We’ve had an overnight low of 21°F already, despite the unseasonable daily high temps. One of the things I prefer to do after our first few frosts is harvesting our Jerusalem artichokes (Helianthus tuberosus) because of the chemical changes they undergo - the starches change and they become a little sweeter.
If you haven’t yet (and you haven’t), please suggest a plant nursery doing good things in your region (or a region other than your own, that’s fine too) so others visiting can put their plant dollars towards nurseries engaged in good works and social equity.
What’s growing on with you all?
I recently harvested and processed my luffa! Four good gourds, plus a few smaller ones that’ll just be compost. All but one were very green still, so I roasted them in the oven at 250F for an hour to make the skins workable, squeezed out the pulp and seeds, cut them into a flat sheet, and then soaked in a bleach solution overnight to kill any mold/bacteria before leaving them to dry. I’m excited to make some sponges!
I’ll be definitely be planting more next year, the super long vines are very fun, especially the one that grew along the top of my garden fence this year.
Some luffa pics -
Sheets drying
Four gourds
Luffa growing on the fence - I had to add some extra support here, the weight of the gourds was pulling the fence down!
aesthetic
Awesome photos, thank you for sharing! You’ve made me envious, I’ll have to grow some of these next year
This variety is called ‘Red Fuseau’
i have photos somewhere on my phone, but we began clearing the back section of our yard for the eventual meadow installation in a year or so! we raked up all the leaves/sticks/junk and got about 1/3 of it covered in cardboard to kill everything off. i need to read back over my materials, but i think the idea is to uncover for a month every few months to let the weed seeds germinate, then cover it back up to kill them off.
actual seeding will happen in early october of next year, likely with a mix from prairie moon.
The seeds should germinate just fine under your cardboard, unless you’ve got a ton of the species that need light to germinate (most don’t, in my experience). That’s awesome though, I can’t tell you how excited I am for your project!
ah, then maybe uncovering is so that i can pull them all out, hahaha.
Interesting.
The times I’ve sheet mulched with materials that required removal, said material was only removed for replanting
Garden cleanup continues! I’m doing the boring bits of tidying/repairing my cheapo greenhouse from last year. I’ll be putting some more onions in the ground just to have greens.