9976 MEN Organic Gardening, 3rd Edition

44 44 Prune for Small-

Space Fruit Trees

This pruning method will enable you to grow any type and variety of fruit in small spaces.

48 Guide to Organic

64 64 Grow a Green Roof

Turn your roof into a canopy of lovely plants that will keep your house comfortable year-round.

Save your garden records in style when you personalize a notebook that’s organized to include the facts, hacks, and figures from your own planting experience.

If you dig composting and want a tidy setup, try hiding your heap inside one of these bins or tumblers endorsed by our readers.

Colonial Williamsburg has mastered the art of using trellises in their gardens to ease the growth and harvest of everything from beans and peas to tomatoes and cucumbers.

DIY PLANS 59 DIY Composters

for Your Garden

Fall into the magic of composting with these three easy DIY composters.

55

Want to fulfill your cravings and make your neighbors jealous?

Add a whole month to your fresh-tomato season with these proven techniques.

86 All About Growing Broccoli Follow these tips for planting and growing broccoli—a vital superfood full of nutrition and guaranteed to strengthen your immune system.

72 DIY Garden Journal

52 The Dirt on Composters

55 The Historic Art of Trellising

Early Tomatoes

Salad Gardening

Use this unique technique to grow greens in a limited space.

SPRING

88 All About Growing

75 Anyone Can Enjoy

Fresh Blackberries

They’re prolific and perennial— just about anyone can enjoy fresh blackberries.

78 Create an Edible Landscape Garden writer Mary-Kate Mackey planted grapevines at the corners of her Oregon backyard retreat, giving her outdoor dining area a European feel.

84

100

84 Expert Tips for Growing

68 Year-Round Indoor

Pest Control

These 11 products are guaranteed to fend off the 26 most common garden pests.

90

Kale and Collards

Find out how to grow the easiest crops to grow in the cabbage family—kale and collards.

90 Grow Superb Strawberries

Growing your own is the best way to get first-rate flavor.

93 Grow Red Peppers

Here’s how to enjoy the rich, sweet flavors of ripe red peppers.

96 Asparagus: Early,

Easy, Excellent

Seven steps to growing superior spears, year after year.

96

SUMMER 100 Best Summer Cover Crops

Sow these four fast-growing, weedsuppressing soil builders in any patch possible, even during your prime gardening season.

104 Best Vegetables to

Grow in the Shade

Even in shady conditions, you can bask in great garden harvests if you choose the right crops and make a few easy adjustments.

108 All About

Growing Cucumbers

Learn tips that will transform you into a cucumber-growing expert.

110 All About Growing Melons

Understand how to grow the best melons in your garden.

FALL 112 3 Rare Root Crops You

Should Be Growing

Experience the unique flavors of crosnes, salsify, and skirret by adding these unsung treasures to your vegetable garden.

112

122 116 All About Growing

Swiss Chard

The best growing tips for growing Swiss Chard.

118 The Other Onions

Don’t forget about the fall varieties like shallots, bulbing leeks, and multiplying onions.

122 #1 Expert Shares

Organic Potato Tips

Potato producer Jim Gerritsen gives the full scoop on successfully growing and storing spuds.

126 The Tips You Need

to Grow Great Garlic

Use this season-by-season guide to cultivate a treasure trove of fat, flavor-packed cloves.

128 Top Tips for

Great Fall Gardens

Here’s everything you need to know to grow crisp, delicious broccoli, carrots, and spinach.

134 Grow and Cook With

Kohlrabi and Rosemary

Don’t be deterred by kohlrabi’s quirky appearance. Its crisp flesh makes an excellent companion to strong herbs such as rosemary.

128

140 140 The Next Step

for Seed Savers

Now that you’ve saved your heirloom seeds, it is time to start a seed library to share with other seed savers.

WINTER 146 Sweet Potatoes and

Shallots to Save in Winter

Easy to grow and store, these roots pair well when tossed into decadent dishes to warm you up on cold days.

152 Winter Gardening: Best

Crops and Varieties

Don’t limit your harvests to summer, no matter your region.

Grow these 13 crops that have proved they can take biting winter temps.

156 Freezing Fruits and

Vegetables From Your Garden

Round out your food preservation regimen! Tap these straightforward freezing tips to turn your garden harvests into sensational, offseason meals.

146

Ramp up watering efficiency by using drip tape in your garden beds. Drip irrigation works especially well for evenly spaced crops planted in long rows.

rows will simplify watering, especially if you water by hand. With crops that occupy more time and space in the garden, such as beans, peppers, sweet corn, and tomatoes, better options include using soaker hoses, drip irrigation, or carefully managed ditches.

Even with regular rainfall, crops that require a relatively large amount of water to thrive, such as beans and sweet corn, will almost always need supplemental irrigation.

Tips and Techniques for Tap these efficient garden-watering systems to save on your water bill while still growing food despite drought and heat.

By Barbara Pleasant

T

his gardening season, with climate change causing higher temperatures and desperate droughts in multiple regions, many of us will experience weeks or even

months in which sparse rainfall won’t keep pace with the sun’s hot rays. To keep your crops’ thirst quenched, try some options outlined in this roundup of water-wise gardening strategies, from familiar irrigation methods— such as soaker and drip hoses—to a

12 MOTHER EARTH NEWS COLLECTOR SERIES • ORGANIC GARDENING

lesser-known system called “partial root-zone drying.”

The best watering methods will depend at least partly on planting arrangement and crop type. Planting leafy greens, onions and other shallowrooted plants in blocks rather than

LEFT TO RIGHT: JANET HORTON; DAVID CAVAGNARO; PAGE 12: JERRY PAVIA

WATER-WISE GARDENING

Make Foes of Weeds and Friends With Mulch

A water-wise garden is no place for weeds. According to research from Michigan State University, a combo of good weed control and adequate mulch can conserve up to 1 inch of water per week during toasty summer months. Left uncontrolled, however, some weeds, such as crab grass and lamb’s-quarters, will slurp up more than 80 gallons of water to produce just 1 pound of plant tissue.

Fundamental organic gardening practices that improve soil and limit weeds will set the stage for efficient garden-watering systems. If you add compost or rotted manure to the soil each time you plant, as well as use biodegradable mulches that break down into organic matter, your soil will retain moisture better. In general,

the more grass clippings, leaves, coffee grounds, and other organic materials you add to your soil, the less likely your crops will be to suffer from moisture stress.

Another reason to be mad for mulch: Even before it breaks down into organic matter, a thick layer of mulch applied around plants will help

Even with regular rainfall, crops that require a relatively large amount of water to thrive, such as beans and sweet corn, will almost always need supplemental irrigation. by cooling and shading the soil, thus keeping your garden from drying out quickly after a watering or rain shower.

Soaker Hoses and Drip Systems

I have long been an advocate of the 25-foot soaker hose, which weeps water evenly along its length, as if it were sweating. Soaker hoses work especially well for closely spaced crops and intensively planted beds. You can make

your own soaker hoses by collecting old or leaky garden hoses from your friends and drilling small holes into them every few inches. Just cap or clamp off the male end of the hose.

Drip irrigation systems distribute water at regular intervals through a network of hoses or tapes with slits, pores, emitters, or drippers. They work well for rows of crops spaced at varying intervals (you can set the emitters at wider spacing if you’re watering a crop planted farther apart), and perform best on relatively level ground, because pressure changes caused by sloping ground would result in uneven watering. If you have a large garden, look for systems that use inexpensive drip tape (brands include Aqua Traxx, Chapin, and T-Tape). The tiny holes in some emitters and drippers can become clogged with soil particles rather easily, so at least one filter needs to be screwed into the water line between the faucet (or reservoir) and the distribution lines of most drip irrigation systems.

Typical soaker hoses require at least the level of pressure from a faucet, but some drip emitter systems can use gravity alone to gradually distribute water from high cisterns or raised rain barrels to thirsty plants. For example, growers at New Mexico State University had great success raising 50-gallon water barrels head-high on

TECHNIQUES AND METHODS • www.MotherEarthNews.com 13

Maintain Healthy Garden Soil With

CROP ROTATIONS

You can increase soil fertility and cut down on plant diseases by rotating the vegetables in your garden plots on a three-year cycle.

By Barbara Pleasant Illustrations by Elayne Sears

O

ne of the rules of good organic gardening is to rotate plant families from one season to the next, as best you can, so related crops are not planted in the same spot more often than every three years or so. The purpose of crop rotation is to help the soil maintain a healthy balance of nutrients, organic matter, and microorganisms. Of these three, the invisible world of soil-dwelling micro-creatures is the one that most benefits from crop rotations.

Take potatoes, for example. In the course of a season, the fungi that cause scabby skin patches may proliferate, along with root-killing verticillium fungi (which also damage tomatoes and eggplant) and tiny nematodes that injure potatoes. If you plant potatoes again in the same place, these pathogens will be ready and waiting to sabotage the crop. Rotating the space to an unrelated crop deprives the potato pathogens of the host plant they require. Most pests and diseases can damage plants of the same botanical family, but cannot hurt unrelated crops (see “Rotate Your Families: The Nine Main Groups,” Page 22).

What if you don’t follow a crop rotation plan?

Field trials in Connecticut and Europe indicate that your potato production will quickly fall by 40 percent, mostly due to disease.

According to a seven-year study from Ontario, you could expect similar declines if you planted tomatoes in the same place over and over again.

Compared to eight different rotations with other vegetables or cover crops, continuous tomatoes consistently produced the lowest yields. Snap beans that are not rotated will turn into paltry producers, too. In a study 20 MOTHER EARTH NEWS COLLECTOR SERIES • ORGANIC GARDENING

In addition to interrupting disease cycles, rotating crops prevents the depletion of nutrients.

Nitrogen-fixing legumes often take no more nitrogen from the soil than they replace, and their presence stimulates the growth of beneficial soil microorganisms. But in some situations, the “rotation effect” defies easy explanation. For example, we don’t know precisely why potatoes tend to grow well when planted after sweet corn, but they do.

The subject of crop rotation can get complicated fast—it’s no wonder we are tempted to cheat. What if your garden is like mine, a collection of a dozen permanent beds that are planted with 20plus different crops in the course of a growing season? Not using rotations would be unwise. When researchers at Pennsylvania State University tracked early blight of tomatoes grown in the same place for four years, early-season infection rates (measured when 5 percent of fruits turned red) went from 3 percent in the first year

to 74 percent in the third. When they tried the same monoculture maneuver with cantaloupes, symptoms of alternaria blight appeared earlier and earlier with each passing season.

Questioning the Rules

Some organic gardeners point out that crop rotation guidelines developed for farmers don’t really fit home gardens. On farms, crop residue is either plowed under or left on the surface to decay, which means the soil receives large infusions of a single type of plant material. Gardeners are more likely to pull up and compost spent crops, and to dig in compost or other soil amendments between plantings, which replenishes nutrients and invigorates the soil food web in an extremely diversified way. Biodegradable mulches introduce more considerations: If you heavily mulch your potatoes with straw,

from Cornell University, snap bean production doubled when beans were planted after corn rather than after snap beans.

In addition to interrupting disease cycles, rotating crops prevents the depletion of nutrients. For example, tomatoes need plenty of calcium, the same way beans and beets crave manganese. But the exact benefits of effective rotations vary with crop sequence. Broadleafed greens are great for suppressing weeds, and the deep roots of sweet corn do a good job of penetrating compacted subsoil.

You can plan your crop rotations by using a paper template to map your crops and growing areas.

There’s ample research showing that crop rotation results in better harvests for potatoes, tomatoes, beans, and many other crops.

TECHNIQUES AND METHODS • www.MotherEarthNews.com 21

Pond Nutrients

Why Grow in a Pond?

Aquaponics systems are as varied as the plants grown in them; here, pumps transfer pond water to an elevated planting tray, and the water aerates the pond as it falls back in.

24 MOTHER EARTH NEWS COLLECTOR SERIES • ORGANIC GARDENING

Hydroponics is now a common way to grow vegetables, such as lettuce and tomatoes, commercially. In hydroponic systems, plant roots are suspended in water that contains fertilizer while the rest of the plant grows normally in the air.

How does a pond compare with a commercial hydroponic system?

Provided you have some way to suspend the plants over the pond water, pond growing is virtually the same as a hydroponic system, with one important difference: You won’t need to fertilize the pond, because fish, insects, bacteria, and decaying plant material will do this for you.

Commercial hydroponic systems

A simple Styrofoam raft, as above, leaves plant roots exposed in water. Insert pots full of expanded clay pellets, shown at right, into the raft to fend off hungry fish looking for a snack.

CLOCKWISE FROM FAR LEFT: FLICKR/JUSTIN LEONARD; FLICKR/AQUA MECHANICAL (2); GREEN RELIEF; PAGE 23: WIKIMEDIA COMMONS/EMMANUEL ESLAVA

Nutrients naturally accumulate in a pond when fish waste and dead organic material decompose. Nitrogen, the nutrient that’s most critical for fish health and plant growth, cycles through the pond with the help of a variety of decomposers. See the diagram on Page 26 for an example of how this works.

Organic matter, such as dead animal and plant material, accumulates in the pond. Bacteria then start to decompose the organic material. The initial decomposition produces ammonia, a chemical that’s very toxic to fish. Fortunately, bacteria will also convert ammonia to nitrite and then to nitrate, neither of which are as toxic to fish. Some nitrogen will escape into the air, but most of it will remain in the water as nitrate until plants use it again as they grow.

Algae requires higher levels of nitrate to grow than most other plants, so the key to controlling algae growth is controlling the level of nitrate in the water. In a natural pond, this is often done by including a lot of decorative plants in the water and at the edge.

Instead of decorative plants, try growing vegetables right in the pond water.

They will not only control algae, but will also provide food for your table while they work.

are relatively complex, with pumps to move the water past the plants’ roots and equipment to test the oxygen and nutrient levels in an effort to maximize productivity. You won’t need all of this for a pond hydroponic system.

A simple raft that holds the plants in place is all that’s required.

Choosing Plants for Aquaponics Systems In aquaponics systems, the roots of the vegetables will mostly be immersed

in water instead of soil, so this system isn’t a good choice for root crops.

Most other plants will grow quite well directly in water.

If you’re just starting out with aquaponics, try growing any of the leafy greens, such as lettuce, spinach, or Swiss chard. If you’re an experienced aquaponic grower, you might branch out to more adventurous options, such as peas, beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, or even peppers.

Whichever plants you choose, start

your seeds in soil, as you would for any garden, and after the seedlings are a couple of inches tall, transplant them to their water environment.

Growing Vegetables on a Raft The easiest way to grow vegetables in a pond is to use a floating raft system. Dense polystyrene is the cheapest and most readily available material to make a floating raft, but be aware of the environmental risks: when it

Cannabis and Tilapia

Canada legalized recreational cannabis in 2018.

(Medical cannabis has been legal in Canada under certain circumstances since 2001.) This has spawned a number of commercial growing operations. One of the most interesting such growing operations is located in southern Ontario.

Green Relief grows medical cannabis in an underground facility that provides about 2 acres of growing space lit by LED lights. The plants grow in rafts floating in tanks supplied with water from fish tanks containing tilapia.

The fish waste in the water provides plenty of nutrients for the plants. The circulating water keeps both the fish and the plant roots welloxygenated. The company harvests both cannabis and fish from the system.

In a demonstration area, Green Relief uses the exact same system to grow a variety of flowers and vegetables; see photo on Page 27.

Green Relief uses separate tanks for the tilapia that provide organic waste material to support its medical cannabis growing operation, which fills a 2-acre facility.

TECHNIQUES AND METHODS • www.MotherEarthNews.com 25

Short on space? Pack pretty pots with flower and vegetable companions on your patio (above).

Play with colors and textures as the author does in her central California garden (left).

son means they’ll stick around for when pests show up.

Think Integration, Not Segregation

WISE PAIRINGS

Growing Flowers and Vegetables Together

Plant a profusion of pollen- and nectar-rich flowers among your edible plants to help control pests, boost pollination, and provide eye-pleasing pops of color.

Article and photos

by Rosalind Creasy

I

n the 1970s, when I was a budding landscape designer, I attended the garden opening of one of my clients.

As I walked around anonymously, wine glass in hand, I overheard many guests

exclaiming, “Do you see that? She put flowers in the vegetable garden!”

In the United States, segregating vegetables from flowers still seems like such a hard-and-fast rule that when I lecture on edible landscaping, one of the first things I mention is that I’ve checked the Constitution, and planting

34 MOTHER EARTH NEWS COLLECTOR SERIES • ORGANIC GARDENING

flowers in a vegetable garden is not forbidden. Not only can you put flowers in with vegetables, you should.

I admit that, in the ’70s, I first intermixed my flowers and vegetables because I was gardening in the front yard of my suburban home and hoped the neighbors wouldn’t notice or complain

as long as the veggies were surrounded by flowers. Soon, however, I discovered I had fewer pest problems, I saw more and more birds, and my crops were thriving.

It turns out that flowers are an essential ingredient in establishing a healthy garden because they attract beneficial insects and birds, which control pests and pollinate crops.

Most gardeners understand this on some level. They may even know that pollen and nectar are food for insects, and that seed heads provide food for birds. What some may not realize is just how many of our wild meadows and native plants have disappeared under acres of lawn, inedible shrubs, and industrial agriculture’s fields of monocultures, leaving fewer food sources for beneficial critters.

With bees and other pollinators under a chemical siege these days and their populations in drastic decline, offering chemical-free food sources and safe havens is crucial. Plus, giving beneficial insects supplemental food sources of pollen and nectar throughout the sea-

One of the cornerstones of edible landscaping is that gardens should be beautiful as well as bountiful. Mixing flowers and vegetables so that both are an integral part of the garden’s design is another key. Let’s say you have a shady backyard, so you decide to put a vegetable garden in the sunny front yard.

Not only can you plant plenty of flowers amid the vegetables in your home garden, you should.

Many folks would install a rectangular bed or wooden boxes, and plant long rows of vegetables, maybe placing a few marigolds in the corners, or planting a separate flower border. In either case, the gardener will have added plants offering a bit of much-needed pollen and nectar.

Integrating an abundance of flowers among the vegetables, however, would impart visual grace while also helping

beneficial insects accomplish more.

Plentiful food sources will allow the insects to healthily reproduce. Plus, most of their larvae have limited mobility.

For example, if a female lady beetle or green lacewing lays her eggs next to the aphids on your violas, the slow-moving, carnivorous larvae won’t be able to easily crawl all the way across the yard to also help manage the aphids chowing down on your broccoli.

In addition to bringing in more “good guys” to munch pests, flowers will give you more control because they can act as a useful barrier—a physical barrier as opposed to the chemical barriers created in non-organic systems. The hornworms on your tomato plant, for instance, won’t readily migrate to a neighboring tomato plant if there’s a tall, “stinky” marigold blocking the way.

Create Cool Combos To begin the process of establishing your edible landscape, you should consider planting flowers with a variety of colors and textures, different sizes and shapes, and an overall appealing aesthetic. After you’ve shed the notion that flowers and vegetables must be separated, a surprising number of cropand-flower combinations will naturally emerge, especially if you keep in mind the following six guidelines.

TECHNIQUES AND METHODS • www.MotherEarthNews.com 35

Best Vegetables

TO GROW IN THE SHADE

Even in shady conditions, you can bask in great garden harvests if you choose the right crops and make a few easy adjustments.

By Colleen Vanderlinden Illustrations by Frank Fretz

F

or many gardeners, the optimum conditions most vegetables prefer—eight to 10 hours of full sun—just aren’t possible. Whether from trees or shadows from nearby buildings, shade is frequently a fact of gardening life. Luckily, shade doesn’t have to stop you from growing food. If you start with the most shade-tolerant crops (see the chart on Page 106 and 107), take extra care to provide fertile soil and ample water, and consider using a reflective plastic mulch, you can establish a productive shade garden and harvest a respectable variety of veggies.

How Much Shade Is Too Much?

All shade is not equal. Some shady conditions will yield much more produce than others will, while some areas are better left for hostas and moss. Gardeners should be familiar with the different types of shade, but should also keep in mind that measuring how much shade your garden gets isn’t always easy.

For instance, nearby trees may cast dappled shade on your garden for some or all of the day. If the tree canopy is high enough and the branches aren’t too dense, the conditions nearby can be shady but still fairly bright. Trimming any lowhanging branches can help let in more sunlight.

More challenging than dappled shade is partial shade, which can be quite variable, ranging from only a couple of sunny hours and many hours of shade to the opposite. Shade from buildings is more difficult to deal with than shade from trees, as it often plunges the garden into total shade for large parts of the day.

As a general rule, if you have a few hours of full sun but dark shade for the rest of the day, you can grow some crops, but the yields won’t be as high as if you had bright or dappled shade during the rest of the day. Maybe your garden has a little of everything: some areas that get a couple of hours of sun, some that get dappled shade, and some that are in complete shade—and the amounts of shade will change seasonally. With such a scenario, adding up the exact amount 104 MOTHER EARTH NEWS COLLECTOR SERIES • ORGANIC GARDENING

Success in the Shade

3 RARE ROOT CROPS

for sandy loam, all three crops benefit from deep trenching, which leads to wellshaped tubers. Crosnes do well in damp locations, and skirret is quite at home on swampy ground or a bank along a stream.

If you have winter garden plots that collect water because of poor runoff, they may lend themselves well to a crop of crosnes or skirret—I’ve planted both in what I call my “swamp,” and they love it.

Low spots tend to ice over, however, so plant these vegetables in a well-drained area under row covers to access them for winter harvests. The same can be said for planting salsify, which will also supply a healthy crop of edible greens when given such protection.

These high-yield root crops are usually free of pests, so they’re quite low-maintenance for organic gardeners. Deer relish salsify greens, but using row covers or a repellent called Liquid Fence will help deter them. Voles are the only serious problems I’ve experienced when growing these rare crops. Fortunately, my farm’s stealthy resident cats have halted many voles in their tracks—and they’ve been rewarded accordingly.

You Should Be Growing Experience the unique flavors of crosnes, salsify, and skirret by adding these unsung, underground treasures to your vegetable garden.

Crisp, Nutty Crosnes

S

Cooks relate the complex, delicate flavors of ‘Luethy’ salsify to both oysters and oatmeal.

erious gardeners, small-scale market farmers, and the managers of community-supported agriculture programs (CSAs) are always on the lookout for unique crops—especially those they can harvest through winter. Many restaurateurs also support seasonal eating by shopping for unusual, local ingredients to fill out their menus during the chilly months. We need not look too far to find interesting options because an array of old-fashioned crops are well-suited to take up the call where summer vegetables leave off. I’ve grown crosnes, salsify, and skirret for more than 35 years and have gotten to know them well. They are the “three sisters” of my winter garden, and they’ve kept my table amply supplied with unusual and delightful dishes.

All three of these epicurean treasures remain fairly close to their wild ancestors. Perennial crosnes and skirret are hardy in Zones 4 to 8. Salsify is a Mediterranean crop and, as a biennial, requires a winter rest period.

It’s hardy in Zones 6 to 8 (or into colder Zones if given ample winter protection). Aside from their preference

TOP TO BOTTOM: NORM SHAFER; FOTOLIA/HELENEDEVUN; PAGE 112: WILLIAM WOYS WEAVER

By William Woys Weaver

This perennial plant originated in eastern Asia, where the tubers are mostly made into pickles. These plants were brought to France in the 19th century under the name “Chinese artichoke,” and eventually took their European name, crosnes (pronounced croans), from the French village where they were first cultivated.

In cookery, you can treat crosnes tubers like water chestnuts. Their mildly nutty, artichoke-like flavor and crunchy texture add appeal to salads, stir-fries, and mixed vegetables. They also make excellent pickles because they retain their crispness well. Many Japanese cooks pickle crosnes with red shiso under the name chorogi, which you can purchase in jars in most Asian stores. Rather than the red saltiness of chorogi, I prefer sweetand-sour combinations. Green shiso is quite pleasant for contrasting flavor, especially if you add a few hot peppers to the mix. In fact, most cooks in the United States haven’t explored the full culinary potential of crosnes, so this rare

Unusually shaped crosnes can be cooked, pickled, or used to add crunch to salads and stir-fries.

crop remains on the cutting edge of new American cuisine.

Its foliage resembles mint in appearance, and the plants spread via knobby tubers that develop around the roots during late summer and early fall. For best results, plant the tubers in a grid pattern, 4 inches apart in each direction.

Crosnes bloom with attractive, purple, spiky flowers that look similar to betony blossoms—not surprising, as the two are botanically related. Because of their handsome flowers, crosnes plants lend themselves to accenting colorful, edible landscapes. Keep an eye on them, though, as crosnes can become invasive when grown as ornamentals.

You can begin harvesting crosnes tubers in late fall, after frost has killed the tops, by gently pulling on the plants and digging up the tubers. Continue harvesting into winter. One downside to crosnes is that they discolor if exposed to the air for longer than a day, which is why growers who sell them at markets generally leave them in the ground as long as possible and dig them as needed. Because of their knobby shape, the tubers require special care in washing; an old toothbrush or a small bottlebrush will come in handy for this purpose. As you clean them, you can drop the tubers into a bowl of water with a bit of lemon juice so they won’t discolor before you serve them.

FALL • www.MotherEarthNews.com 113