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[wombat]

Wouldn't you need an awfully huge container to grow sweet potatoes?

[jay-ell]

You either need a really big container or a really unambitious gardener. By which I mean, you can grow them in medium-sized containers as long as you don't want too many. This would be a thing I would be more inclined to put in the ground, though -- you can't put other types of plants in with your sweet potatoes because you have to dig up the whole container to harvest them. And I kind of want to be able to plant green leafy things that look nice while they are waiting to produce food.

I just ordered a blueberry bush. I couldn't help myself; blueberries are so awesome. I looked it up on the website for my local agricultural department to make sure this variety would do OK in our heat, and it appears it will survive several years as long as I move it into a partial-sun zone during the hottest part of summer.

Now I'm deciding if I should plant some scallions and carrots together in a big cheap plastic tub (the ones available in-store are deeper and come in better colors), then elevate the lettuce on a crate to sit behind them.

I know the scallions will grow year-round here; I even have some random scraggly ones growing in my yard. I could do two planters and sow them a few weeks apart and have a harvest once a month. (Carrots and scallions both mature in 60 - 75 days, depending on what variety of carrots you go with.) But I am trying to rein myself in and not plant a billion different things right out of the gate.

It is hard. This might be worse than when I learned to knit. At least yarn doesn't die if you leave it alone for a few busy months.

[wombat]

Carrots are good for the whole, kids go out and pick a thing and eat it, deal. Sweet potatoes sound like more trouble to grow, and then you can't eat them without cooking them, so they don't work for that.

Here's the other thing: Some vegetables are much tastier when fresh and/or home grown, but others, there's not enough difference to be worth the trouble. I can't imagine sweet potatoes are going to be any better home grown, since they're not the sort of thing where you eat tiny baby fresh raw ones, or anything.

[jay-ell]

Carrots are good for the whole, kids go out and pick a thing and eat it, deal. Sweet potatoes sound like more trouble to grow, and then you can't eat them without cooking them, so they don't work for that.

Here's the other thing: Some vegetables are much tastier when fresh and/or home grown, but others, there's not enough difference to be worth the trouble. I can't imagine sweet potatoes are going to be any better home grown, since they're not the sort of thing where you eat tiny baby fresh raw ones, or anything.

That is a very, very good point. And if I really want cheap, locally grown sweet potatoes, I can go to the farmer's market -- they have them year round.

I bought two plastic tubs and some carrot and scallion seeds today. Dammit. It was only $15 for the whole operation, but now I have to go get more potting mix and some gravel to line the tubs once I've drilled drainage holes in them.

I said I wasn't going to do this...my plan was to start small with one or two plants that I could focus on and learn the basics. Now, with the blueberry bush I ordered today and the strawberry plants my mother ordered (she was planning on growing them herself but now she says she wants me to do it, "since you'll be out in the garden anyway"), I'm going to be growing five different things in at least four containers. (I'm going to start one tub of carrots and scallions now and see how it goes before I plant the second one.) That doesn't include the three-pot mini-planter of herbs and flowers in my kitchen window.

I did this when I was learning to knit, too. I would see a pattern I liked, fall in love with it, and think, "Well, I've never done lace before, and I've never done socks, but how hard could lace socks be? They're mostly holes!" (I did finish those, incidentally, and they're beautiful. My mom wears them all the time. But there was a lot of swearing involved before I finally bound off the toes.)

I swear, if I buy another plant this season, somebody come to my house and give me a good swift kick in the ass.

[wombat]

That is a very, very good point. And if I really want cheap, locally grown sweet potatoes, I can go to the farmer's market -- they have them year round.

Let me also warn you that everything you are growing will be ready at exactly the same time that it is cheap and abundant in your local farmer's market. I know you are not growing stuff to save money, but, it's less annoying if you are expecting it.

This is why I stopped growing most vegetables. We now have a farmer's market literally two blocks away, it just seems stupid. I only grow these little Japanese peppers that I can't get anywhere.

[jay-ell]

I was reading my book last night, and it had this to say about growing potatoes in containers: "they come under the heading of 'available year-round at the market at a very reasonable price, and I'd rather use the garden space for something else.'" So McGee & Stuckey are with you on that one.

We have a great farmer's market in Raleigh, but I didn't even go there very often when I lived half a mile away and didn't have any kids. It's so big and there are so many choices, it's actually a little intimidating. Now that I'm more confident about it, I live twenty minutes away and I absolutely refuse to take my kids (they're too big for strollers and there are to many places for them to run off and cause trouble). So I buy most of my produce at the grocery store even though we have this great farmer's market nearby.

But, I like knowing that I *could* get locally-grown food if I were so inclined, and had the time.

There are some things, like the scallions and carrots I planted today, that I think will be much more convenient to be able to just get what I need from the yard as I need it. I am trying to plant things that are "harvest as needed" so that I don't end up with a huge abundance of something that I then have to try to pawn off on unsuspecting neighbors.

I think I may have overplanted the radishes, though. I like them in salads, but other than that, I don't really know what to do with them.

[side_show]

The idea of a year round farmers market - oh, that would be such a luxury!  I wish we had that or the ability to grow some veg year round.  That would be wonderful.

I am starting to think about the garden, even though we've still got snow on the ground.  I planted a lot of perennial herbs last season, so hopefully they come back up again this year.  Sage, basil, thyme, rosemary and dill are all hiding under the snow right now.  That and the asparagus.

Locally, there was a terrible blight that took out most of the tomatoes last season, so I'm worried the soil will still be carrying the fungus.  I'm going to till the area up really good and work in some compost, but I'm thinking I'm going to plant a lot fewer tomatoes and locate them in a different area of the garden this season. 

I really want to grow some sugar snap peas this season, along with the usual beens and carrots.  I've yet to have any success with onions, but I'm going to try again this year.  I had a huge bounty of potatoes last season, which was good.  They were pretty bland tasting though.  I'm going to try another variety and see what happens. 

[Nabubrush]

All my onions ended up as the cocktail-type, but I'm pretty sure they weren't supposed to. We've had great luck with tomatoes, potatoes, squash of various varieties, lettuce/spinach/basil, and herbs. I really wish our peppers would work out better - they're usually a little thinner-fleshed than I'd prefer. We had garlic when we first moved in. That was cool, but I'm not sure how you're supposed to propagate them, and I guess we maybe were supposed to leave something in the ground. I think you break up a bulb and plant each one (somewhat like potatoes) and then new bulbs come up all over. I will do that some time.

[jay-ell]

Yes, that's how you propagate garlic -- plant each clove and wait for it to sprout. But according to my gardening book, this can take 9 or 10 months. A good solution, if you don't want to wait (and if you want to try something you can't get at the market) is to pull it up and eat it while it's still "green." It has "that unique garlic taste but in a milder version, and a bonus of bright green color."

Begin harvesting the baby garlic plants as soon as they form green leaves, starting about four to five weeks after planting the cloves. After trimming away the roots you eat the whole plant: stem, leaves, and any small bulb that has begun to form at the base -- and that's green garlic. Those left to get a bit larger, with a bulb forming, are perfect for grilling.

You can also treat this as a cut-and-come-again plant. Slice off some green shoots with a knife -- just the amount you need for tonight -- and they'll grow back. You can do this up to five times. The plant grows fast, so keep up the fertilizing with a complete fertilizer.

They recommend planting a clove or two whenever you have some left over from cooking and when you happen to have a small empty space in a container.

Similarly, I'm growing green onions. Regular onions take the better part of a year to reach full size, but green onions are either regular onions harvested before they're mature or a specific breed called "bunching" onions, aka scallions. You can pull up a few young scallions whenever you need them and leave the rest in the ground to grow a week or two more, then replant when about half of them are gone. That sounded convenient to me because I usually only use one or two scallions in a recipe, but it's sold in bunches, so I have to either chop and freeze the remainder or end up throwing it away.

Smells, if you really want to grow tomatoes but are worried about the blight, you might consider putting them in containers. Most tomatoes (except the very largest beefsteak varieties) do well in containers so long as you allow plenty of depth for the roots. And since you live where it's colder, you could start them indoors to get a jump on the growing season and just move the container outside after the last frost. They won't be as big as the tomatoes you can grow in the ground, but they might be better than not having any at all, or sickly ones, from the fungus.

[Carlos del Vaca]

Yeah, green onions are awesome to grow at home for the reason you've described.  I've tried growing full-size onions, both from seed and from onion sets (lil' baby onions you buy at the garden store), and found it to be a waste of resources.  (Caveat:  my garden really doesn't get enough sun, so take from that what you will.)

We used to get so-called "garlic scapes" or green garlic from our CSA.  They were OK, but I never found myself wishing I had them.

[Nabubrush]

All our garlic was planted before we moved in, so we sort of just reaped the reward.

[jay-ell]

So, I planted radishes because I like them in salad and because they mature from seed in less than 30 days, and I wanted my kids to see something come up quickly. They sprouted overnight last night and as soon as the sun comes back out (tomorrow, if the weatherman is to be believed) I'm going to take them outside. My question is this: once they're here what do I do with them?

I only sowed about a dozen seeds, and I imagine half of them will go in some of the numerous salads we've been eating because I have this kickin' lettuce container that supplies me with all the salad greens I could possibly want. But the other half-dozen, does anybody know of something cool and fun to do with radishes (besides carve them into rosettes) that is tasty to eat?

[Nabubrush]

We request that they don't send them in the organic bin, sorry.

[wombat]

You have a vegetable that can be carved into flowers, and that's not enough for you? You're a tough customer.

[Carlos del Vaca]

Slice them real thin, then put them on buttered baguette slices.