking rice by solar power in Hong Kong
Research has found that 36% of the world’s fuelwood needs (or 350 million tonnes of wood per year, according to UNICEF) could be replaced by solar box cookers, saving 500 kg of wood per family per year, equalling millions of trees.
— “We are living and participating in a very strange system. Humanity has one foot stepping towards the stars, while the other is mired in a sinking sea of poverty. The distance between humanity’s two feet is growing. We can help reverse the process by teaching several billion people in the Third World how to build and use solar box cookers.” — From “Balancing the Scales” by Bill Sperber
http://solarcooking.org/balance.htm
No fire, no smoke
Solar box cookers produce no smoke and no pollution: woodsmoke from cooking fires causes respiratory infections which kill at least 5 million young children each year.
Solar panel cookers in Ethiopia
— “Women and children are most exposed to high levels of harmful smoke and suffer the most serious health damage ... studies in China found that smoke was a strong risk factor for lung cancer among non-smoking women ... in Gambia it was found that girls aged under five carried on their mother’s back during cooking (in smoky cooking huts) had a six times higher risk of lung cancer — a substantially higher risk factor than if their parents smoked.” — From “Cooking smoke: a pervasive killer in developing countries” WIN News, 1 January 1998
http://solarcooking.org/cookingsmoke.htm
Indoor smoke pollution now ranks 8th in health burden worldwide (lost years of healthy life), and ranks fourth in the “least-developed” countries (which make up about 40% of the world population) according to the World Health Organization’s World Health Report 2002.
http://www.who.int/whr/en
“Smoke gets in their eyes” — Independent research indicates that indoor air pollution is a contributory cause of around two million deaths in developing countries. Acute respiratory infections, ear and eye problems, breathlessness, chest pains, headaches and giddiness are just some of the symptoms that poor woman and children suffer in their rural homes. And the cause? Smoke from cooking. ITDG — Intermediate Technology Development Group:
http://practicalaction.org/?id=smoke_gets_in_their_eyes_pr
Full report: “Reducing indoor air pollution in rural households in Kenya: working with communities to find solutions”, ITDG project 1998-2001, January 2002. Acrobat file, 3.4Mb
http://www.itdg.org/html/advocacy/docs/smoke_project_report.pdf
Clean, safe water
The WHO says diseases spread through contaminated water cause 80% of the world’s illnesses. Solar box cookers can pasteurize drinking water: heating water to 65 deg C for six minutes destroys disease organisms, and this temperature is easily achieved with solar box cookers.
— “UNICEF estimates that 60% of rural families and 23% of urban families in developing countries are without safe water ... The most common recommendation is to boil the water. This recommendation is seldom followed [because of] the amount of scarce fuel it would require.” — From “A summary of water pasteurization techniques” by Dale Andreatta
http://solarcooking.org/pasteurization/solarwat.htm
Women’s gain is everyone’s gain
Solar box cookers would also save millions of women many hours (or days) wasted searching for firewood, giving them the time to look after their children, grow more food, and for education — which is the key to reducing population growth.
— “On the first day, the women walk to the nearest place where wood can be gathered. On the second day, they search for firewood. The third day is spent carrying the wood on their backs home to the village.” — from Chad, Africa
Solar box cookers can even be used on cloudy days.
Rural women in Nepal harness the sun in a basket
At least half a million solar box cookers are already in use, mostly in China and India, and projects are underway in most countries. UNICEF estimates the potential usage of solar box cookers at 200 million worldwide.
Solar box cookers are easy to make — one cooker designed to be simple enough for 10-year-olds to build without tools in less than an hour is now helping to feed refugees in Africa.
Other solutions
continued.
http://www.bbg.org/gar2/topics/indoor/2004fa_tropical.html
A Houseplant Harvest—Tropical Trees That Really Do Fruit Indoors
Plants & Gardens News Volume 19, Number 3 | Fall/Winter 2005
by Scott D. Appell
When you live on a small tropical island, as I do, you learn quickly—à la Robinson Crusoe—that it pays to be self-sufficient. Recently, I’ve been collecting and propagating fruiting tropical shrubs and small trees on my four-acre property in Vieques, Puerto Rico, like a man with a mission. My ultimate goal is to supply my own table with a diverse mix of fresh produce year-round, grow enough surplus fruit to be able to vend to local restaurateurs, and establish a modest nursery and display garden.
Carissa macrocarpa
Carissa macrocarpa
In my former life as a New Yorker, I used to buy exotic fruits in the city’s ethnic food markets and germinate their seeds as houseplants. (This practice was nothing new; indeed, it’s a popular hobby, with its own gardening club—the Rare Pit and Plant Council—or, less formally, “The Pits.”) Avocados, mangos, litchis, star fruit, sapodillas, tamarinds, carobs, and citrus of all kinds made up my indoor orchard. They were all very decorative as foliage plants, but none flowered and bore fruit in my urban loft.
When I moved to the Caribbean a few years ago, I encountered a vast array of good-looking fruiting plants, some of them familiar to me only from books. Many were endemic to the region. After careful observation—and tasting—I compiled from their ranks a list of species that will make marvelous additions to the indoor-plant pantheon. What’s more, with proper care and a little pollinator know-how (see Indoor Pollinating Tips below), you can count on them to really fruit indoors.
Not that you’ll be filling Steuben crystal fruit bowls full of windowsill-grown goodies: The indoor harvest from these plants is small and intermittent, and the fruits themselves are not that large. But this doesn’t mean you’ll be reduced to inconsequential nibbling. Let your freezer become your new best friend. When the fruit matures, pick and store it in freezer bags until there’s enough to work with. Then let your imagination go wild! Purée the fruits as a base for ice creams, sherbets, mousses, and jams. Bake them in pies and tarts. Use them to make stewed compotes and Hungarian fruit soups. The possibilities are endless.
Here are a few of my current favorites to consider growing indoors. At least one species, Surinam cherry, has become invasive in tropical and subtropical areas around the world, but inside it is unlikely to do much harm and can be mighty tasty.
Carissa macrocarpa (Natal plum)
A familiar houseplant and indoor bonsai subject in cool climes, Carissa macrocarpa is indigenous to the coastal region of Natal, South Africa—hence the common name. A vigorous, spreading, woody shrub, it grows up to 18 feet tall, produces handsome, broad, evergreen foliage, and equips its branches with stout Y-shaped spines. Its two-inch-long tubular flowers are white and sweetly fragrant. The oval fruit of the Natal plum can grow up to two inches long and 1¼ inches wide. As it ripens, the skin turns a bright magenta red. The flesh is tender, very juicy, strawberry-colored, and flavored with flecks of milky sap. The small seeds are unobjectionable and are usually eaten. When fully ripe, the protein-rich fruit can be consumed out of hand or made into jellies, syrups, gelatin-based desserts, pies, and tarts.
The Natal plum is generally drought-resistant, but don’t allow the soil to dry out too much between waterings. Provide a sunny exposure and give your plant a summer vacation outdoors, if possible. Fertilize it regularly with any all-purpose water-soluble plant food. Cuttings are terribly difficult to root, so starting from seed is the best method of propagation.
Eugenia uniflora (Surinam cherry)
Eugenia uniflora
Eugenia uniflora
Indigenous to Surinam and French Guiana, the Surinam cherry has become naturalized throughout the Caribbean. It’s also a very popular hedging plant in southern Florida. A slender shrub or tree, it grows up to 25 feet tall and produces spreading branches with aromatic foliage. The flowers are white and long-stalked, and look like powder puffs. The thin-skinned, ¾- to 1½-inch-wide fruit has multiple ribs and matures from green to bright red and finally to a dark plum color. Its flesh is tender, very juicy, and tartly sweet to taste. It’s also high in vitamin A. There may be one fairly large seed or three smaller ones. The seeds are extremely resinous and should not be eaten. The fruit ripens quickly, often three weeks after flowering. It is generally eaten out of hand or chilled and sprinkled with sugar.
The Surinam cherry prefers a sunny location but is not particularly fussy about potting soil. Let the soil dry out between waterings. Fertilize it regularly during active growth, flowering, and fruiting—usually in late summer.
Malpighia emarginata (Barbados cherry)
Malpighia emarginata
Malpighia emarginata
Native to the Lesser Antilles from St. Croix to Trinidad, the Barbados cherry is a handsome small tree that grows up to 20 feet tall. It has an erect habit with waxy, oblong, dark green foliage. Its charming, delicate, highly decorative flowers are borne in twos and threes along the stem, and each one possesses five pink or lavender spoon-shaped, fringed petals. The plant produces three-lobed, inch-wide, tangy, bright-red berries that are wonderfully juicy and refreshing. They are also extremely high in vitamin C, second only to the rose hips of Rosa rugosa. Each berry’s three small hard seeds may be eaten or removed, depending on personal preference. Commercial plantations of Barbados cherry can be found in Puerto Rico, Hawaii, and Florida. One cultivar of the plant, ‘Florida Sweet’, was selected in 1956 for its larger-than-usual fruit and applelike, semisweet flavor.
Give the Barbados cherry a sunny southern or southwestern exposure, away from drafts. A fertile, well-drained potting mixture with a pH of 5.5 to 6.5 is ideal. Let the soil dry out slightly between waterings, and do not let the plant sit in a saucer of excess runoff. Employ an acidifying fertilizer during growth and flowering, generally from late winter through late summer. Propagation is usually from half-ripe tip cuttings.
Indoor Pollinating Tips
In their natural habitat, tropical fruiting plants have their own pollinators. Hummingbirds, bananaquits, butterflies, bees, beetles, ants, moths, and bats all do their job to fertilize flowers that will subsequently develop into fruit. Obviously, we lack this fauna in our urban high-rise apartments and suburban homes. Although all the plants profiled here have perfect flowers (that is, they possess both male and female organs and are self-fertile), they need a little help in the pollination department. Assist fruit set by employing a small camel’s hair paintbrush to transfer pollen from the anthers to the stigmatic surface. You don’t have to be too precise, simply jiggle the floral parts about a bit with the brush.
Myrcia floribunda (rumberry, guavaberry)
The rumberry is native to the Caribbean and southern Mexico. An attractive large shrub or small tree, it can grow up to 50 feet tall outdoors but only gets up to around 6 feet indoors. It sports reddish-brown, exfoliating bark on mature wood and glossy, dark green foliage. The flowers are small, white, powder puff-like, and borne in clusters. The dark red to near black fruit grows about half an inch in diameter and has a highly aromatic but somewhat bitter taste, reminiscent of elderberries. Generally, the fruit is enjoyed out of hand, but it’s also used to make preserves for fruit tarts. In the Caribbean, it’s a popular ingredient in numerous alcoholic beverages.
The rumberry prefers full sun and a moisture-retentive but well-drained soil. Allow the soil to remain barely moist but not soggy; a terra-cotta pot may help. The plant needs a sunny exposure and is very sensitive to winter drafts.
Pereskia aculeata (Barbados gooseberry)
Pereskia aculeata
Pereskia aculeata
Named in honor of the French scholar Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc, the genus Pereskia boasts the unique characteristic of being one of the few cactaceous genera to bear true leaves. Pereskia aculeata, the Barbados gooseberry, is indigenous to the West Indies, the northern coast of South America, and Panama. A clambering shrub that becomes a loosely climbing vine with age, it produces spiny, fleshy stems and elliptical, semideciduous dark green leaves. Panicles of long-lasting, lemon-scented, creamy-white flowers appear in fall. Upon pollination, one- to two-inch-wide oval or pear-shaped yellow to red fruits develop. When fully ripe, the fruits are juicy, tart, and very tasty. Their soft brown seeds are easily eaten. The fruits may be consumed fresh out of hand or stewed. They are very high in Vitamin A and calcium. The leaves and stems can also be cooked and eaten as greens.
The Barbados gooseberry requires full sun. Use a fertile, compost-enhanced but impeccably drained soil. Add plenty of coarse sand to improve drainage, and be sure to use a terra-cotta pot—the plant is very sensitive to overwatering. Feed it during active growth with your favorite water-soluble fertilizer. Propagation is easy from seeds or half-ripe stem cuttings.
Punica granatum var. nana (dwarf pomegranate)
Steeped in history, mythology, folklore, and romance, the pomegranate needs little introduction. Native from Iran to northern India, the small tree has been cultivated since ancient times throughout the Mediterranean regions of Asia, Africa, and Europe. Though the straight species can grow between 20 and 30 feet tall, the dwarf pomegranate, Punica granatum var. nana, reaches around 3 feet—but it can bloom when it’s only about a foot tall. It’s a wonderful container plant and is frequently used for indoor bonsai. The leaves are evergreen (except under extreme drought conditions), lance-shaped, and leathery in texture. Showy red, white, or pinkish flowers are borne at the ends of new growth. The rounded fruit of the dwarf pomegranate is about two inches wide and red when ripe. It contains transparent sacs of tart, flavorful, reddish pulp surrounding angular, hard seeds. Though these sacs are edible out of hand, I prefer to juice them and use the resulting liquid as a natural colorant for cream cheese and cake frosting, and as a mixer for sparkling water and cocktails. Pomegranates are high in potassium and have fair amounts of vitamin C and phosphorus.
The dwarf pomegranate is easy to cultivate indoors. It requires a semiarid climate, but keep it away from radiators and heating vents—arid is one thing, desiccating is another. Use a good-quality potting soil amended with lime, and plant in a terra-cotta container. Let the soil dry out between waterings, and don’t let the pot sit in a saucer of excess runoff. Fertilize it regularly in spring and summer. Dwarf pomegranates are easily propagated from seed and hardwood cuttings.
Nursery Sources:
The Banana Tree
715 Northampton Street
Easton, PA 18042
610-253-9589
Exotica Rare Fruit Nursery
2508-B East Vista Way
Vista, CA 92084
760-724-9093
Top Tropicals Botanical Center
11351 Orange Dr.
Davie, FL 33330
Toll-free: 1-866-897-7957
www.toptropicals.com
Scott D. Appell is former director of horticulture for the St. George Village Botanical Garden on St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. He lives, writes, gardens, and teaches horticulture and is developing his dream home and four-acre public garden, La Casa Botanica, in Vieques, Puerto Rico.
Top photo © Gerald D. Carr.
Other photos courtesy of TopTropicals.com.
http://www.bbg.org/gar2/topics/kitchen/2005wi_citrus.html
Manhattan Marmalade—Growing Citrus Indoors for Delicious Preserves
Plants & Gardens News Volume 19, Number 3 | Fall 2004/Winter 2005
by Scott D. Appell
The first time I grew a citrus tree indoors from seed was more than 30-odd years ago (a fact I rarely admit), when my grandparents brought back some freshly picked tree-ripened grapefruit from their annual midwinter pilgrimage to Florida. At first I wasn’t mightily impressed—the fruits weren’t even bright yellow like the ones from the grocery store! Rather, they were an unappetizing lime-green color (which is quite natural, incidentally—commercially grown citrus often have their skins artificially “degreened” by exposure to ethylene gas). What’s more, I had been taught by my family to be suspicious of anything “picked” (i.e., anything that hadn’t done time on a supermarket shelf).
However, at the insistence of Bubbi Irene, I tried one. And it was truly delicious. But what fascinated me most was a grapefruit seed I found already germinating inside the fruit! I immediately ran for a small terra-cotta pot and some potting soil. The rest, as they say, is history. Over the years, the resulting tree and I both grew, and I found myself devotedly lugging my surprisingly spiny and unfloriferous charge from state to state and home to home.
Citrus maxima.
Pummelo (Citrus maxima.)
Photograph courtesy of Top Tropicals.
Fast-forward to the present day. Sadly, my pet tree has departed to that big old grapefruit grove in the sky, but it has left me with a deep appreciation for citrus plants as indoor landscaping options (even for gardeners in tiny Manhattan apartments). I adore and recommend their handsome, aromatic foliage, their shapely, colorful, and tasty fruit, and their unforgettably fragrant, waxy-white flowers, which can perfume an entire home.
As we are all aware, many familiar citrus are readily available for purchase in even the most humble of groceries: Oranges (Citrus sinensis), lemons (C. limon), and grapefruits (C. x paradisi) abound. Be aware that currently limes (C. aurantifolia) are available only in seedless cultivars such as ‘Bearss’ (yes, that’s two s’s). More recently, greengrocers have begun to stock mandarin oranges (C. reticulata ‘Clementine’), Meyer lemons (C. meyeri), and pummelos (C. maxima). Specialty stores sell such citrus as the bizarre, clawlike Buddha’s hand (Citrus medica ‘Fingered’) and the bumpy-skinned etrog (Citrus medica ‘Etrog’)—a fruit held sacred in the Old Testament and enjoyed during the autumnal Jewish Feast of the Tabernacles. All of these fruits can be grown from seed into beautiful houseplants.
Citrus are easy to cultivate indoors. Plant seeds immediately upon removal from fruit—contrary to popular belief, the seeds don’t like to dry out. Start with a small pot and transplant the young plants as needed. Seedlings will need plenty of water, but don’t let them sit in a saucer of excess runoff: Citrus hate wet feet. Use a compost-rich, well-draining, slightly acidic soil (about 5.5 to 6.0 in pH). Employ an acidifying fertilizer made specifically for citrus, as these plants have particular requirements for micronutrients that most fertilizers don’t contain. A very sunny, cool window is the ideal location for cultivating your citrus.
Citrus trees grown from seed rarely flower and produce fruit. However, their fragrant leaves can be dropped into hot bathwater to impart a wonderful perfume. They can be added to stuffings, stews, and roasts or placed within the cavities of fish and fowl to add a delightful citrus flavor. Citrus leaves can be used in Thai stir-fries (leaves of the Kaffir lime, Citrus hystrix, are especially good for this). They can also be placed in the bottom of canning jars to impart a redolent tang to jams, jellies, chutneys, relishes, and marmalades.
The commercially grown citrus trees laden with fruit we observe in California and Florida are always grafted—usually on a distant Citrus cousin, the trifoliate orange (Poncirus trifoliata). However, small-statured flowering and fruiting citrus such as the Othaheite orange (Citrus x limonia) and ‘Eureka’ lemon (Citrus limon ‘Eureka’) are easily found in garden centers or can be purchased from nurseries. (A good mail-order source is Edible Landscaping, P.O. Box 77, Afton, VA 22920; 800-524-4156; www.eat-it.com.) These plants will bloom in late winter or early spring and produce harvestable fruit in about six months.
Scott’s Manhattan Marmalade
* 3 lbs. whole, unblemished homegrown or store-bought citrus, scrubbed clean
* 6 lbs. (12 cups) granulated sugar
* Cointreau or Yukon Jack liqueur
* Citrus leaves (any type), whole and unbruised
Simmer the fruit in 15 cups of water until the skin is tender and easily pierced. Remember that fruit of different sizes will become soft at different times—remove them with a slotted spoon as they become soft. Cool and halve the fruit, and remove the seeds. Reserve the cooking liquid. Put the seeds in a muslin bag used for bouquets garni and tie with string to suspend in the cooking marmalade. Pulse the citrus halves in a food processor—do not overprocess. Place the citrus back into the cooking liquid along with the sugar. Bring to a boil and cook vigorously for 10 minutes. Remove the bag of seeds. Stir in no more than 4 liquid ounces of the liqueur. Sterilize canning jars in a boiling water bath. Place a citrus leaf or two in the bottom of each hot sterilized jar, pour in the hot marmalade, and seal according to the jar manufacturer’s instructions. (For information on preserving food safely, visit Clemson University’s Cooperative Extension Service website at http://hgic.clemson.edu/factsheets/HGIC3000.htm.) The yield will vary according to jar size. The marmalade will keep for up to six months refrigerated.
Scott D. Appell is a regular contributor to BBG publications and the author of four books, Pansies, Lilies, Tulips, and Orchids. He lives and gardens on the island of Vieques, Puerto Rico.
http://www.bbg.org/gar2/topics/kitchen/2001su_breeding.html
Crop Breeding—Create Your Own Fruit and Vegetable Varieties
Plants & Gardens News Volume 16, Number 2 | Summer 2001
by Carol Deppe
Every gardener should be a plant breeder. Developing new vegetables doesn’t require a specialized education, a lot of land, or even a lot of time. It can be done on any scale. It’s enjoyable. It’s deeply rewarding. You can get useful new varieties much faster than you might suppose. And you can eat your mistakes.
There has never been a better time to get involved in amateur vegetable breeding. The seed saver exchanges that have emerged during the past decade provide a rich source of raw materials for plant breeding. The smaller seed companies, many also founded recently, are eager to help perpetuate and distribute the creations of amateurs. And the professional plant breeders are all busy elsewhere. They are engaged, almost exclusively, in developing commercial varieties of vegetables—vegetables bred for uniformity and once-over picking so they can be harvested by machines, for tough skin and hard flesh so they aren’t ruined by those machines, and for good storage and shipping characteristics so they can be transported long distances. These are not usually the qualities home gardeners need. Yet most of the new varieties that are released annually with such fanfare are commercial cultivars.
Gardeners buy only small amounts of seed compared to commercial growers, so seed of varieties that are best suited for gardeners is sold in only small amounts. Large seed companies often can’t afford to carry it. No one can make a profit developing it. So no one is. If we gardeners want good new garden varieties, we’ll have to breed them ourselves. But this is as it should be. Gardeners have been developing their own varieties for centuries. Besides, why should we let the professionals have all the fun?
Man with a Mission
Glenn Drowns was only sixteen when he started breeding plants, but he was already an experienced and enthusiastic gardener. It all started when he was two and a half, and his family planted some flower seeds. He was fascinated. By the age of four he was crawling through the fence to help his neighbor, who had a bigger garden. At eight he had a 500-square-foot garden of his own and was ordering his own seed. About then he developed a passion for vine crops. Each year he ordered every squash variety he could find. By age eleven he was selling all the produce his family didn’t need and using the money to buy seed. By age sixteen he was growing fifty different varieties of squash and ten of cucumbers. He also tried about half a dozen of the shortest-season watermelons he could find.
watermelon
More than anything else, Glenn wanted a ripe watermelon. His family lived in the extreme northern part of Idaho, where the growing season is short, cold, and unpredictable. His melons wouldn’t ripen. “I tried everything,” he recalls. “I even grew them inside little plastic tents all summer, just really baked them. But I never got a ripe melon. The only fully ripe watermelons I had ever tasted came from the stores—which didn’t count.”
Then Glenn took high school biology, and his class discussed crop improvement and hybridization. “Wow, maybe I could get a ripe melon that way,” he thought. So he tried a cross. One of the parents was probably ‘Sugar Baby’. The other was from a package of seed some friends had given him. The package was labeled “watermelon.” Glenn didn’t keep much in the way of records. He knew about record keeping, but he thought he was only playing around.
Within four years, growing no more than a dozen plants per year, Glenn Drowns produced a new stable variety—a variety that reliably produces similar plants from seed to seed and year to year. ‘Blacktail Mountain’ is a round, deep green melon with very faint stripes. The vines grow out to form a plant about 10 feet in diameter. The average melon is 8 inches across, weighs 8 to 10 pounds, and has a rind about half an inch thick. The flesh is orangish red, crisp, and very sweet. What is essential about ‘Blacktail Mountain’ is that it’s early—quite possibly the earliest watermelon ever grown. It’s about five days earlier than ‘New Hampshire Midget’, for example, one of the earliest watermelons.
Home Brew
Glenn laughs when he describes the breeding program that led to ‘Blacktail Mountain’. He hadn’t been able to find out anything at all about how to do crosses. “So I just sort of guessed,” he says.
Watermelons, like most cucurbits, have separate male and female flowers. Glenn noticed that some flowers had what looked like little fruits underneath and others didn’t. He figured the flower buds with fat bases must be females and the ones with skinny bases must be males. He made that first cross exactly the way he does watermelon and squash crosses today, twenty-four years and thousands of hand-pollinations later.
Glenn starts by taping the male and female flower buds shut with masking tape in the evening before the buds open for the first time. The timing is part convenience and part necessity. Late afternoon of the day before opening also is okay, but any earlier and the buds might still be growing fast enough to damage themselves on the tape. The following day Glenn untapes the buds. If they are ready to open that day, they will slowly expand after untaping. He plucks the male flower and uses it to sprinkle pollen onto the stigma of the female flower. (The stigma is at the top of the pistil.) Then he retapes the female flower with fresh tape and labels it. He never untapes the female flower; it just shrivels at the end of the developing fruit.
Glenn crossed the putative ‘Sugar Baby’ to the unknown watermelon. Then he saved the seed and planted it. The plants of the first generation, as he recalls, were similar to the ‘Blacktail Mountain’ of today. He self-pollinated each. “That was 1978,” Glenn remembers. “Nineteen seventy-eight was a gruesome year.” It was unusually cool, and his garden suffered a lot of deer damage. Only a few plants survived. They gave him exactly one ripe watermelon. Selecting the best watermelon from which to save seed was easy, Glenn says. “There was just one ripe melon. So I selected it.”
He planted the seed from that melon in 1979. The plants that resulted, his second generation, looked pretty similar to those of 1978. He self-pollinated each and got two or three ripe melons. He planted the seed from those in 1980, but the vines were all frozen out on August 4. Fortunately, Glenn had known better than to plant all his seed in one year. He replanted in 1981 and continued to inbreed—that is, to self-pollinate each plant. By 1982 he was offering ‘Blacktail Mountain’ through the Seed Savers Exchange. It was already stable and was basically the same variety it is today. But he grew it for a number of years before he felt confident enough in its stability to offer it to a seed company.
Happy Accidents
Part of the fun of breeding your own varieties is the surprises. Glenn had deliberately selected for a very early watermelon. Unexpectedly, ‘Blacktail Mountain’ also proved to have unusual keeping qualities. Glenn found that out completely by accident. “There are long-storage melons, the Christmas types,” Glenn says. “I’m surprised more people don’t grow them. I always do, and eat my last watermelons in February. But the storage types all seem to have that white rind. I’ve always thought of the green-skinned melons as an immediate eating thing.” Storage melons are harvested at just under ripe and finish ripening during storage. Glenn usually had no reason to harvest ‘Blacktail Mountain’ that way. But Iowa, where Glenn lives and gardens now, intervened.
In 1988 an early heat wave and drought killed all Glenn’s melon vines, so he had to replant in late June. Then, the last week in August, came the torrential rains. The melon field was in a low place. It flooded. Only the earliest half dozen varieties had melons that were mature enough to harvest. Glenn grabbed those and put them in his garage. Many were not quite ripe.
Several weeks later, Glenn opened one of his ‘Blacktail Mountain’ melons to look at the seed. To his surprise, the melon popped open. And it was just as crisp and tasty as if it had been harvested in its prime and eaten immediately. The melons from the other five varieties had long since turned to mush. Intrigued, Glenn used the rest of his melons in a storage trial. He found they kept nicely for up to two months. That’s not as long as a winter-storage type, but it’s unexpected for a standard green-skinned type, and it means that Glenn can eat his last ‘Blacktail Mountain’ watermelons on Thanksgiving.
Glenn Drowns was just a high school kid with curiosity when he made his first cross. Now he has a Masters degree in biology and teaches high school biology. He also has a farm and small farm-based seed company in Iowa, the Sand Hill Preservation Center, where he sells more than 700 varieties of heirloom seeds. His bestseller is ‘Blacktail Mountain’ watermelon, still the earliest watermelon in existence. As a leader in the seed-saving movement, a father, and a teacher, Glenn is very effectively passing along his knowledge, curiosity, and many unique varieties of fruits and vegetables.
Finding Rare Seed
Small seed companies that exclusively sell heirloom and open-pollinated seed play a unique role in plant breeding and preservation. They often rediscover and reintroduce varieties that are subsequently distributed by seed saving organizations and large seed companies. Most of them are run by single families that share a passion for farming and for the land.
Growing and selling open-pollinated seed is the least profitable part of the seed business. Those who do it are essentially operating a public service. Some have formally organized as foundations. Most have not, but still appreciate and, in some cases, survive only by virtue of the occasional unsolicited donation.
Beyond their basic similarities, these small seed companies are as individual as can be, with distinctive personalities, unique areas of specialization, and inventory lists ranging from a few loose pages to a good-sized booklet. When dealing with them, don’t expect slick catalogs, toll-free phone numbers, or instant service. If you ask for a catalog in late spring, summer, or fall, for example, you will most likely be put on a mailing list for the following year.
In addition, order fulfillment during the busy season can fall behind for weeks. This is not mega-corporate America—only individual families trying to promote and preserve values and varieties they believe in. They often have a limited amount of rare seed. So if you want something special, order early, and order well before the planting season.
Following is a selection of companies that I’ve ordered from. I personally recommend and commend them to you for your interest and support.
Abundant Life Seed Foundation
P.O. Box 772
Port Townsend, WA 98368
Phone: (360) 385-5660
Bountiful Gardens 18001 Shafer Ranch Road
Willits, CA 95490
Phone: (707) 459-6410
J.L. Hudson Star Route 2, Box 337
LaHonda, CA 94020
Native Seeds/ SEARCH 526 N. 4th Avenue
Tucson, AZ 85705
Phone: (520) 622-5561
Oregon Exotics Nursery 1065 Messinger Road
Grants Pass, OR 97527
Phone: (541) 846-7578
Peace Seeds 2385 SE Thompson St.
Corvallis, OR 97333
Peters Seed and Research 407 Maranatha Lane
Myrtle Creek, OR 97457
Phone: (541) 874-2615
Sand Hill Preservation Center 1878 230th Street
Calamus, Iowa 52729
Phone: (319) 246-2299
This article was adapted from Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties: The Gardener’s and Farmer’s Guide to Plant Breeding and Seed Saving, by Carol Deppe (Chelsea Green Publishing Company, 1993). For details on how to breed your own fruit and vegetable varieties, see the recently revised and expanded edition of the book. Book excerpts and reviews are available on the publisher’s web site: www.chelseagreen.com.
When Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties was published in 1993, it instantly became a classic. Author Carol Deppe was universally praised for having written a unique, authoritative, and easy-to-understand guide to plant breeding and seed saving for home gardeners and small-scale farmers. Eight years later, her book is still the definitive one on the subject. And it is now available in a revised and expanded paperback edition from Chelsea Green Publishing (ISBN 1-890132-72-1; $27.95).
Carol has a B.S. in Zoology from the University of Florida and a Ph.D. in Biology from Harvard University. “At least I think I have a Ph.D. from Harvard,” she says. “But when I got the diploma it was in Latin, and I don’t read Latin, so who knows?”
Carol is a full-time plant breeder, working to develop crops for sustainable agriculture. She has written for numerous magazines and periodicals, including Horticulture, Organic Gardening, and National Gardening. She lives in Corvallis, Oregon.
http://www.bbg.org/gar2/topics/kitchen/handbooks/chile/0.html
Chile Pepper Recipes
Chileman’s Smokin’ Hot Turkey
* 2 tbsp. apple jelly
* 1/4 tsp. ground cumin
* 6 to 12 ‘NuMex Bailey Piqu’n’ chiles, ground
* 3 to 3-1/2 lb. turkey breast
* Cooking oil
Mix apple jelly, cumin, and piqu’n powder together (jalapeño or habanero-flavored jelly can be substituted). Loosen turkey skin by slipping your finger under skin of turkey breast, pulling it away from meat, but leaving skin attached at one long edge. Place turkey breast, skin side up, on rack in smoker. Use a flavorful hardwood, such as pecan, hickory, or mesquite. Brush skin with oil. Grill until meat thermometer registers 170°F.
Apricot Pineapple Sauce
A nice sauce to serve with the smoked turkey is a mixture of 1 cup of chopped pineapple with 2 pitted and chopped apricots. Add 1 red sweet bell pepper, chopped, and 1/4 cup apple jelly. Mix, cover, and chill in refrigerator until serving time.
—Paul Bosland
Paul’s Peruvian Ceviche
* 1 pound very fresh fish filet
* Juice of 6 medium limes
* 2 tomatoes, peeled and chopped
* 1 sweet red or yellow onion
* 2 tbsp. minced cilantro
* 2 tbsp. high quality olive oil
* 1 tbsp. vinegar
* Salt and black pepper to taste
* 2 ‘Aj’ Amarillo’ chiles, chopped
Cut raw fish into bite-sized pieces and place in a bowl. Pour the lime juice over the raw fish and marinate in refrigerator for 3 to 7 hours, turning the fish occasionally. In ceviche, the lime juice “cooks” the seafood, preserving it. An hour before serving, chop tomatoes, onions, and cilantro; combine and refrigerate. Right before serving, combine olive oil, vinegar, salt, black pepper, chiles, tomato mixture, and fish. Serve with avocado, capers, and corn chips.
—Paul Bosland
Easy New Mexican Green Enchiladas
* 6 roasted green chiles, chopped
* 1 can cream of celery soup
* Salt, garlic powder, and cumin to taste
* 1 dozen corn tortillas
* 1/4 cup canola oil
* 1 minced onion
* Colby cheese, grated
Heat oven to 350°F. Peel, seed, and chop chiles. Add 1/2 can of water to celery soup and bring to a boil. Add chopped chiles. Season to taste with salt, garlic powder, and cumin. Continue to simmer. Dip the corn tortillas into hot oil for a few seconds, turning once with tongs, and drain. Do not overcook, or the tortillas will become tough. Dip the tortillas into the chile and soup mixture. Put a small amount of onions and cheese in the middle of the tortilla and roll up. Place in a casserole dish until full. Pour the remaining chile sauce over the enchiladas. Top with the remaining onion and cheese. Bake for 30 minutes.
—Paul Bosland
Enchanted Jalapeño Cornbread
* 1-1/2 cups stone-ground corn meal
* 1 tsp. sugar
* 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
* 1/2 tsp. salt
* 1/4 cup shortening
* 1/2 tsp. baking soda
* 1-1/2 cups nonfat buttermilk
* 3 egg whites
* 2 tsp. baking powder
* 4 diced pods of ‘NuMex Piñata’ jalapeño (colored bell peppers or plain green jalapeños can be substituted)
Heat oven to 450°F. Spray 8 by 8 by 2 square pan with nonstick cooking spray. Mix all ingredients; beat vigorously 30 seconds. Pour in pan. Bake 20 to 30 minutes or until golden brown.
—Paul Bosland
Chiles Rellenos
The ‘Big Jim’ variety of New Mexican chile makes excellent chiles rellenos (stuffed chiles) because the pods are large and meaty, but any of the New Mexican varieties work well in this recipe. Top these chiles rellenos with either green or red chile sauce.
* 4 green New Mexican chiles, roasted and peeled with stems left on
* 1/4 lb. cheddar or Monterey Jack cheese, cut in sticks
* 3 eggs, separated
* 1 tbsp. water
* 3 tbsp. flour
* 1/4 tsp. salt
* Flour for dredging
* Vegetable oil for frying
Make a slit in the side of each chile, and stuff the chiles with the cheese sticks. Dredge the chiles with the flour.
Beat the egg whites until they form stiff peaks. Beat the yolks with the water, flour, and salt until thick and creamy. Fold the yolks into the whites.
Dip the chiles in the mixture and fry in 2 to 3 inches of oil until they are a golden brown. Serve with shredded lettuce and guacamole, Spanish rice, and refried beans.
Habanero Pepper Sauce
Cooking the chiles would reduce the distinctive flavor of the habaneros in this hot sauce, so add them raw. The high percentage of both acetic and citric acids keeps the sauce from spoiling.
* 12 habanero chiles, stems removed, chopped
* 1/2 cup chopped onion
* 2 cloves garlic, minced
* 1 tbsp. vegetable oil
* 1/2 cup chopped carrots
* 1/2 cup distilled vinegar
* 1/4 cup lime juice
Sauté the onion and garlic in the oil until soft. Add the carrots with a small amount of water. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat, and simmer until the carrots are soft. Place the mixture and the chiles in a blender, and puree the mixture until smooth. Combine the puree with the vinegar and lime juice and simmer for 5 minutes to combine the flavors.
Strain the mixture into sterilized bottles and seal.
—Doug Dudgeon
boomark for the husband
http://www.bbg.org/gar2/topics/kitchen/handbooks/chile/9.html#resources
Chile Peppers
Seed Sources
The Chile Woman
1704 South Weimer Road.
Bloomington, IN 47403-2869
(812) 332-8494
Chris Weeks Peppers
P.O. Box 3207
Kill Devil Hills, NC 27948
Dozens of varieties of open-pollinated seeds
The Cook’s Garden
P.O. Box 5010
Hodges, SC 29653
(800) 457-9703
http://st6.yahoo.com/cooksgarden/ index.html
Small selection of organic chile pepper seeds
Cross Country Nurseries
PO Box 170; 199 Kingwood-Locktown Road
Rosemont, NJ 08556-0170
(908) 996-4646
http://www.chileplants.com
Hundreds of varieties; plants only (no seeds)
Enchanted Seeds
P.O. Box 6087
Las Cruces, NM 88006
(505) 233-3033
http://www.tvfuture.com/enchanted
Specializes in NuMex varieties; has dozens of others as well
High Altitude Gardens
Box 1048
Hailey, ID 83333
(208) 788-4363
http://www.seedsave.org
Open-pollinated vigorous seeds adapted to cold climates and short growing seasons
J.L. Hudson, Seedsman
Star Route 2, Box 337
La Honda, CA 94020
Small selection of chile seeds, most un-treated; several unusual varieties col-lected in Mexico’s Sierra Madre del Sur
Johnny’s Seeds
Foss Hill Road
Albion, ME 04910-9731
(207) 437-4301
http://www.johnnyseeds.com
Large selection of hot, sweet, and bell peppers; many varieties for cold-climate gardens
Native Seeds/SEARCH
526 North 4th Avenue
Tucson, AZ 85705
(520) 622-5561
http://www.azstarnet.com/~nss/
Heirloom seeds for domesticated and wild chile pepper species
Nichols Garden Nursery
1190 North Pacific Highway
Albany, OR 97321
(541) 928-9280
http://www.gardennursery.com
Sweet and hot chile pepper seeds; several varieties for short and variable season areas
The Pepper Gal
Box 23006
Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33307-3006
(954) 537-5540
More than 200 varieties of chile seeds, plus books.
Pepper Joe’s, Inc.
1650 Pembroke Road
Norristown, PA 19403
(410) 628-0507 (fax)
http://www.pepperjoe.com
Offers a limited selection of organic hot chile pepper seeds
Pinetree Garden Seeds
Box 300
New Gloucester, ME 04260
(207) 926-3400
http://www.superseeds.com
Specializes in small packets of seeds for home gardeners. Limited selection of chile pepper seeds
Plants of the Southwest
Agua Fria
Route 6, Box 11A
Santa Fe, NM 87501
(800) 788-SEED
http://www.plantsofthesouthwest.com/
chiles/#
Offers about 30 varieties of chile pepper seeds and plants specializes in those adapted to the Southwest
Redwood City Seed Co.
P.O. Box 361
Redwood City, CA 94064
(650) 325-7333
http://www.ecoseeds.com
More than 50 varieties of chile seeds
Santa Barbara Heirloom Seedling Nursery
P.O. Box 4235
Santa Barbara, California 93140
(805) 968-5444
http://www.silcom.com/heirloom/index.html
Small selection of heirloom chile pepper seedlings.
Seeds of Change
P.O. Box 15700
Santa Fe, NM 87506-5700
(888) 762-7333
http://st4.yahoo.net/seedsofchange
Small selection of organic, open-pollinated chile pepper seeds
Seed Savers Exchange
3076 North Winn Road
Decorah, IA 52101
(319) 382-5990
Seeds for heirloom and rare varieties of chiles
Seeds West Garden Seeds
317 14th Street N.W.
Albuquerque, NM 87104
(505) 843-9713
http://www.seedswestgardenseeds.com
Heirloom, organic chile pepper seeds for western gardens
Shepherd’s Garden Seeds
30 Irene Street
Torrington, CT 06790-6658
(860) 482-3638
http://www.shepherdseeds.com
Many unusual, open-pollinated, and heirloom chile seeds
Terra Time & Tide
590 East 59th Street
Jacksonville, FL 32208
(904) 764-0376
http://www.pepperhot.com
Good selection of chile pepper seeds
Tomato Grower’s Supply
P.O. Box 2237
Fort Myers, FL 33902
(941) 768-1119
More than 100 varieties of chile seeds
Totally Tomatoes
P.O. Box 1626
Augusta, GA 30903-1626
(803) 663-0016
Comprehensive offering of chile pepper seeds
Tough Love Chile Co.
5025 South McCarran Blvd.,358
Reno NV 89502
(702) 849-3100
http://www.tough-love.com
Large selection of chile seeds
Books
The Pepper Garden
by Dave DeWitt and Paul Bosland
Ten Speed Press, 1993
Peppers of the World: An Identification Guide
by Dave DeWitt and Paul Bosland
Ten Speed Press, 1996
The Great Chile Book
by Mark Miller
Ten Speed Press, 1991
The Whole Chile Pepper Book
by Dave DeWitt
Little, Brown, 1990
Peppers: The Domesticated Capsicums
by Jean Andrews
University of Texas Press, 1995
Peppers: A Story of Hot Pursuits
by Amal Naj
Knopf, 1992
Red Hot Peppers: A Cookbook for the Not so Faint of Heart
by Jean Andrews
MacMillan, 1993
The Chile Pepper Encyclopedia: Everything You’ll Ever Need to Know About Hot Peppers With More Than 100 Recipes
by Dave DeWitt
William Morrow & Co., 1999
The Pepper Lady’s Pocket Pepper Primer
by Jean Andrews
University of Texas Press, 1998
The Healing Power of Peppers: With Chile Pepper Recipes and Folk Remedies for Better Health and Living
by Dave Dewitt, Melissa Stock, and Kellye Hunter
Three Rivers Press, 1998
Magazines
Fiery Foods Magazine
For people in the hot food business
(505) 298-3835
Chile Pepper Magazine
A general-interest magazine published bimonthly
(888) SPICY-HOT (774-2946)
Other Resources
The Chile Pepper Institute
Box 30003, Dept. 3Q
Las Cruces, NM 88003
(505) 646-3028
(505) 646-6041 fax
http://www.chilepepperinstitute.org
This clearinghouse for information on chiles publishes the Chile Pepper Institute Newsletter; books on Capsicum-related subjects; researches new Capsicum cultivars and diseases; sponsors the annual scholarly New Mexico Chile Conference; serves as a bank for chile germplasm.
National Hot Pepper Association
400 N.W. 20th Street
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33311-3818
(954) 565-4972
(954) 566-2208 fax
http://www.inter-linked.com/org/nhpa/
Trade association for growers, chefs, and companies that produce hot-pepper products, as well as for chile enthusiasts. Publishes a quarterly 28-page newsletter. Membership $20 per year.
Chiles on The Internet
The Internet is a great source of information for chile gardeners and enthusiasts. Some of the more helpful sites are listed below. Many of these sites are members of “The Ring of Fire,” a linked group of web sites that will lead you to more and more information about chiles—as well as a too a lot of chile-related junk. You can also buy chile pepper seeds online, as most of the companies that sell seeds have web sites (see “Seed Sources,” pages 98-101). web site addresses change constantly, so you may also want to do your own search for chile information, using a search engine such as Yahoo or Alta Vista.
The Chile-Heads
http://neptune.netimages. com/~chile
A guide to chile pepper recipes, restaurants, and festivals; information about growing, harvesting, and preserving peppers and the botany, chemistry, and medical aspects of chiles. You can also get in on discussions
U.K. Chile-Head
http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~gcaselton/chile/chile.html
British chile-head Graeme Caselton has put together a very informative site, with lots of botanical information about the different species and subspecies of chiles, seed suppliers, and a huge database of recipes for chili.
The Fiery Foods Supersite
This is the site for the people in the pungent food business, but there is lots of interesting information for the gardener as well, including reports from the Annual Chile Conference in New Mexico, where chile pepper researchers present talks about new chiles, chile diseases, etc.
The Pepperworld Hot Shop
http://www.pepperworld.com/hotshop.htm
Lots of chile pepper chatchkes—posters, calendars, t-shirts, chile pepper cookie cutters, taco racks, de-seeders, clocks, placemats, etc.
Lynn’s Pepper Museum
One gardener talks about her experiences with chile peppers—germinating seeds, when to plant, and so on.
http://www.bbg.org/gar2/topics/kitchen/handbooks/chile/7.html#containers
Preserving Chiles
by Susan Belsinger
In midsummer, chile peppers mature, begin to ripen, and become more pungent. Some are fiery hot, while others are crisp, slightly sweet with just a hint of heat, and full of flavor. This is the time to put up that prize-winning corn relish, those pickled peppers, salsas of every kind, and hot pepper chutney.
Red chile peppers can be prepared as a sweet and piquant jelly to serve year-round.
Red chile peppers can be prepared as a sweet and piquant jelly to serve year-round. (Photo: Susan Belsinger)
Depending on the variety, it can take a few weeks for peppers to change color from green to ripe red. Peppers can be eaten no matter what their color, but your preserved chiles will taste best if you use fruits that are all approximately the same level of maturity and color—mature green or ripe red.
Whatever their color, it’s always best to wear rubber gloves when working with chiles. Capsaicin, the pungent compound in chiles, can burn your hands, and then your eyes, mouth, nose, or anything else you touch.
Gather jalapeños and serranos while they are still green to make green hot-pepper jelly. Along with tomatoes, tomatillos, and herbs, pick an assortment of hot peppers and preserve a few batches of salsa and relish for the long winter months to come. To tell whether your green peppers are mature, slit one open and look at the seeds. They should be creamy white, big, and flat. If they are brown or not fully developed, the fruit is not yet mature.
You can eat red chiles raw, grill them, use them to make red chile jelly, or dry them whole for cooking. Smaller chiles ripen quickly in midsummer, especially Thai and cayenne peppers. Harvest them as they ripen and string them on thin wire to dry; you can then grind them or use them whole as decorations.
Roasting & Freezing Fresh Chiles
Roasting Anaheims blackens them, removes the skins, and prepares them for freezing.
Roasting Anaheims blackens them, removes the skins, and prepares them for freezing. (Photo: Susan Belsinger)
Green chiles don’t dry well but you can preserve them whole by roasting or grilling and then freezing them. (If you freeze them without grilling, the chiles will become mushy.) Large green chiles are best for this method. Most thick-fleshed peppers—New Mexico green chiles, Anaheims, anchos, mulatos, and the sweet bells—have a thin, tough skin that is best removed for pleasant eating. The traditional method is to roast the peppers: They may blacken a little, and the skin will blister and become loose. Once roasted, these chiles will freeze well.
You can roast chiles in three ways, depending on the number you have to prepare. In all cases, cut a small slit at the stem end of the chiles to keep them from bursting. If you only have a few chiles, roast them directly on the open flame of a gas stovetop. Watch them carefully and turn frequently with tongs.
If you want to preserve a larger number of green chiles—say, six or more—place them in a shallow baking pan, and set it about 4 inches below the broiler. Turn frequently to blister the chiles evenly. Watch them carefully so that they don’t overcook. The skin does not have to blacken to become loose; if it wrinkles when you push it with the tongs, the chile has been blistered enough.
If you have a large number of chiles to put up, outdoor grilling is an excellent method. The chiles will blister quickly and take on a smoky flavor. Roast the peppers on an open grill over hot coals, about 4 to 6 inches from the flame. Watch the chiles carefully and turn frequently. Roasting peppers usually takes about 4 to 5 minutes for each side, depending on the size of the peppers and the intensity of the heat. Larger peppers will take longer to roast and need to be turned more often. When the chiles are done, the skin should be blistered and charred all over.
As each chile is done, transfer it with tongs to a rack over a baking pan. When all the chiles have cooled to room temperature, place them on a metal pan or a cookie sheet and freeze until they are hard. Transfer the chiles to plastic freezer bags, label and date them, and store them in the freezer.
To use the frozen chiles, thaw them for about an hour. Their skins will slip off easily, and the seed membranes will also be easy to cut after freezing. Chiles taste best and have a fresher texture if you eat them within the first six months. If you remove as much air as possible from the freezer bags and have a reasonable freezer, frozen chiles are still quite tasty up to a year later.
If you plan to eat your chiles fresh rather than freezing them, you can peel them by roasting and then steaming them. Put your roasted chiles in a paper or heavy plastic bag, or wrap them loosely in foil to steam the skins loose. Let the peppers steam in the bag for 5 to 10 minutes. Tear open the bag and use it as your work surface so you can keep cutting boards free of chile juice, skins, and seeds. Begin by loosening the skin at the stems where you made a small slit. When the skin is loosened all around the stem, scrape it down with the flat of a knife, turning the pepper as you scrape.
To prepare roasted, skinned chiles for stuffing, cut a slit down the length of the chile, from the stem to about 1/2 inch from the end. Cut the seed membrane free just under the stem. Parts of the membrane extend down the inner walls; run the knife under these to free the chile of membranes and seeds. Don’t worry about a few seeds or blackened bits of skin, and don’t rinse your roasted chiles, as this causes them to lose flavor.
If you are not stuffing the chiles, it is easier to simply cut the seed membrane and stem together, even though you lose a little chile flesh. If you simply cut out the pithiest part of the membrane, which holds the seeds, you will not lose much pungency.
Now the chiles are ready for any number of preparations. They can be stuffed, diced, or cut into strips, made into salsa, or canned. (For culinary uses of individual chiles, see “Encyclopedia of Chiles,” page 68.) Since the chiles have already been partially cooked, they need little further cooking. For the best flavor, 15 to 20 minutes of cooking are enough for most dishes.
Harvesting, Drying, and Saving the Seeds of Chiles
Many types of chiles can be grilled with other vegetables to make a salsa.
Many types of chiles can be grilled with other vegetables to make a salsa. (Photo: Susan Belsinger)
Toward the end of the harvest season, when most of the chiles on the plants have matured to red, it is time to pick and dry chiles or to pull the plants and hang them to dry. Pick the peppers while they are still firm and crisp—before they begin to get soft or wrinkly. Red and completely mature chiles will be at their peak of pungency, so wear rubber gloves when working with them.
Keep a close watch on your peppers when they are in their red, ripe stage. If you see any moldy or soft, black spots on the peppers, dispose of them immediately. If the weather is wet, try to harvest the peppers as soon as the sunshine dries them, before they begin to mold or rot on the vine.
Dried chiles taste completely different from fresh chiles. They are generally earthier and have a chewy texture. The Southwest is the perfect place for drying chiles. Hot sun, dry air, and warm nights with little chance of precipitation provide the ideal conditions. However, witih a little help from the oven, chiles can also be dried in more humid climates.
Small chiles dry well if you pull the whole plant and hang it upside down in a well-ventilated place. You can also dry smaller peppers by spreading them in a single layer on screens or in large flat baskets, and turn them every day so that they dry evenly. Or, with a needle, you can run a thread through the stems or use a thin wire, and hang them to dry.
Larger peppers with thicker walls take longer to dry. You can spread them on screens or baskets to dry, or make them into ristras—large strings of chiles tied by their stems with heavy string or twine and hung in the hot sun to dry. Ristras are common in the Southwest and Mexico, where these heavy, fat strings of deep red chiles are hung outside from rafters and doorways. Ristras are often used decoratively; if you plan to use them for cooking, once they are thoroughly dried, bring them inside and hang them away from direct sunlight.
If you live in a climate where the temperature and sunlight are uneven and the humidity is high, you can dry your chiles in the sun, but bring them indoors at night or if it rains. Peppers are likely to mold if they get damp or wet during the drying process.
The size of your chiles, the thickness of the flesh, and weather conditions all determine the drying time, which can vary greatly. In the Southwest, where the humidity is low and the sunlight is bright and even, peppers sometimes dry in less than a week.
In humid climates, you can dry chiles partially in the sun and finish them off in a 150° oven; spread them on baking sheets and turn them occasionally. This could take anywhere from 1 to 12 hours, depending on the size and moisture content of the chiles. Feel your chiles to tell if they are thoroughly dried: They should be free of moisture and feel leathery rather than brittle.
Store dried chiles whole in labeled, tightly closed glass jars.
To save chile seed for next year, remove the seed from raw, mature peppers, rinse, and place on paper towels or a small piece of screen. Dry seeds in the sun, in a protected place. When thoroughly dry, pack them into plastic bags, envelopes, or small jars, and label them. Store them in a cool place away from light.
Grinding Chile for Spices
Roast and grind chiles, then mix with herbs to make your own version of chile powder.
Roast and grind chiles, then mix with herbs to make your own version of chile powder. (Photo: Susan Belsinger)
Pure ground red chile is made from dried chiles and nothing else. This is an essential ingredient in Southwestern and Mexican cooking; it is used in making red sauce for enchiladas, burritos, and huevos rancheros, among other dishes.
To prepare ground red chile, toast the peppers lightly (although tiny chiles like chiltepins and piqu’ns don’t need to be toasted). Use a comal—a large iron griddle for making tortillas—a regular griddle, or a heavy frying pan and toast the chiles over medium heat until they just start to release some fragrance, only about 30 to 60 seconds. Do not overtoast them, or they will have a bitter taste. Stem and seed the chiles, and tear the pods into big pieces. Grind the pieces, about 1/2 cup at a time, in a food processor or blender. Do the fine grinding in small batches using a spice grinder, coffee mill, or mortar and pestle. Store the ground chile in tightly closed jars away from heat and sunlight. You can also freeze it for up to one year.
Chili powder is different from ground red chile. This American mixture was created in Texas in the late 1800s. Dried chiles are the main ingredient, enhanced by spices and herbs—mainly cumin and oregano, occasionally black pepper, dehydrated garlic, and onions. The original chili powders were pure, without the salt, anticaking agents, or flour that characterize many modern blends.
It’s easy to roast your own chiles, grind them as for ground red chile (above), and experiment with herbs and spices to make your own version of chili powder.
Homemade chili powder will keep in a tightly sealed jar out of direct sunlight for six months.
Small Chiles and Ornamentals
Ornamental peppers delight the palate as well as the eye. They add a fiery pungency in cooking and are especially lovely on miniature herb wreaths and kitchen swags, or threaded and hung in miniature garlands. Look for them in seed catalogs under such entertaining names as ‘Candlelight’, ‘Fiesta’, ‘Fips’, ‘Fireworks’, ‘Holiday Cheer’, ‘Holiday Flame’, ‘Inferno Mixed’, ‘Jigsaw’, ‘Midnight Special’, ‘Pequin’, ‘Tepin’, and ‘Treasure Red’.
You can use these small chiles fresh or, when they ripen to red, you can dry them in baskets and store them in glass jars for future use. Harvesting will stimulate new growth.
All of these little peppers are hot; most of them are fiery. Novices should beware the pungency of these incendiary little peppers.
Because they are so hot, they are most often used whole—simmered in soups or stews, briefly sautéed in stir-fries, or soaked in a marinade—then removed.
Vinegars and Infusions
If you have a surplus of the smaller hot peppers, you can pickle them or, to add new flavors to cuisine, infuse them in vinegar, vodka, tequila, or sherry. Choose fresh, unblemished chiles or small, brightly colored, dried ones. You can use any type of chile in an infusion, but you are sure to succeed with the traditional varieties: serrano, cayenne, jalapeño, ‘Santa Fe Grande’, red hot cherry, tabasco, Thai, and the ornamentals. Both liquor and vinegar infusions keep for at least one year.
Wash the fresh chiles and make a lengthwise slit in each pepper, fresh or dried, with a sharp paring knife (otherwise they will float like a cork). If you cut the fresh chiles in halves or quarters, there will be more heat in the infusion.
To make a liquor infusion, halve or quarter the chiles and push them down into the neck of the bottle. (You may have to pour out a little bit of the liquor if the bottle is full.) Use two chiles to a half dozen, depending on their heat. I generally use two or three habaneros to a liter bottle of good tequila. Two or three green jalapeños are good for flavoring a bottle of sherry, but I like to put five or six red cayennes or serranos in a bottle of vodka. Do not heat the alcohol. The chiles will float at first, but eventually sink. Allow the infusion to stand for 3 to 4 weeks before using.
Vinegars add zest to salads, sauteés, and marinades, and are essential in making escabeche, pickled dishes made with vinegar or lime juice. Hot pepper vinegars are made in basically the same way as liquor infusions, except the vinegar is generally heated.
Place your choice of peppers in a large, nonreactive, heavy-bottomed saucepan. If preparing pint jars, use about 1 cup of chiles per jar, and if preparing quarts, use about 2 cups of chiles per jar. Using about 1/2 cup less liquid than the size of the jar (for example, 11/2 cups liquid to a pint jar), pour the vinegar over the chiles. Let the chiles and vinegar come to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer 3 to 5 minutes, then cool to room temperature. Transfer the hot chile vinegar into sterile 1-pint or 1-quart canning jars, leaving about 1/2 inch of space at the top. You can add a few sprigs of herbs such as thyme, oregano, or sage, if desired. Seal the jars with sterile lids and rings, and set them in a pantry or a cool, dark place for 2 to 3 weeks before using. These infusions become hotter with age.
Susan Belsinger is a food writer and photographer. Her work has appeared in publications including Gourmet, Food & Wine, Kitchen Garden, and Organic Gardening magazine. She is the coauthor of New Southwestern Cooking, (MacMillan, 1985), The Chile Pepper Book (Interweave Press, 1994), and Classic Southwest Cooking (Jessica’s Biscuit, 1996). She gives lectures and demonstrations on chiles throughout the United States and Canada.
http://www.bbg.org/gar2/topics/kitchen/handbooks/chile/5.html
Growing Chile Peppers Indoors
by Susan Belsinger
Ornamental and smaller hot chiles, like firecracker chile piquin, are the best chiles to grow indoors.
Ornamental and smaller hot chiles, like firecracker chile piquín, are the best chiles to grow indoors. (Photo: Susan Belsinger)
It’s a challenge to grow chile peppers indoors. Like tomatoes, they need an environment that’s warmer and brighter than most homes. However, growing chiles indoors is a worthwhile project if you don’t have a garden. The best indoor environment for chiles is a greenhouse, of course, but you can also grow them with some success under lights.
An indoor pepper plant will probably never grow as large as one planted outside, and the fruits will most likely be a bit smaller. Selecting plants that grow well in containers will give you the best shot at a good indoor chile crop. The best chiles to grow indoors are the ornamental and smaller hot chiles that are often grown outdoors as container plants. Some chile varieties that grow well indoors and in containers are piqu’ns, chiltepins, habaneros, and Thai peppers (see “Encyclopedia of Chiles”). These small plants have a long growing season. They fruit and flower for a longer period than short-season chiles, so you will have a greater chance of harvesting fruits from them. The small chiles grow to 6 to 12 inches in height with an equal diameter. Since the peppers stand out prominently above the foliage, these plants make colorful and decorative houseplants. These chiles can be very pungent.
Growing requirements for these smaller, long-season peppers are the same as for other chiles. Outdoors in the southwestern United States where they grow best, chiles like hot daytime temperatures—80° to 90°F plus—and warm nighttime temperatures of about 70°F. To succeed with chile peppers, your home or greenhouse temperatures should be within 20°F of this optimum range. Artificial light, such as a fluorescent tube, placed 3 inches above the plants will raise the temperature by about 10°F. A heat mat beneath the plants will also provide warmth.
Keep the Chiles Coming
If you have been growing chiles outdoors in the garden and want to prolong the harvest season, try digging some of the smaller ornamental peppers, potting them, and bringing them indoors. If you have the space and the desire, try to keep some going all year long. They will have a tendency to slow down during the winter months and may lose some leaves and turn a pale green, but do not overfertilize them. Let them rest, consider cutting them back if they get leggy, and look for new growth in the spring.
—Susan Belsinger
The most important factor in growing chiles is light. Just to survive they need at least six hours of bright sunlight a day (southern exposure is best for this) and about eight hours of indirect light (from eastern or western exposure). If you are growing peppers on a windowsill and they appear to be just hanging on, supplement their natural light with artificial light. If you can put your indoor chile plants outside on a porch, balcony, or deck for the summer season, this will benefit them enormously.
If you are using only artificial light, your chiles will need 16 hours of light a day, so you might want to place them in an out-of-the-way corner, a closet, or the basement. The plants do need some rest, so it’s a good idea to set the lights on a timer that turns the lights on and off automatically. You don’t have to buy fancy growlights—common fluorescent fixtures with either ordinary cool white or warm white tubes will do. The size and number of fixtures will depend on how many plants you want to grow. You can hang the lights from a ceiling or shelf, or under a work table. Attach chains to the fixtures so that you can easily raise and lower them. Place the lights about 3 inches above the plants and raise them as the plants grow taller, maintaining that 3-inch distance from the plants.
As your chiles grow in their containers, you may have to transplant them more than once. A 10- to 12-inch pot will probably be large enough to grow a small plant to maturity. For larger chiles use a 16- to 18-inch pot. Be sure that your pots have adequate drainage; you’ll need a saucer, underliner, or tray on which to place the pots.
Commercial soilless mixes of spaghnum peat or composted bark combined with equal parts of vermiculite or perlite are good for growing chiles. Water the chiles well when you transplant them into a new pot. As they grow, be careful not to overwater them. Keep the plants on the slightly damp to dry side; the medium will turn a lighter color as it dries out. Feed your chiles every three weeks, or according to the fertilizer manufacturer’s directions. Kelp and fish emulsion are good organic fertilizers, and granular or concentrated liquids that are mixed with water are widely available and work well.
Chiles will start to mature about 10 to 12 weeks after you have transplanted them and will continue to bear fruit for several months. Harvest them when the fruits are shiny and bright green or beginning to turn yellow, orange, or red, depending on the variety. If your chiles appear to be under attack by bugs or pathogens, consult “Disorders, Pests, and Diseases of Chiles.”
Susan Belsinger is a food writer and photographer. Her work has appeared in publications including Gourmet, Food & Wine, Kitchen Garden, and Organic Gardening magazine. She is the coauthor of New Southwestern Cooking, (MacMillan, 1985), The Chile Pepper Book (Interweave Press, 1994), and Classic Southwest Cooking (Jessica’s Biscuit, 1996). She gives lectures and demonstrations on chiles throughout the United States and Canada.
http://www.bbg.org/gar2/topics/kitchen/handbooks/chile/4.html#easy
Growing Chile Peppers
by Doug Dudgeon
Chile peppers evoke thoughts of spicy foods from hot places—dishes from the Southwest, Mexico, China, India, and Southeast Asia. Perhaps for this reason, many people mistakenly think that the only part of North America where chile peppers will grow is the hot and arid Southwest. But you can grow chile peppers just about anywhere in the United States and southern Canada, as long as you prepare your soil, nurture your seedlings properly, and provide the plants with their basic needs.
The Quiet Winter Months
Mulch your chile plants to control weeds and retain water.
Mulch your chile plants to control weeds and retain water. (Photo: Susan Belsinger)
Long before you pop your first plant into the ground, you should make a garden plan. You can either grow chiles from seed or buy potted plants closer to planting time. The payoff for using seed is the abundance of varieties—many of them rare and exotic—that seed companies offer. (See “Seed Sources,” page 98.) If you decide to grow your chiles from seed, you should start germinating and tending seedlings in the early spring.
If you decide not to grow chiles from seed, you can buy potted plants in the spring from a local garden center or specialty grower. Bear in mind that most garden centers have quite limited selections—often only one to three varieties at most. Specialty growers sell many more varieties of chile pepper plants, but these are often quite expensive.
Not all varieties do well in every region, so select those that grow best where you live (see “Encyclopedia of Chiles,” page 68). But don’t be afraid to experiment with offbeat varieties just for the fun of it.
Hot Chiles For Cool Climates
These chiles are recommended for areas with short growing seasons:
* ‘Hungarian Yellow Wax’
* ‘Jalapa Jalapeño’
* ‘Long Slim Cayenne’
* Superchile hybrid
* ‘Early Jalapeño’
* Anaheim
* Ornamentals
* ‘Mulato Isleno’
—Susan Belsinger
When choosing among chile pepper varieties, keep the following additional factors in mind:
The maturity date for each variety. If you live in a cool, northern climate, your growing season is short, so choose early-maturing varieties. The prolific ‘Hungarian Yellow Wax’, maturing in 65 days, is a good choice for northern gardens. ‘Aci Sivri’, an heirloom pepper from Turkey, takes 90 days to mature but fruits abundantly in northern gardens. In contrast, ancho, Anaheim, and chilaca bear quite profusely in the arid Southwest after 90 to 120 days, but do poorly in northern climates.
The humidity in your area. Peppers are sensitive to humidity. Jalapeño, cayenne, and mirasol all prefer arid climates, while habanero, Scotch bonnet, and datil prefer humid surroundings.
How you will use your peppers. Peppers can be eaten raw or prepared in a variety of ways: stuffed with meat or cheese, dried, or pickled. The best peppers for stuffing are large and have thick flesh; poblanos are a good choice and grow especially well in the Southwest. Many of the smaller, thin-fleshed chiles, such as chiltepin, can be dried in the sun, even in climates that lean toward the humid. Any chile pepper can be pickled; jalapeño and pepperoncini are two of the most popular peppers for pickling.
The number of plants you will need. This depends on how many you think you will eat or store. As a rule of thumb, five to six plants of each variety you desire should be more than enough to satisfy a family of four. But find out how much fruit your varieties produce. A single serrano plant can produce up to 50 fruits. Manzano and rocoto will probably bear only a few immature fruits in the Northeast, as they require a long, cool growing season at higher altitudes. In general, the varieties that bear small fruits tend to be quite prolific and take less time to mature. A few Thai hot plants, which bear an abundance of small, bullet-shaped fruits, go a long way.
The level of pungency you desire or can handle. The pungency of the different chile pepper varieties is rated in different ways. The simplest rating method is a heat scale of 1 to 10, from mildest to hottest. Pepperoncinis, often used in pickled Italian salads, have little or no heat. The habanero, on the other hand, scores a 10 and is generally considered the world’s hottest pepper.
In the “Encyclopedia of Chiles,” pages 68 through 97, you’ll find detailed descriptions of 57 chile peppers, their preferred growing conditions, heat levels, and tips on how to best grow them. You can also consult “Resources,” pages 102 to 104, and seed catalogs. County Extension agents, garden clubs, botanic gardens, and horticultural societies often provide specific regional information.
The Right Start
Chile pepper seed will germinate best under the following conditions:
* Air temperature of 70 to 80°F
* Bottom heating at 75°F—heated cables work well
* Sterile potting medium
* Good air circulation
* Strong light source
* Proper watering with warm water
Germinating Chile Seeds
Gardeners in most regions should sow seeds 6 to 8 weeks before the last frost. In colder climates, however, you can sow your seed 8 to 10 weeks before the last frost. And if you live in a warm area with a long growing season, you can sow the seed directly into the garden, 1/4 inch deep, once the soil has warmed to 75°F.
Certain varieties of chile peppers have a seed-coat dormancy and require a treatment to soften the seed coat prior to planting. For example, chiltepins, wild peppers from the Southwest and Mexico, often have a seed-coat dormancy. To soften the coat, soak seed 5 minutes in a 10-percent bleach solution and then rinse. Alternatively, you can soak seeds for 4 hours in a solution of 1 teaspoon saltpeter (potassium nitrate) per 1 quart of water.
Since most chile peppers are tropical plants, if you don’t live in a warm region with a long growing season, you’ll have to replicate the tropics. (See “The Right Start”) For most gardeners—those who don’t have a heated greenhouse—the best place to start chiles is in a cold frame. Put a thermometer into the cold frame, and if it gets hotter than 80°F, prop open the glass cover. You can also use a heating coil, if necessary, but it’s likely that the sun will provide enough warmth.
Fluorescent light stands are another good option for starting pepper plants. However, a sunny window is not a good place to grow seedlings—it is very difficult and should be a last resort.
The potting medium should be light and well drained. Peppers will not tolerate soggy conditions at any stage of their growth. Plastic trays or small peat pots make good containers. When you are ready to sow, first moisten your soil mix, then plant the seed 1/4 inch deep. (Remember to label your peppers according to variety). Water well, and the seed should germinate in about 10 days. To help prevent diseases, keep the above-ground portion of the seedlings somewhat dry.
When your seedlings put out their second set of leaves, transplant them into larger pots. If you started plants in peat pots, they may remain until planted out. A liquid fertilizer designed for seedlings will give plants a boost; always follow the instructions on the label. As seedlings mature, they will need a little less heat, but watering, air circulation, and lighting must be optimal.
Once the last frost date for your region has passed, you can harden off your plants by moving them outside for longer intervals each day. Start by taking them out for a few hours in a shady location, then build up to longer periods in a partly sunny spot. Do this for one to two weeks, bringing plants indoors at night in the early stages. Beware of windy days and intruders such as cats, which can ruin a crop.
Growing Chiles North to South
Chiles like long, hot days and warm nights. They need warmth and light for germination and early growth, and they flower and set fruit best when days are 8 to 12 hours long and nighttime temperatures are 60° to 70°F. Because they’re sun worshippers that like moist soil, planting out chiles can be a bit of a balancing act, especially in the northern regions of the United States and in Canada.
For some general rules of thumb for growing chiles, it is helpful to divide the country into three regions based on frost-free dates and USDA Hardiness Zones (see map, page 106).
THE NORTHERN TIER encompasses Zones 3, 4, and 5. The dates for the last spring frost here have the longest range, from the beginning of May until the end of June. Select chile varieties that mature and fruit within 75 to 80 days (see “Hot Chiles for Cool Climates”).
Since the growing season is short, you need to ensure that your plants have maximum garden time so that they can mature before warm weather ends. Germinate seed indoors about 40 days before you want to transplant the chiles outdoors; they should be just about ready to flower when it is time to set them out. Alternatively, you can buy plants that are already well established.
About two weeks before planting, cover the beds with clear plastic mulch to warm the soil. Harden off the chiles for two weeks. If necessary, plants can be set out early and protected from frost overnight with plastic milk jugs or bottles; remove them each morning. However, it is better to wait until the garden soil is warm, not cold, so that the plants suffer less stress.
Mulching your peppers with black plastic, black mesh, or heavy straw will help the soil retain moisture, keep down the weeds, and reflect sunlight onto the plants, giving them more heat and light.
If cool temperatures come early and your chiles have not yet matured, cover them before dusk with Reemay, lightweight tarps, or even bedsheets. Remove the nighttime covers in the morning before the sun shines too hot and creates an oven beneath the covers.
THE CENTRAL TIER covers Zones 6 and 7. You should have your chile plants ready to set out shortly after the last frost date—early April through mid-May. You can plant them at the same time as you set out basil and tomatoes, when the ground is warming up. If the weather is cold—especially if it’s wet and rainy—wait to transplant chiles; otherwise, you risk damping off.
In areas of the Central Tier where the soil needs help retaining heat and moisture, it is a good idea to mulch your plants. If all of the fruits are not yet mature at harvest time, you may have to cover your chile plants to protect them from an early fall frost (see above).
THE SOUTHERN TIER includes Zones 8, 9, and 10. This part of the United States is where chiles grow best. The last spring frost in this region occurs sometime during early February to the end of March. As the growing season is long, there is no need to rush the plants into the ground until after the soil has warmed up. Even the peppers that take longest to produce fruit have plenty of time to mature.
The most important thing to watch out for is summer stress during times of high temperature or drought. You needn’t be overly vigilant, though—chiles are pretty tough. Just be sure to water and fertilize transplants early on, so that they will be well established before the really hot weather arrives. And bear in mind that if night temperatures are above 86°F, fruit set will not occur.
—Susan Belsinger
Preparing the Site
Before transplanting, it’s wise to improve your soil. Humus—thoroughly decayed organic matter—is rich with nutrients that pepper plants need and will also help the soil retain moisture. Supplement your soil with organic matter, especially well-rotted compost, and your plants will become lush and provide you with many more fruits than if you had not amended the soil.
Test your soil to determine its pH. Peppers do best in soil with a pH between 6.0 and 8.0. If the pH is below 6.0, add ground limestone, following the rate of application on the bag. If the pH is above 8.0, you can add peat moss to lower the pH. Thoroughly mix these amendments into the soil.
Plant the peppers in a site that receives full sun at least 6 hours per day. Like most vegetables, peppers will not yield well in a shady location. (One exception is the chiltepin, which is shaded by boulders and the mesquite plant in its native desert areas.)
Choose a site that is protected from high winds, as pepper plants tend to be somewhat brittle. Don’t plant them in a plot where you’ve previously grown members of the Solanaceae or nightshade family—peppers, eggplants, tomatoes, tobacco, potatoes, and petunias—or plants in the Rosaceae or rose family, especially brambles such as blackberries and raspberries. All of these plants can harbor diseases such as verticillium wilt, which infect the soil and then your peppers.
No matter where you live, make sure that your soil is well drained, since peppers will not survive in wet soils. Your planting bed should be level so that the soil has good drainage and water won’t pool in depressions. Raised beds work well, but because the soil in them dries out quickly, they’re best in areas with good irrigation to offset dry periods, or in wetter climates such as the Northeast. In arid regions, sunken beds work well; place plants in furrows between ridges of soil, where water will collect.
Transplanting Your Seedlings
Whether you bought them or grew them from seed, the plants you put in the garden should be sturdy and have many deep green leaves. Plant them after the last frost date, when daytime temperatures are at least 65° and night temperatures above 55°F. Temperatures any lower will weaken plants, making them susceptible to pest problems and environmental stresses. To give plants good air circulation and room to expand, space them 11/2 to 2 feet apart, in rows that are 2 feet apart. Make sure you’ve properly labeled the different varieties.
Dig a hole a bit wider and deeper than the pot. If you germinated the seed in peat pots, carefully break open the bottom to promote downward root growth. If your plants are in plastic pots, pop out the root ball and gently spread the roots. Put the peat pot or rootball in the hole and fill with soil. The plant’s stem should be a bit below the level of the ground. If the plant is elongated and spindly, plant it deeper or sideways and cover a portion of the stem. Rake the planting bed to level out depressions that could trap water.
The most critical factor after transplanting is watering! Water gently and soak the planting bed well, preferably with a hand-held hose. The first few weeks are critical, so water at least daily to ensure that the soil stays moist. Look for wilted plants; this is usually a sign that they need more water, although in some cases they’ve received too much water. Check the soil. If it’s very dry to the touch, increase watering. If your plants are wilting in soggy or saturated soil, either you are overwatering or your plant is suffering from a soilborne disease. (See “Pests and Diseases of Chiles,” page 41.)
If you have rich, humusy soil, you may not need to fertilize. Otherwise, you can feed plants with a liquid fertilizer such as 10-55-10 beginning a few weeks after transplanting, and up to once a month during the growing season. Healthy plants are deep green and will begin to flower a week or two after transplanting.
Weeds will undoubtedly sprout among your peppers, and if they remain, they will soon choke out the crop. Cultivate the bed lightly each day, removing all the weeds. Continue watering, and apply a mulch to the soil to keep down weeds and help retain valuable moisture. Use an organic mulch such as straw, wood chips, or pine needles. Cover all soil areas with mulch about 2 inches deep, but don’t let the mulch touch the stems of the plants. Use thinner layers in the arid Southwest, where the mulch will not break down as rapidly. You can also use an inorganic mulch, such as black plastic. This is probably the most efficient mulch for weed control, but it absorbs tremendous amounts of heat and makes watering difficult.
Maintaining the Plants
Small, compact pepper plants or low-growing ornamental types seldom need staking. However, some plants are taller and bushlike, such as jalapeant ancho, New Mexican, and Capsicum baccatum varieties. These plants tend to sprawl due to their height, branching pattern, and fruit load, and will fall over, snap, and touch the soil if unstaked. When they begin to sprawl, support them with slender bamboo stakes a bit taller than the plants. Drive three stakes into the ground around the plant, equally distant from each other. Tie garden twine horizontally around the stakes and plant, knotting only to the stakes. Make sure the twine has enough play to support the plant without constricting its growth. If the plants start to look confined, insert a new set of stakes farther from the plants, then carefully undo the original construction.
Chile peppers will often put out shoots that can become leggy. You can cut back the shoots to make the plants grow in a more compact manner. One month after transplanting or after you’ve staked those plants that need it, remove 4 to 6 inches from all leggy stems with hand shears or scissors, or by simply pinching them off between thumb and forefinger.
Continue watering, but do so less frequently than when the plants were young. Let the soil get a bit dry between waterings; this will help your plants become acclimated to the more adverse conditions. Here in the Northeast, I water no more than twice a week, depending on rainfall. I give the plants a good soaking; in this region, 20 minutes per watering is sufficient. Your plants may show signs of wilting on hot afternoons, but they’ll usually recover by the following day if you have taken care of them all along. If you live in an arid climate, you’ll have to water more often and more deeply, as your plants will transpire more profusely.
As your chile plants become more established, hold back on watering once in a while. Your plants may suffer a bit but the fruits will become more pungent—because you’ve stressed your plants, they bite you back more sharply!
Flowering starts as the plants begin to form branches. Peppers are pollinated primarily by bees, which encourage cross-pollination. The resulting fruit will be true to the variety, but its seed will be hybrids, having genetic traits from both parents.
Peppers are generally pest-free if you follow good cultural practices. Don’t water at night or let the fruits touch the soil, which can harbor disease and pests. If the weather turns very wet, soft rot can infect your plants and cause the fruits to turn to mush. When the weather dries up, your plants usually will improve. Remove any diseased fruits from the garden; don’t put them in the compost pile. If you find aphids feeding on the succulent pepper stems, all it takes is a stream of water to knock them off. (See “Pests and Diseases of Chiles,” page 41.)
If, early in the season, you leave fruits to develop on plants, you are likely to reduce further flower production. The plant will achieve its ultimate fruit load before you have reached your ultimate harvest. I usually remove as many fruits as possible during the first couple of months after transplanting and then, as the season progresses, I remove larger reddening fruits as needed. Do not leave fruits on your plants past their ripe stage; they are an invitation to diseases such as anthracnose.
Harvesting Chiles
You can harvest peppers at any time, but generally, when a fruit reaches its ultimate size, it’s ready to be harvested. (See “Encyclopedia of Chiles,” page 68, and seed catalogs for the maximum size for each variety.) Green peppers are simply unripe; they have a particular flavor that some people prefer. Red peppers are ripe and usually have a fruitier taste. Peppers reach their hottest stage when they are between green and red (or bright orange, in the case of habaneros and Scotch bonnets).
If your peppers don’t easily pull free from the plants—and most green peppers won’t—simply cut them off using hand clippers or scissors, including as much of the fruit stem as possible. This is especially important if you’re storing them.
In the fall, if there is a threat of frost, harvest all peppers regardless of their size, as frost will turn them to mush.
No matter where you live, to ensure continuous flowering and fruiting and to encourage large yields, harvest the first green peppers as soon as they are fully developed. These usually are not as large or hot as end-of-season peppers. Cut the stems about 1/2 inch above the pepper caps; branches, especially when they are chile-laden, snap easily. A mature pepper is evenly colored and feels firm. Mature green chile peppers are very good eating; Anaheims and other long green chiles are marketed at this stage. But harvesting a few immature peppers from your garden early is better than having a meager harvest at the end of the season.
Whatever the climate, with good cultivation practices and continuous harvesting, pepper production can last from one to three months after the first harvest. Chiles left on the plant will ripen from green to other colors progressively, showing a rainbow of colors on the same plant. When the chiles ripen to orange, red, or mahogany, they have the fullest flavor and the most pungency.
One final note about harvesting: The “hot” part of the pepper, the capsaicinoids, can burn your skin, especially if you have open cuts. And, the oils (capsaicids) can burn your eyes if you rub them with your fingers. It’s best to wear rubber gloves when harvesting, especially if you’re sensitive to the oils. The best antidote for burning hands is to rub them with isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol, as the oil is soluble in alcohol.
Doug Dudgeon is the assistant horticulturist at the Dawes Arboretum in Newark, Ohio. For nearly 14 years, until early 1999, he worked at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, where he was in charge of the chile pepper collection, the Japanese Hill-and-Pond Garden, the Fragrance Garden, and the Shakespeare Garden.
http://www.bbg.org/gar2/topics/kitchen/2002su_chayote.html
Chayote—A Small, Multipurpose Squash
Plants & Gardens News Volume 17, Number 2 | Summer 2002
by Scott Appell
In the ethnic groceries and markets of New York City, there is surprisingly little overlap of produce. Garlic, onions, shallots, and peppers wend their way through the neighborhoods, but few others do. One interesting interloper is chayote, Sechium edule, a bizarre little cucurbit, or squash relative, also known as the vegetable pear, which can be procured in Spanish Harlem, Little Mexico, and Chinatown.
Chayote (pronounced chi-YO-tay) originated in southern Mexico and Central America. It was long cultivated by the Aztecs, who called the plant chayotl. Spanish explorers introduced it to the Old World. Nowadays, it has many names: vegetable pear in most of the United States, mirliton in Louisiana, christophine in Haiti, xu xu in Brazil, and wobedo in the Lukumi language of Nigeria. The genus name Sechium is derived from chacha, the West Indian name for the plant, while the species epithet, edule, simply means “edible.”
Chayote, Avocado, and Watercress Salad With Lime Vinaigrette
(Serves four)
Salad
* 3 chayotes, about 7 ounces each
* 1 small red onion, thinly sliced
* 2 medium bell peppers (red and yellow), roasted, seeded, peeled, and sliced
* 12 olives
* 2 tablespoons caper berries
* 3 ripe avocados, peeled and sliced
* 1/2 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
* 1 bunch watercress, washed and dried, with large stems removed
Vinaigrette
* 1/3 cup olive oil
* 6 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped
* Fresh juice of 2 limes
* 1/2 teaspoon fresh-cracked black pepper
* 1/2 teaspoon crushed sea salt
Cut chayotes in half and simmer in salted water until firmly soft, about 15 minutes. Remove from water, let cool, and slice. Arrange watercress, peppers, onion, avocado, chayotes, olives, and caper berries on four plates. Sprinkle with chopped cilantro. Drizzle with vinaigrette. Serve with crusty bread.
Chayote is a very robust, tendriled vine that can easily climb 30 feet in a single season. The species has tuberous roots instead of the more familiar fibrous roots of its comestible cousins. Its cucumberlike palmately lobed leaves are rough in texture and can grow as wide as eight inches. (Note: Contact with the foliage may cause a rash on sensitive skin.) As with most cucurbits, Sechium edule is monoecious, bearing separate male and female flowers on the same plant. The blossoms are small and greenish white, and they produce ½- to 3-pound, pearlike fruit.
The fruit, which has uniform flesh and skin color, varies from dull white to light green, depending on the cultivar or variety. Generally smooth-skinned, in rare instances it is covered with soft, shiny, dark-green spines. The fruit is a good source of vitamin C, beta-carotene, and calcium, and it is unbelievably versatile. It’s eaten raw, pickled, sautéed, baked, steamed, stuffed, and stir-fried. In the tropics, it is even prepared as a confection in pies and tarts.
Unlike other squash, the fruit of the chayote contains a single large seed. Often called vegetable scallop, the seed is edible and considered by many to be the best part. It has a delicious nutty flavor when sautŽed briefly in butter; when deep-fried, it makes a nice alternative to french-fried potatoes. But the fun doesn’t stop there. Chayote is a multipurpose edible. In some countries, the young leaves, shoots, and tendrils are steamed or boiled, and the roots are boiled, baked, fried, or candied in syrup.
Chayote is quite easy to propagate and cultivate, and it makes an impressive annual trellis or arbor cover. The plant is extremely cold sensitive, so full sun is recommended, though it can tolerate light shade. Chayote needs a long growing season to flower and set seed; southern gardeners will most likely get better results than their northern counterparts.
The seed loses viability when removed from the fruit, so you need to plant the entire squash. Partially bury it in well-drained, fertile soil with the narrow end up and exposed to the elements. After about two weeks, the fruit will split open and a shoot will emerge. Immediately give the shoot support, and allow it plenty of space, as the vine has a tendency to cover everything that isn’t moving.
The first time I grew chayote, I planted three fruits in a 15-inch terra-cotta bulb pan, erected a simple teepee-style support made from bamboo poles, and placed the whole affair on a wide sunny windowsill. After germination, the vine covered my inadequate trellis within a week. The shoots soon worked their way under the window screens and proceeded to cover the fire escape outside. Two months later, the vines were introducing themselves to my upstairs neighbor, and I began to feel like Sleeping Beauty in her vine-covered castle.
Scott Appell is director of education at the Horticultural Society of New York and the author of four books, Pansies, Lilies, Tulips, and Orchids.
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The Asparagus Pea—A Wonderfully Frolicsome Legume
Plants & Gardens News Volume 19, Number 2 | Summer 2004
by Scott D. Appell
I live on the Caribbean island of Vieques, seven miles off the coast of Puerto Rico. This year I am putting in a 75- by 50-foot vegetable garden and am wildly excited by the project. The ever-balmy weather prevents me from cultivating some of my northern cool-weather favorites—Japanese mustard, radishes, and sweet peas. However, it more than compensates by letting me grow some unusual tropical and Mediterranean vegetables, such as Malabar spinach (Basella rubra), sweet-corn root (Maranta species), and the wonderfully frolicsome asparagus pea.
Asparagus pea
Asparagus pea (photo: Thompson & Morgan)
The asparagus pea is one of the prettiest vegetables on the planet. Its Latin name, Tetragonolobus purpurea, is even prettier. The genus epithet, meaning “four-lobed,” describes the four little frills or wings that line the plant’s edible seedpods and give them a look of foursquare frivolity. The species name is meant to describe the purple color of the flowers—although, in fact, the flowers are deep red.
Why does the word “asparagus” appear in the common name? It may be because of the seedpods’ delicate asparaguslike flavor. Or perhaps it’s because some epicures say that asparagus peas are best treated like asparagus spears—boiled or steamed ever so briefly, drained swiftly, anointed with butter, and ferried quickly to the table for immediate consumption. Another common name for T. purpurea is the winged pea, but this seems a little too understated to me. Something like the “Pegasus pea” would be more appropriate, I think.
Asparagus pea is a scrambling, herbaceous annual legume endemic to the Mediterranean region of southern Europe, where it is a common spring-blooming wildflower in field and scrub. There are records of its cultivation in Sicily from the mid-16th century. Growing around 6 inches tall and 24 inches wide, the plant has small trifoliate leaves, and its deep crimson flowers are borne in pairs.
Thai Asparagus Pea Salad (Yam Tua Poo)
* 1 cup asparagus peas, topped and tailed, steamed till just tender, and plunged briefly in ice water
* 1 cup shrimp, boiled and shelled
* 1 cup extra-firm tofu, pressed to extrude excess water and cubed
* 1 to 2 tablespoons nam prik pow (Thai roasted chili paste)
* Juice of 1 lime
* Palm sugar or light brown sugar
* 1 cup coconut cream
* Salt
* 1/4 cup sliced garlic
* 1/4 cup sliced shallots
* 1/4 cup dried red chili peppers, sliced thinly lengthwise, with seeds removed
* Peanut or vegetable oil
* 1/4 cup crushed, toasted peanuts
* 1/4 cup dried, grated coconut, lightly toasted
Gently mix the asparagus peas, seafood, and tofu. For the dressing, mash the nam prik pow with a little lime juice and 1/2 teaspoon sugar until it dissolves. Add 3/4 of the coconut cream. Adjust flavor with sugar, salt, and remaining lime juice to taste. Fry the garlic, shallots, and chilis until crispy but not burned. When cooled, add the fried vegetables to the asparagus pea mixture along with the dressing. Mix gently. Add more coconut cream, salt, sugar, or lime juice to taste. Place in a serving dish and sprinkle the peanuts and coconut on top. Serves 2 to 4.
The winged pods that develop after flower pollination grow up to 3 1/2 inches long. The pods may be boiled, sautéed, steamed, dipped in tempura batter and deep-fried, or pickled. The mature peas have been employed as a coffee substitute. The comely flowers can be applied as edible garnishes to salads, cheeses, and pâtés.
Asparagus pea couldn’t be easier to cultivate, needing just average moisture, full sun, and standard soil to succeed. However, it does require a long growing season to flower and fruit properly. Relishing high heat in the summertime, the plant is perfect for the deep southern or southwestern potager. Seeds can be sown in situ in early to mid-June when the soil is thoroughly warmed and nighttime temperatures remain constant. (Asparagus pea seeds are available from Thompson & Morgan; 800-274-7333.)
Northern gardeners will have to start their plants indoors in early spring. They can solve the problem of early frost by cultivating asparagus peas in containers and moving them inside to a greenhouse or sunny bay window to complete maturation.
Asparagus pea plants need a little extra physical support to keep them tidy and off the soil. This helps avoid slug damage, facilitates air circulation, and makes harvesting a little easier on the back. Use inverted twigs to create a rustic support system, or weave a crude wattle fencing from fresh willow stems.
Pods need to be picked when they are just one to two inches long (or a day or two after the flowers fade). Otherwise, they become too fibrous to be eaten. This means you’ll need to make a daily foray into the vegetable garden to harvest them. Bring a stool and sit whilst picking—your sacroiliac will thank you. This is a great chore to do with children, who’ll have lots of fun searching through the foliage for the unusual-shaped pea pods. They’re also a lot closer to the ground than we adults!
Store the produce in zip-seal bags in the lower portion of the refrigerator until there is enough to make an entrée or side dish. Inevitably, some pods will go overlooked on the plants and mature to the point of becoming stringy and papery. Use the mature, small dry peas in any of your favorite legume recipes.
Scott D. Appell is a regular contributor to BBG publications and the author of four books, Pansies, Lilies, Tulips, and Orchids. He lives and gardens on the island of Vieques, Puerto Rico.
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Red-Stemmed Malabar Spinach—A Deliciously Stunning Vine
Plants & Gardens News | Volume 21, Number 2 | Summer 2006
by Scott D. Appell
One of my favorite hot-weather vegetables is red-stemmed Malabar spinach, Basella alba ‘Rubra’. Easy to grow, versatile in the kitchen, and delicious to eat, this vigorous vine is unrelated to true spinach (Spinacia oleracea) but produces abundant large meaty leaves that are remarkably spinachlike in taste and form. The plant is also much better suited for summer growing than its better-known namesake.
Red-stemmed Malabar spinach
Red-stemmed Malabar spinach (photo Wit’s End Growers, www.pickoftheplanet.com)
Oh, and I forgot to mention this: It’s a thing of beauty. A number of years ago, I visited Wave Hill gardens, in the Bronx, New York, and saw red-stemmed Malabar spinach twining on a trellis and forming the backdrop for a display of dark-leafed cultivars of common economic crops—purple-stemmed sugarcane, black-leafed cotton, aubergine-colored beets, kale, and Swiss chard. The combination knocked my socks off!
Basella alba goes by many other common names besides Malabar spinach, including Ceylon spinach, Indian spinach, vine spinach, and Malabar nightshade. Native to India and Indonesia (Malabar is a coastal region in southwestern India), the plant is used in traditional cuisines as far westward from its point of origin as Japan and eastward as Africa. It has also been introduced to South America and the Caribbean.
Straight species Malabar spinach has yellowish stems and green leaves and is a pleasing enough plant, but it’s the red-stemmed cultivar ‘Rubra’ that really catches the eye (whether it’s growing in a pot or lounging in a salad bowl). The thick red stems contrast wonderfully with the round, highly textured, two- to four-inch-long dark green leaves. Red venation in the leaves adds another level of color contrast.
Malabar spinach grows eight to ten feet tall and wide and produces inconspicuous white-tinged pink flowers in its leaf axils. Upon fertilization, the flowers develop into small, highly ornamental, single-seeded purple berries. The juice from the berries is so intensely purple that it puts beet juice to shame. It’s used as a natural food colorant for agar (vegetable “gelatine”) dishes, sweets, and pastries.
Malabar spinach excels in warm, tropical areas, where it can easily grow a foot per day. It’s intolerant of any chills; thus, the only regions in the U.S. where it would be perennial are the Deep South or southern Florida. Gardeners in colder climates can grow it as an annual.
Basella alba prefers a humus-rich, sandy loam in full sun. Seeds can be sown in situ after all danger of frost has passed, or they can be started indoors eight weeks before the last frost date, hardened off outside, and transplanted one foot apart. Use any style of plant support you prefer: poles, teepees, chain-link fencing—I use a tall, recycled Eiffel Tower-esque metal étagère missing its glass shelves. Malabar spinach is amazingly insect and disease resistant, and that is saying a lot; down here in Puerto Rico, legions of caterpillars and grasshoppers can decimate an entire planting overnight, yet the spinach remains untouched!
Propagation from seed is a snap, and happily, the red-stemmed cultivar of Malabar spinach comes true from seed. Saving seed is easy too: Simply dry the entire fruit and use it for planting the following year. Stem and tip cuttings may be employed as well. (One source for the plant is Shady Acres Herb Farm, 7815 Highway 212, Chaska, MN 55318; 952-466-3391; www.shadyacres.com.)
The succulent leaves and stem tips are rich in vitamins A and C and are a good source of iron and calcium. They may be eaten raw in salads, boiled, steamed, stir-fried, or added to soups, stews, tofu dishes, and curries. Or you can use them as a filling for quiche, omelets, savory turnovers, and potpies. Since red-stemmed Malabar spinach can lose a lot of its red color when cooked, perhaps it is best utilized (visually speaking) in raw dishes.
Indonesian-Style Malabar Spinach
* 4 cups Malabar spinach leaves
* 3 tablespoons peanut oil
* 3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
* ½-inch piece galangal root or fresh ginger root, peeled and finely chopped
* 1 red chile pepper, seeded and slivered lengthwise
* 1¾ cups cream of coconut (not coconut milk)
* ¼ cup fresh lime juice
* ¼ teaspoon salt
* 1 scallion sliced into thin rings, including green tops
* 2–4 fresh kaffir lime leaves, or 2 dried leaves pulverized in a spice mill
Gently sauté the galangal, garlic, and chile in the oil for a few minutes, then stir in the greens and cook until they are wilted through. Drain off excess liquid. Combine the remaining ingredients in a medium-size, heavy-bottomed saucepan and heat to a bare simmer, stirring constantly. Do not let it boil. Add the cooked greens and mix. Serve warm.
Scott D. Appell writes, gardens, and teaches horticulture in Vieques, Puerto Rico.
Granny note:
For years I grew the common green Malabar spinach as a house plant, in a hanging pot, it grows year round and you can pinch the leaves for sandwiches or salads and as I had caged birds, they got a leaf each day.
I guess it tastes like swiss chard.......LOL, which I also like in sandwiches..
granny
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Fruit Couture—Edible Plants that Look Great in the Garden
Plants & Gardens News Volume 16, Number 2 | Summer 2001
by Scott D. Appell
In an age when space is at a premium, who can afford to cultivate the separate flower, herb, and vegetable gardens of old? Forced to make do with the less-than-capacious confines of the typical urban or suburban setting, many gardeners are combining the three into an American version of the French potager fleuri.
Improved cooking skills, elevated gastronomic sensibilities, and increased knowledge of plant material have led to the coinage of a new adjective: “hortoculinary.” I don’t know many people who use it, but it seems like a good catchphrase for a horticultural aesthetic that views our food plants not only in terms of their nutritional value, but also for their decorative appeal.
Following is a selection of exciting cultivars of some common food plants that, in my opinion, are as pleasing to the eye as they are tasty to eat.
Stylish Solanums
arbor
The Nightshade Family, Solanaceae, includes some of the most agriculturally important yet exquisitely fruited plants on the planet. Perhaps the most familiar of these edible plants are the ornamental cultivars of the pepper, Capsicum annuum. They are available in a wide variety of shapes and colors, from the blue- to red-, conical-fruited ‘Filus Blue’, to ‘Starburst’, which bears long peppers that turn from pale yellow to orange and finally red. ‘Tri-fetti’ is a very striking ornamental pepper with variegated green, white, and purple foliage, and small purple fruits that turn red when ripe. Remember that in this case the word “ornamental” doesn’t mean “innocuous”—these peppers are infernally hot, comparable to Jalapenos and Scotch Bonnets. Use them in salsas, sauces, and moles.
The common bell pepper has achieved new artistic heights as well. ‘Ariane Hybrid’ produces gorgeous blocky orange fruit. ‘Chocolate Beauty Hybrid’, as the name implies, bears chocolate-colored peppers that are incredibly sweet and delicious. ‘Bianca Hybrid’ is known for its premium quality ivory-hued bell peppers.
In the same plant clan, the familiar eggplant, Solanum melongena, should also be seen in a new light. It presents pale lavender nodding flowers, which are followed by decorous fruit. The cultivar ‘Easter Egg’ bears three pure white egg-shaped fruits; ‘Violette Firenze’, an Italian cultivar, produces large pale-violet eggplants striped with purple.
Even tomatoes, Lycopersicon esculentum, can be incorporated into an attractive utilitarian garden. Select smaller-sized cultivars that don’t need unsightly staking, such as ‘Fargo’, with its 2-inch golden-yellow plum-shaped fruit, or ‘Orange Pixie’ (18 inches tall!), which produces 1 1/4-inch orange tomatoes.
From the mountains of the Andes comes Solanum muricatum, the pepino dulce or melon pear. Growing up to 3 feet high, it has leaves up to 6 inches long and bears 3/4-inch, bright blue flowers and oval, 5-inch, purple-striped yellow fruit, with a fine melon fragrance and flavor. Melon pears should be chilled before serving and are best eaten fresh. The plant needs a long, frost-free season to mature fruit—northern gardeners might grow it as a container plant and bring it inside in the fall. Cages are required for support. Seeds for the cultivars ‘Miski Prolific’, ‘Temptation’, and ‘Toma’ are currently available.
Belle of the Berries
Strawberries have reached a new aesthetic zenith. Introduced in 1989, Fragaria ‘Pink Panda’ is familiar to most gardeners. The first pink ever-blooming strawberry (actually a Potentilla/Fragaria hybrid), hardy to USDA Zone 3, it was a breakthrough in its time, but the fruit is rather dry and sporadic (clever chefs can use them in ice creams and semi-freddi).
A far better recent development is F. ‘Viva Rosa’. A French introduction, this continuously blooming cultivar has larger pink flowers and good-sized, well-flavored fruits that can be eaten out of hand.
Few gourmands realize that their beloved alpine strawberry has a variegated twin, Fragaria vesca ‘Variegata’. This comely counterpart has white-margined foliage and comestible fruit. It is a perfect groundcover or edging plant and is hardy to USDA Zone 4.
Fragaria x ananassa ‘Variegata’ is a bi-colored cultivar of our commercial strawberry, and fares quite well in alkaline soils. It succeeds in full sun or light shade and well-drained ground. It may revert to plain green if the site is too fertile. Be sure to use the attractive foliage of these varieties as garnishes for strawberry mousses, bavarians, and junkets.
Most gardeners relish raspberries and blackberries for pastries and desserts, while confining their errant brambles to the wayward, unsightly berry patch. However, several exceptional, beautifully flowered, delectably fruited Rubus selections are now available. Hardy to USDA Zone 5, ‘Helen’, ‘Sylvan’, and ‘Veronique’ don’t have any thorns. They produce attractive pink flowers and tasty blackberries. When intelligently pruned, and kept under control with the help of rustic cages and hand-hewn wattle fencing, they are quite worthy of the border.
Rubus fruticosa ‘Variegata’ has neatly white-margined foliage with pink stems and petioles (leaf stalks), as well as clusters of good-quality blackberries. Light shade in areas with hot summer climes helps prevent sunburn. Average pH and fertile, well-drained soil is desirable. Try to avoid windy areas that are subject to early spring frosts.
R. spectabilis ‘Olympic Double’ is the double-flowering form of our native salmonberry. Hardy to USDA Zone 6, it produces fully or semi-double cerise flowers followed by early salmon-colored fruit. Fresh fruit tarts or macedoines show off their color to the fullest.
Flavorful Fuchsias
Most American gardeners are unaware that fuchsia berries are luscious. In fact, because we are instructed by gardening manuals to remove the spent flowers of these floriferous favorites, few people have seen or tasted the green, red, or dark purple, 1/2- to 3/4-inch juicy, slightly acid, refreshing fruit. They are best eaten out of hand and served with clotted or whipped cream, but make fabulous fresh fruit tarts, too. Species such as Fuchsia splendens, F. corymbifolia, and F. venusta produce large fruit, abundant enough to be worth harvesting. F. procumbens or trailing fuchsia is a terrific small shrub with heart-shaped foliage, purple-tipped chartreuse flowers, and delicious, 1/2-inch, red fruits.
Single-flowered fuchsia cultivars are more fruitive (upright selections are best for bedding out) than the double and semi-doubles. Fuchsias prefer compost-rich, well-drained soil and a site with good air circulation. They will not tolerate high summer heat, drought, or high humidity—preferring cooler, less humid conditions. Most are hardy to USDA Zones 8 to 10.
Colder temperatures kill the stems back to the ground. With extensive winter mulching, Fuchsia magellanica is root hardy to USDA Zone 6. Although the fruit of this species is less appetizing than that of others, cultivars ‘Globosa’ and ‘Tresco’ are heavy producers of sweet, succulent, slightly peppery berries.
A Very Fine Vine
Gardeners requiring an exquisite flowering vine (which produces large quantities of perfumed fruit) to cover a pergola, gazebo, arbor, or length of perimeter fencing, must consider our native hardy passion vine, Passiflora incarnata. Commonly known as maypops or apricot vine, it is the hardiest of all the passion flowers—known to survive in protected locations as far north as USDA Zone 5. They die back to their large fleshy roots every autumn. The lovely, sweet-scented, white to lilac or mauve flowers are followed in late summer by 2 1/2-inch lime-green to yellow fruit. These are best eaten fresh or made into conserves, granitas, or sorbets. Passion vines tolerate surprisingly lean soils, but demand a well-drained site. A sunny location with average soil pH is satisfactory.
Nursery Sources:
Tomato Growers Supply Company
P.O. Box 2237
Fort Myers, FL 33902
Phone: (888) 478-7333
Seeds: peppers and tomatoes
The Cook’s Garden
P.O. Box 535
Londonderry, VT 05148
Phone: (800) 457-9703
Seeds: eggplant
Oregon Exotics Nursery
1065 Messinger Road
Grants Pass, OR 97527
Phone: (541) 846-7578
Seeds: pepino dulce
Heronswood Nursery
7530 NE 288th Street
Kingston, WA 98346
Phone: (360) 297-4172
Seeds: strawberries,
blackberries, and fuchsias
Although Scott D. Appell hasn’t had much chance to cultivate tomatoes and blackberries since moving to a Manhattan apartment, he still describes his outlook as “fruitopian.” He has grown a wonderful array of citrus cultivars at home (you can find these oranges, lemons, grapefruits, and kumquats profiled in the BBG handbook Indoor Landscaping, which Scott edited last year). He’s also grown pineapple, yams, and sugar cane as houseplants.
Scott is no stranger to BBG publications. Currently, he is editing the fall 2001 installment of our 21st-Century Gardening Series, a handbook on container gardening entitled The Potted Garden.
Scott is Director of Education for the Horticultural Society of New York and a member of the Publications Committee of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society. He is the author of three books, Pansies, Tulips, and Lilies, all published by Friedman/Fairfax Publishers. Scott has a private consulting company called The Green Man and can be contacted by phone at (212) 966-4745 or by email: hortny@aol.com
http://www.bbg.org/gar2/topics/kitchen/2003su_tubers.html
Tasty Tubers and Fabulous Fungi—Unusual Central and South American Vegetables for Your Garden
Plants & Gardens News Volume 18, Number 2 | Summer 2003
by Scott D. Appell
If the Near East was the cradle of human civilization, then Central and South America can be considered its pantry. Crop cultivation may have begun in Mesopotamia hundreds of years earlier than it did in the Tehuacán Valley of Mexico, but the comestible flora of the New World now forms an amazing 75 percent of the globe’s cultivated food plants.
Just for reference, here’s a short list of edible plants that were domesticated by the Amerindians and have since become commonplace all over the world: corn, beans, squash, potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, pineapples, tomatillos, quinoa, cocoa, vanilla, and avocados. See anything you fancy?
Though there are many unusual cultivars of corn, squash, and other big-name crops worth profiling, I’d like to focus on some New World vegetables that you don’t hear too much about. They are fun to grow, pleasing to the eye, and delicious to eat. And cultivating these New World vegetables will give you a deeper insight into the history and ethnobotany of the indigenous peoples of America.
Smallanthus sonchifolia
Yacón
Yacón is a Peruvian and Bolivian cousin of North America’s Jerusalem artichoke, and like its boreal relative, it is cultivated for its edible tubers. The plant was highly prized by the Incas, and remnants of it have been found in the coastal archaeological sites at Nazca, Peru, dating from A.D. 500. The tubers are sweet, crunchy, and juicy, and they can be eaten fresh out of hand or stewed. They are wonderful when combined with a salad of raw carrots, raw sweet potatoes, and jicama root (see below), or when sliced with bananas and oranges. The tubers taste sweeter when they are allowed to cure in the sun after harvesting—a process called ckochascca in the Andes. Additionally, the foliage is cooked like spinach and eaten as a vegetable. The plants look very much like Jerusalem artichokes, growing three to nine feet tall and bearing slightly furry and sticky lance-shaped foliage reminiscent of Helianthus tuberosus. The smallish flowers range from bright yellow to orange and are borne in loose terminal heads. Yacón is quite heat tolerant but is very susceptible to cold—several hours at 32°F can kill all plant parts. It is hardy from USDA Zones 10 to 12. Grow it as an annual in northern regions. Plant yacón in light, fertile, well-drained soil, and water it regularly during dry spells.
Oxalis tuberosus
Oca
Oca is an oxalis with edible tubers thought to have evolved in Peru but cultivated from Venezuela to northern Argentina. Although rarely encountered in the U.S., it is a common crop in the Andes, second only to the potato in popularity. Interestingly, it was introduced into New Zealand around 1860, and it has gained culinary popularity there over the last few decades. The plant’s tubers look like small, stubby, wrinkled carrots and can be white, yellow, red, or purple, depending on the cultivar. After harvesting, they are sun-dried to increase sweetness and then boiled, roasted, or prepared as pachamanca (with meat roasted in a hole in the ground). The tubers are high in calcium and iron, crisp in texture, and—due to their oxalic acid content—tart in taste. Oca is often called the “potato that does not need sour cream.” The plant has an upright growth habit. The leaves are typically trifoliate and reminiscent of those of its cousin the shamrock. Oca is easy to grow and care for. It excels in average soil and full sun. Plant the tubers in spring immediately after the last frost date and harvest in late fall before the first hard freeze. Oxalis tuberosus is hardy to USDA Zone 7.
Tropaeolum tuberosum
Añu
Añu tubers, an important crop among the Andean people of Bolivia, Peru, and Equador.
Añu tubers, an important crop among the Andean people of Bolivia, Peru, and Equador.
Añu is a cousin of the more familiar garden nasturtium, Tropaeolum majus. It has been cultivated for its edible tubers since about 5500 B.C. Pre-Incan pictograms portraying the tubers have been found in the mountains of the high Andes, and today añu remains an important crop among the Andean people of Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Columbia, and Venezuela. The plant’s foliage is typically peltate (disc-shaped, with stalks attached away from leaf margins) like that of its common garden cousin, but its spurred, orange flowers are far narrower in shape. The tubers are boiled for about ten minutes before being served, and they possess some of the peppery taste so relished in the garden nasturtium. The young shoots and flowers are edible as well. Tropaeolum tuberosum is a short-day plant—that is, it only flowers and sets tubers in northern latitudes after the middle of September, when the day length is markedly shorter. Therefore, it must be cultivated as long as possible before frost hits in order to harvest a serviceable crop. Indeed, tubers are best harvested after the plants are killed by the first hard frost. Añu is hardy from Zones 3 to 6. It doesn’t perform well in warm, humid climates. The short-day cultivar ‘Muru’ produces white tubers mottled with purple. The selection ‘Ken Aslet’, which bears yellowish tubers attractively splashed with crimson, is day-neutral and begins to flower from July onward. Plant tubers or seeds in a loose, moderately fertile, well-drained, friable soil as soon as it has warmed up thoroughly. The plant requires regular watering and a trellis or other support on which to climb.
Pachyrhizus tuberosus
Jícama
The jícama, or yam bean, is quite in vogue now in nouvelle cuisine. It evolved in Mexico and Central America but was brought to the Old World by the Spanish explorers and spread eastward. Currently, it’s grown pantropically and is especially favored in Southeast Asia and China. Pachyrhizus tuberosus is a bean species cultivated for its large, crisp, juicy roots. The tan-skinned, white-fleshed, and beet-shaped tubers are eaten raw, stir-fried, boiled, roasted, or braised, and simmered in soups. They are divine when sliced thin and sprinkled with salt, chili pepper, and lemon juice. In Latin America, jícama is also a source of a starch used in custards and puddings. (Take note that all aboveground plant parts are considered toxic, due to their high rotenone content.) A climbing vine that easily grows 10 to 20 feet high in one long season, P. tuberosus has coarse, broadly trifoliate foliage. It is a short-day plant, so it will not produce its lavender or white blossoms—or its fuzzy, lima-bean-shaped pods—until after the middle of September. Southern gardeners will have greater success with the plant than their northern counterparts, as it takes five to nine months to produce harvestable tubers on plants grown from seed. Removing the flowers will result in larger tubers. If left in the ground, the tubers may actually grow five to six feet in length and up to 50 pounds in weight, although roots of this size are far too woody to consume. Jícama prefers full sun and rich, moist soil. It is frost sensitive and hardy to Zone 5.
Manihot esculenta
Cassava, Yuca, Manioc
Like maize, cassava as we know it today does not exist in the wild. It originated in South America as a result of the hybridization and selection of several wild species by the Amerindians of the Amazon Delta. The earliest archaeological records of it are from coastal Peru, dating to about 1000 B.C. Cassava is a shrubby plant that grows up to 12 feet high, with gray to dark gray bark and large, palmately compound leaves. It is cultivated mainly for its large, edible, starchy tubers (though its tender young leaves are also used as a potherb). Primitive, bitter-tasting cultivars contain potentially toxic concentrations of cyanogenic glycosides and therefore must be processed before eating. This involves laborious peeling, grating, washing, and squeezing of the tubers, followed by drying and cooking (and sometimes fermenting). Over the centuries, however, so-called sweet cassava varieties that can be eaten raw have been developed. Most modern commercial cultivars belong to this category. Their smooth-skinned roots can grow up to 3 1/2 feet long and may be eaten boiled, fried, or baked. Full sun or partial shade and regular amounts of moisture are required for cultivation. The soil should be of average fertility but well drained. Cassavas can be grown outdoors year-round in Zones 10 and 11. One cultivar is readily available through mail-order nurseries: Manihot esculenta ‘Variegata’. It bears spectacular leaves with creamy-yellow centers and carmine-red petioles (leafstalks).
Ustilago maydis
Huitlacoche, Cuitlacoche
No exploration of Amerindian agriculture would be complete without the mention of huitlacoche, or cuitlacoche. Known as corn smut by North American farmers, Ustilago maydis is a fungus that infects maize kernels and causes them to grow into large, light gray, gall-like structures several inches in diameter. When cooked, these spore-filled swellings turn black and have a delicious earthy flavor. Huitlacoche was cultivated by the Aztecs, and modern Mexican farmers know that infected ears of corn fetch higher prices. The fungus is incorporated into fillings for tamales and enchiladas, and is high in thiamine and niacin. The USDA once aimed (along with U.S. farmers) to eliminate corn smut completely. But ever since savvy restaurateurs started serving it as “corn truffle” in their upscale Mexican eateries, the department has been trying to develop methods for mass-producing the stuff on experimental farms in Pennsylvania and Florida. Huitlacoche spores are not sold commercially, but curious gardeners can encourage its growth on any corn cultivar. (Incidentally, though there are corn-smut-resistant selections, there are no smut-free varieties.) The Aztecs realized that huitlacoche prevailed during times of drought when temperatures ranged from 78°F to 93°F. They encouraged its growth by scratching the cornstalks at soil level with a knife—thereby allowing the water-borne spores easy entrance into the plant.
Nursery Sources:
Abundant Life Seed Foundation
P.O. Box 772
Port Townsend, WA 98368
360-385-5660
www.abundantlifeseed.org
Nichols Garden Nursery
1190 Old Salem Road NE
Albany, OR 97321
800-622-5561
www.nicholsgardennursery.com
Seeds of Change
P.O. Box 15700
Santa Fe, NM 87506
888-762-7333
www.seedsofchange.com
Tropilab Inc.
8240 Ulmerton Road
Largo, FL 33771-3948
888-613-4446
www.tropilab.com
Glasshouse Works
Church Street, P.O. Box 97
Stewart, OH 45778-0097
740-662-2142
www.glasshouseworks.com
Scott D. Appell is a regular contributor to BBG publications and the author of four books, Pansies, Lilies, Tulips, and Orchids. He lives and gardens on St. Croix, in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
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