8
« on: 2019-11-23, 09:04:21 PM »
Just because it doesn't supply much in the way of calories doesn't mean a don't regard it as a staple, if we eat a lot of it and I would be upset if it disappeared from the garden. Staples for us are:
- Potatoes (but about to be much less so, now I am pre-diabetic - being taken over by sweet potatoes and squash). We are growing potatoes from seed and keeping the best and I get vaguer and vaguer about which are which, but I guess not actually a landrace. Would grow sweet potato seed if they would only make some, but no luck so far. Moschata squash are more or less a landrace, but we grow acorn squash as varieties because we buy seed - they cross with our zucchini and results of that have been pretty bad.
- Carrots, onions, shallots, and leeks. I'm keeping one pure variety of onion (Rose de Roscoff), all the rest are mass crosses. Oh yeah, and garlic.
- Dried beans and peas (want to increase these), as well as green beans and peas for fresh eating and the freezer. (Our two main frozen veg). Don't usually cross but when I find a cross I will often pursue it to see if it's any good.
- Tomatoes and peppers for canning, drying, and freezing - used to make about 48 litres of tomato sauce, but less now that I'm not eating much pasta. We buy pepper seed because I want specific results, although I am growing out a couple of hard to get varieties in (I hope) isolation for seed. I have one variety of tomato I'm trying to keep going, we plant some named varieties from purchased seeds for fresh eating, and the paste tomatoes are a mass cross into which we throw one or two new named varieties each year.
- Cucumbers for pickles. Beets too, occasionally. Did a mass cross of beets one year and the results were good but mostly purchase seed as they are not a priority. Saved cuke seed results have been poor to awful.
- Zucchini daily in the summer. We buy seeds as we grow too many varieties and saved seeds were sometimes interesting but mostly not.
- Spinach and Swiss chard for greens, fresh and frozen. Have always bought them.
- Lettuce for salads. Frequently self-seeds but seems to rarely cross.
- Cabbage for winter storage. Brussels sprouts if the little bastards will grow. We have saved seeds for both of these with good results. Cabbage was a cross between January King and a savoy, and Brussels sprouts had some kale in it. Both results were good but the Brussels sprouts are a bit variable in quality.
- Asparagus in season; the two of us will eat a pound a day for as long as it comes. Seedlings pop up all over and are often saved; they're asparagus.
- Strawberries, blackberries, and peaches for fresh eating, jam, and freezing. Mostly purchased varieties except for one strawberry that popped up as a seedling and turned out to be amazing.
I would like to grow and keep in the cold cellar more in the way of celeriac and rutabaga, both of which have proven surprisingly hard to grow. Kohlrabi too. We would grow eat more brassicas if they liked our soil better and had fewer pests. Corn would be a staple if we could grow it, but we can't. Well, we can grow it, I guess, the problem is getting to be the critter who consumes it. Easier said than done.
Actually kale is the one brassica that does really well here. We all hate it, so every few years I get excited by how pretty it looks, plant some, and admire it until it gets pulled and put on the compost. Not a staple.
Show Posts
