Sweet Potato - DIY Slips to seedlings

Sweet potato is an easy crop to grow and so long as its started early enough should give a decent harvest. Slips are expensive to buy. They are not generally dispatched till May. Often they come unrooted building in further delay. Making your own slips is an easy alternative. Grab your favorite variety making sure they are sound. If you are

lucky they might even have started sprouting. I am not unmindful of biohazard which is why I always grow in boxes or containers for the first 2 years before letting anything grocery bought, loose in my soil.  To be on the safe side, I never grow  potatoes and garlic from this source.

But I digress. Sweet potatoes is one crop that is a year round preoccupation for us. We eat every part of it so a good leaf crop is every bit as important as the tuber harvest. Our sweet potato year starts in December. Even as we finish the main tuber harvest its time to start next year's crop.                           

 My reasoning is, the more rootstock the bigger the tuber harvest. I have to heat my house so why not use the tops of radiator and the boiler to get my plants away. 

Sweet potatoes love the heat on top of the boiler and all I have to do is keep the moisture levels right in the compost. 

It's true they look anaemic coming out of the cupboard but they soon gain colour in a

few days once exposed to light and are none the worse for their dark start.

We are careful when selecting the tubers from which our slips grow. Over the years we have learned that the largest are not necessarily best. So we look for tubers

where the skin  has cured well, that are sound with the least nicks or blemishes. In years past when my growing was 90 percent failure and ten percent luck I used to save the biggest of everything for planting stock. It took years to realise that somewhere in the middle is often optimum and nowadays that is my rule of thumb.

I start my tuber in a sandy compost mix with a bit of vermiculite thrown in for good measure, using punnets salvaged from supermarket overpackaging. They are surprisingly robust and versatile. I use them for everything from seedlings to drip tray and they last years with a little care. I make sure the tubers are just over half buried so the slips coming up the sides also start to make feeder roots which give them a head start at potting up time.

The white varieties are always the quickest to sprout.  I am not sure if it is because of the higher sugar and lower water content. It is the same whether I am slipping on a radiator or in a cupboard.

My favourite variety is the red skinned orange tinged white fleshed variety from

Jamaica. It is one of the most prolific we grow. Slower to start than the whites but exploding in clumps of multiple slips that mean they soon outpace their rivals
The thing that never cease to amaze me about slipping sweet potatoes is the way production increases once the sprouting get

going. So long as the tuber is unstressed each one turn into a mini production factory. I find that just keeping the compost moist and moving the slips on encourage more productivity.

I pot on in garden compost with about 20 percent vermiculite and 10 percent worm cast. This works well for me, but I have learnt that compost mix is an individual thing. Once potted up the plants grow on at room temperature with no need for additional heat.

As most of the slips already have small feeding roots they settle quickly to soil and grow away readily.

Within a few weeks they become well rooted plants. These are transplanted as

soon as the white roots begin to show at the bottom. Some of the white varieties will be needing their second transplant by mid February and again by the time they are moved to the Keder Greenhouse to start hardening off by mid march. Hopefully some of you will be encouraged to take the plunge into DIY sweet potato slips.

Chayote - Dried, Preserved & Baked in a Pie

Frost finally took serious hold which meant it was time for a last Chayote harvest before putting the plants to bed.  Friends who have been making the plant based burgers and Chayote leaf salad from my earlier blog post have asked for other recipe ideas to deal with their fruit glut.

If you own a dehydrator, Chayote can be dried and stored for later use.

Prior to dehydrating we blanch (optional) , then soak for half an hour in a yacon syrup (other flavours works as well) with a sprinkle of salt. Once dried they make a

lovely snack or can be combined with other ingredients for dried seasoning and rubs.

Chayote is also a good ingredient for both pickles and ferments. This is one of our favourite lacto-ferments. If you are into gut health it's a quick and easy way to store and use vegetables, just water, salt (whey if you are nervous of salt only) and aromatics of your choice. We love to vary flavours from bottle to bottle but firm favorites include bay, perennial basils, Caribbean thyme and szechuan pepper. Smaller fruits are delicious in apple cider vinager with onions, garlic cloves, black peppercorns and a few Kaffir lime leaves or Vietnamese coriander.

Aside from vegetable burgers, our favorite recipe for Chayote fruits are in a seasonal

autumn pie. We have several pies and savory pastries in this vein. Where autumn harvests such as Chayote and sweet potatos are merged with winter staples like beets, Skirret and salsify. It's also a chance for a

final farewell to the leaves of the tropical plants that have been a staple on our plates since the start of May.

Like so much in our diet, this is a pie of two parts, the things we grow and make and those we buy. The grow and make includes a fermented nut cheese like the one in a previous blog, (any meltable cheese is fine for this recipe). We also use Chayote leaves and the liquid squeezed from them. The buy is a trio of our favourite mushrooms

 from our local farmers market (in this case Oyster, King Oyster and small portobello) and ingredients for the pie crusts.

Chayote has a delicate sweetness but what we prize most is its ability to soak up other flavours. We use this to best advantage by

sautéing in flavoured oil at the beginning of either stir fries or pie fillings before setting aside for later use.                                             

We use our own homegrown dried mixes these include combinations of tomatoes, sweet peppers, chillies, shallots, guavas, and a selection of fruits, herbs and spices. When I prepare Chayote for a pie or stir fry I like to use a roasted tomato, sweet pepper mild chilli fermented lemon and guava mix

However the flavours are very much down to individual preference. We love the way these flavours blend together and merge 

with others in the dish. We add 2 teaspoons of the mix and a sprinkle of salt crystals to hot rapeseed oil and allow to combine

before adding the Chayote and cooking for a few minutes. It should remain crisp but well flavoured and should be set aside in a bowl to add to the other ingredients later. 

The mushrooms are chopped and added to the pan, starting with the king oyster which is sweated a few minutes before adding the oyster and finally the portobellos. We like to add a splash of raw cider vinager and a little miso before adding 2 chopped onions. When the onions are transparent we add , 

the Chayote leaves and cook through for a few minutes makings sure it is well mixed. (If you don't have Chayote leaves you can use finely chopped kale or chard instead.)  At this point we return the diced fruits to 

the pan along with the juice from the leaves. Vegetable or other stock is fine as a substitute for providing the moisture.     

Once the filling is done we set it aside to cool and turn our attention to the crust. 

We like to have a light crust so use 75 percent white flour to 25 percent freshly ground flaxseeds. We add a pinch of salt and use coconut butter which we rub in to 

a breadcrumb consistency. To this we add liquid. In this case homemade almond milk, but buttermilk or even water is fine. Once this is added we pull the mixture together 

into balls as if making scones, so minimum handling. I put the pastry dough into the fridge for about 30 minutes before rolling out, I find this help to stop any sticking. 

After adding the filling to the pie case we top it with cut cheese and sliced Skirret roots, though thinly sliced sweet potatoes  make an equally tasty alternative root.   

Once made, we freeze the bulk of these pies only refrigerating the ones intended for immediate use.  The pies can be defrosted or cooked from frozen. We have an electric oven so bake for 25 to 30 minutes at 185. The longest we have stored these pies is 6 months and they were as delicious thawed and baked as when they were first made.    

Having said that there is nothing I enjoy more than a freshly baked autumn pie with fermented chayote fruits and steamed chayote  leaves.                                                                    

Pumpkin - Growing for the Fruit

Pumpkin 'flour' is a staple ingredient in our kitchen year round. Our pumpkins are all

homegrown, tucked into the ends of raised beds and boxes in garden and allotment plots, then allowed to ramble wherever space allows. We have always grown the trailing varieties even where space was limited because we found them more robust, flavoursome and less demanding than bush varieties. We simply trimmed back the plants to fit the space and used the waste materials as a cooking ingredient.

We start our pumpkins in our Keder Greenhouse early in the year. We sow them by the end of March using additional fleece cover until germination and then during really cold periods. This allows us to prick out and repot several times.

In this way we are able to grow a really decent size root ball in this cosseted space. This allows the plant to get off to a strong start once planted out into the ground.          

We plant out in the last week of April in boxes and the first week of May in raised beds. We warm the soil for a couple of weeks prior and water in with warm water. Experience has taught us to plant a maximum of 2 plants in any location or risk stunted growth and poor fruit setting. I must confess that when planting I also put down an outer ring of cheap salt away from the roots and add some shredded plant material as a bit of early slug protection. Once planted, we  also cover the plants with fleece and keep this protection in place constantly,  except for the occasional warm days.      

           

  By early June the plants are pretty much established, surprisingly robust and able to mostly shrug off slug and snail attacks. We like to put down a heavy mulch around the roots while we are still able to reach them without some accidental plant damage. By  

the end of the month the first fruits are getting to a good size and we are able to do some light leaf harvesting which provide ingredients for a range of early summer dishes. With an eye to storage life we try to make sure fruits are not sitting directly on soil or on their bottom. Where they are, we simply move or turn them on their sides. The plants are finally producing a decent mix of male and female flowers giving us the chance to isolate and hand pollinate for fruits we want to keep true.      

Come July fruits are well on their way and we have a good idea what level of  cropping each vine is likely to offer. This year fruit development was faster than the norm with visible ripening on some early setters; no doubt due to the weird weather. Fortunately we always make sure the vines run over some bare turned earth so they can put down supplementary roots, the better to feed developing fruits. I always leave markers beside these patches for  ease of location later on in the season.

August is peak growing with leaves romping away and fruits of a decent size. This is when I put rich compost around the secondary  roots using the markers to locate them. The plants are relatively trouble free right now. Apart from making sure they get enough water we can just stand by and admire the beauty and drama of these remarkable plants.

By September pumpkin plant growth and fruit setting have slowed. We keep an eye out for downy mildew which experience have taught can erupt and spread as fast as August growth. We take mildew seriously because it not only destroy our leaf harvest, but ultimately lead to reduced yields and stunted, malformed later fruits. We are ruthless at the allotment. The minute we spot mildew on the site we take action to protect our plants. We use a combination of Neem oil and bicarbonate of soda to make up a spray and try to cover all the plants with a pre-emptive treatment. We keep watch removing old and damaged leaves which seems to be the first targets of any infection. In the garden downy mildew is easier to control. For a start, we have fewer plants and there are fewer local growers so removing old and damaged leaves and a good spraying usually serve us well.

In a normal year we start harvesting pumpkins in mid-October. This year the bulk of the fruits were ripe and ready by the beginning of October.

Over the years we have seen the season lengthen as autumn weather stretched frost free as late as early December in some years. Now if we are really lucky and the weather stays mild, pumpkins that start setting at the end of August and even into early September can often grow to maturity as long as we remain frost free.

This year we have six of these stragglers hanging around the garden. All have reached a decent size and hopefully have a few more frost free weeks to continue curing on the vine.

Whether or not we end up with fully ripe late bonus fruits, once the harvest is in, the main purpose of our crop, making flour, can begin.

The Sugars we Grow - Grape and Sorghum Syrups

This year the grape harvest at the allotment far exceeded expectation and capacity even after we have shared our bounty with neighbours and friends. That is a shame considering the exceptional sweetness in the fruits. While we do dry and powder grapes we have to limit the amount as it is not the most versatile of sugars.

While we are not wine drinkers we make a small batch of wine vinegar each year and we always take advantage of the harvest to add to our available soft drinks. For us grape juice flavoured with lemon verbena is a much anticipated seasonal favourite.

After squashing the grapes we add a few leaves of the herb, leaving the mash to steep overnight.

The next day we remove the pulp which leave a sweet, slightly acid grape juice with a lovely lemony hint of verbena. Stored in the fridge it gains a slight effervescence after a few weeks and is a really popular drink on its own or added to other homemade soft drinks.

When we have a surplus of grapes I always look around for something to mate it with. This year I had hope to see how it blends

with Yacon, particularly Roja, but although foliage growth seems to have mostly caught up after the drought; yacon tuber formation has been noticeably slower than previous years

Sorghum has been a different story. After the unpromising start of a premature December germination, the syrup variety have grown impressive plants, with each providing a multiple of good sized canes topped by an impressive seed head.          

Lacking a cane press, we normally use spring water and a blender to extract the sweetness from the canes which is then evaporated by boiling. Using a ratio of 1 litre of grape as the liquid, to 6 canes, is not as odd as it might at first sound. Our grapes has a lovely combination of sweetness and acidity that balances out the almost sugar cane like, one note sweetness of sorghum syrup.                                                                   

 

We initially pass the blended liquid and first cane through a sift before returning it to the blender and feeding through the other 5 canes one at a time. By the time we 

Reach the third cane, the trash being squeezed have noticeably turned from wine stained pink to it's usual green. We have 2 wormeries and their inhabitants seem to make short work of this well macerated bounty.                                                                  

 

At this point we pass the liquid through a muslin cloth into a saucepan in order to take out the small particles that escaped through the mesh in the sieve.                        

I notice that the grape and sorghum mix seem to generate far more scum from the boiling process than sorghum on its own. 

We skim this off, even taking everything crusting the side of the pan. We have not always been so thorough. But what we found was that leaving any of this residue  added an unpleasant note to the finished syrup.                                                                  

Sorghum is a lovely sugar plant. We have at times grown grain varieties and enjoyed them in our kitchen. In the end they did not earn their place in our limited growing spaces. This is because we can buy a whole range of unprocessed organic grains but sugar remains a contested and problematic food in its commercially available forms. This led to the decision a decade ago that shapes much of our cultivation in both garden and allotment plots; which has a strong focus on home grown and home processed sugars.