The life of an onion

These are onion seed heads we harvested mid-summer and let dry down.

These are the onion seeds (black dots) with chaff.  It's often not necessary to get homegrown seed perfectly free of chaff.  In this case, the chaff and seeds will all get planted without issue.

We planted those seeds yesterday in an outdoor bed.  This is a little later than ideal, but the onions will be fine.  The seeds were planted in rows and covered back with dirt.  We watered them in and covered the bed with old storm windows to act as a mini-greenhouse.  They should start to germinate in a week or so.  They will grow some more this fall then pretty much go dormant all winter.  Come late winter they will finish growing into pencil sized onion plants we will transplant out in garden beds.  They will make bulb onions around June/July.  We planted Red Stockton and Yellow of Parma seed we'd saved and purchased Walla Walla seed.

As we harvest bulb onions during the summer , we set aside three dozen or so of the biggest and nicest shaped of each variety for seed.  These we bunch up and hang in an outbuilding until fall.

Then late October/early November we plant these bulb onions in a garden bed.  They will grow a little in the fall then become dormant over the winter.  Late winter they will grow into what looks like a bunch of green onions.  Then in early summer they will send up flower stalks.  Then they will flower and set seed.  Once the stalks are mostly dried down, we'll collect the seed stalks and heads to dry for the rest of the summer.  Those seeds will then be used to plant onions in the onion cold frame in the fall, and so the cycle continues.

CSA Share

Lettuce mix, Chinese cabbage, kale, Nancy Hall sweet potatoes, sweet peppers, carrots, arugula

 There is still plenty coming from the garden.  Pick up at the farm or let us deliver to your house in Statesville.

TOKYO BEKANA

Our favorite seed catalog, by far, is Southern Exposure Seed Exchange in Virginia. They specialize in open-pollinated varieties for the mid-Atlantic and Southeast. Over the years, we've come to trust them like a garden friend; if they recommend something, it's likely to be a winner in the garden and at the table. So it was through them that we came to grow Tokyo bekana for the first time this fall. Here is their description:" great salad green - fast-growing plants make enormous loose heads of light green, ruffled leaves. Very mild - almost lettuce-like in flavor - with good frost tolerance." And just as promised, it is tender and mild with a nice crunchy mid stem. We've mostly been enjoying it chopped up as a salad on it's own or mixed with lettuces. It also is nice cooked as you would a Chinese cabbage.

Eggplant pizzas

  Not a fan of eggplant? These eggplant pizzas might change your mind.

  Peel the eggplant and slice into 1/2 inch rounds.   Butter both sides lightly and roast until tender. Add tomato sauce and cheese and return to oven until cheese is melted.

We're getting some fall color around here

 

Kale, radishes, shitake, cherry tomatoes, potatoes, snacking peppers, bell peppers

CSA share

Radish, green onion, green garlic, beet greens with small beets, head lettuce, yukina savoy, strawberries, TN red sweet potatoes

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Want to know what we have available for pick-up at the farm or to find out about drop-offs in Statesville?  We send out a regular e-mail to keep you up to date.  Sign-up by contacting us through our Local Harvest account (see the link on side of blog) and let us know your e-mail address and approximate location to get on our e-mail list.  The hens are laying generously right now and we still have overwintered greens and root crops, with new spring crops not far off.  It's a beautiful time of year on the farm.

Groundnuts - Apios americana

  Every time I harvest ground nuts, I feel like giggling. Picture digging just below the soil surface and finding a golf ball to tennis ball size brown skinned tuber. To it is attached a string. Follow the string 3 inches to where it is attached to another ball. 3 inches more, another ball and so on until you have an edible garden necklace. I've never seen anything like it, but surprisingly, it's native all up and down the East Coast. For the lucky scavenger, small groundnuts or Apios americana can be found beneath delicate vines on the forest edge. The selected variety we're growing (likely a cultivar of a past LSU breeding program) with the benefit of full sun in garden soil, sizes up much more. 
  But what is one to do with this curious tuber? Their other common name, American Potato Bean, is a good hint. Use it like a potato. By this time of year, the last of our Irish potatoes are starting to wrinkle and send out sprouts. Fortunately, the end of Irish potato season coincides with peak flavor of the sweet potatoes. But sometimes something without the sweetness of sweet potatoes, something closer to an Irish potato is more what we want. Groundnuts are starting to fill this niche as our 'winter potato.' 
  It's still new to us so we haven't tried all the suggested preparations. We've been enjoying them simply boiled in salt water, although they'd probably be even better with a little more done to spruce them up. We've been peeling them first and then boiling.  They can then be enjoyed as is or mashed. Groundnuts are more dense and probably drier than Irish potatoes, closer to a russet than some of the waxy type Irish potatoes we grow. Extra cream, almost always a good thing, seems like something we should recommend, but groundnuts are still quite new to us. We tried baking them, and they seemed to dry out far too much, so based on our limited trials we definitely would recommend against baking, although we've seen suggestions on the internet for roasting, so maybe with attention to the right details they'd be good baked/roasted. 
  On the list for us to try yet are fries -- we haven't deep fried any yet, but we're hopeful they'll make outstanding French fries -- chips, and drying them for flour. We would describe their taste as nutty, earthy, and sweeter than potatoes. If you want to experiment with us, or if you're already familiar with this uncommon food, let us know the results of your own experiments in the kitchen.