Ready to plant the peas, starting tomatoes and eggplant, can we grow sweet potatoes and yacon?

Last week we finally got to start the first tilling in preparation for planting. We tilled areas for planting peas and leeks. Earlier we had spread compost on both fields.  After letting the fields settle for a few days we added fertilizer and tilled a second time.

We plant climbing peas to make picking easier for our U-Pick visitors. We trellis the peas on the wire grids usually used when pouring concrete slabs. The crew got the trellis up on Monday, but today it is too wet to plant the peas. We should be able to get them planted tomorrow if the weather holds.

The field crew setting up our pea trellis. You can see the roll of wire mesh in the front left of the photo. The Kubota tractor was used to bring the mesh rolls to the field. We anchor the mesh at one end and the use the larger John Deere to pull the mesh tight at the other end, as seen in the photo.

Today in the starts greenhouse John started our tomatillos (green and purple), eggplants (four varieties), and our tomatoes. We’ll have three cherry tomato varieties, two red slicers, and four heirloom varieties. I added the variety Old German to Brandywine, Purple Cherokee, and Green Zebra, the three heirloom tomatoes we grew last year.

We have now received most of the remaining seeds. I have added a few more crops. Brussels sprouts is one crop not originally on my list. I added them due to suggestions from a number of folks. I trust that those of you who said we should grow Brussels sprouts will show up and buy lots.

I ordered three varieties of sweet potatoes. I’ll have to baby them somewhat, but we’ll see if we can grow them and if people want to buy them. For a while I’ve wanted to make and sell pumpkin butter from our farm - I think it’s even better than apple butter, one of my favorites. This winter I tried sweet potato butter for the first time. Wow! We’ve got to make sweet potato butter if only so I can have a supply.

I also ordered a few tubers of yacon, a root vegetable from South America that is starting to reach the far edge of awareness of the food world. Crisp and sweet, it grows somewhat larger than a potato. I’ve read descriptions of yacon tasting like a cross between apple and watermelon. Others describe it as sort of like a Jerusalem artichoke, except large and much easier to prepare. Yacon is also plugged as good for type II diabetics, as the sugars in yacon are not particularly digestible, although the biota of the intestine favors them. It’s supposed to be great in raw or cooked many different ways. We’ll find out if it grows for us and if there is a reason it hasn’t already taken the food world by storm.

 What’s playing today in the Jeep CD player?  Los Lobos – Colossal Head