How To Prepare Valerian Root

Up north, you'll have to wait for late summer. In the South, garlic is mature by early summer. Cook scapes very lightly in a saute or briefly on the grill for a mild allium flavor.

Because the plants don't form their edible tubers until the days begin to shorten at the end of the growing season, oca isn't harvested until early winter, making it an excellent crop for the winter pantry or CSA box .

Purple sweet potatoes are poised to become as popular as kale at trendy restaurants and farmers markets, even in northern climates where they're more challenging to grow. Create The Planting Rows Jessica Walliser Like other types, purple sweet potatoes...

I asked a farmer friend who said that she always learned that you should plant daikon as a fall crop, not a spring crop. Where were they? Harvest Like A Pro Here is a harvest tip to avoid breaking daikon while harvesting: Don't pull straight up! You may...

Do not allow mature roots to sit in the pot for too long, or they'll grow woody and the roots may crack. Step 3: Sow The Seeds Just as you do in the garden, sow carrot seeds about 1/4 to 1/2 inch apart.

Baby beet roots can be harvested when the roots reach about 1 inch in diameter. If kept just above freezing, the roots will last for months. This means multiple plants arise from each planted seed, making thinning absolutely necessary.

If this happens to your shallot crop, don't bury them or put mulch over them as this can lead to bulb rot. Air must be allowed to circulate around the entire bulb during this curing period.

Try these varieties: Purple Top: my family's favorite Golden Globe: cherished for both its exceptional flavor and yellow color and the Tokyo Market: a beautiful white turnip Beets This root crop is a personal favorite.

The small seed potatoes are planted about 2 inches deep in the seeding beds when the soil temperature reaches 65 to 70 degrees F, usually sometime in March. Harvesting Sweet Potatoes Healthy sweet-potato vines produce a bushel of sweet potatoes from a...

Feed Your Soil Alice Henneman/Flickr Well-drained and fertile soil is optimal for most crops, but especially for fennel. It needs fertile soil high in organic matter to produce a sizable bulb, and few things enrich soil and add humus quite like well-made...

I ended up planting 8 pounds of Kennebec seed potatoes. On a whim, I decided to plant potatoes this year and I'm so glad I did—75 pounds of delicious potatoes await the dinner table.

To manage its spread, you'll have to dig up areas encroaching on other flower beds. My parents click their tongues and shake their heads, as they long ago learned the wisdom of using their Vita-Mix outside on a windy day.

Sow all varieties in August for late-season harvest and overwintering. Spinach bolts (or flowers) quickly in warm weather. Soil pH should be 6.5 to 7.5. When to plant: Direct-seed in very early spring (ideal soil temperatures for germination are between...

Instead, it's absorbed via diffusion, naturally moving from an area of higher concentration (the soil) to one of lower concentration (inside the root). Irrigate at ground level, if possible, as wet foliage promotes fungal diseases, such as leaf blight,...

To deter them, I cover my newly planted radish seeds with floating row covers. Harvests begin anywhere from 20 to 40 days after planting, depending on the variety. If the plants begin to flower before the root has formed, no root will develop, or if the...

Have you ever eaten a Jerusalem artichoke ( Helianthus tuberosus )? You might have seen them at the farmers' market , but if you didn't know to look you could easily have missed them.

Repeat the thinning in three to four weeks,” he says. “Leave about a 4-centimeter space around each remaining seedling. Carrots You can begin harvesting carrots when they're approximately finger-sized or wait until they are fully mature.

They boast a mild, crisp, tender flesh with a surprisingly delicate flavor. When to plant: Best planted in late summer for fall harvests, but can be grown season-long. Where to plant: Garden; containers When to harvest: 55 days after seeding, when roots...

Starting them too early can mean they get hammered with pests. If you catch them early, however—sometimes literally catch them, as their defense mechanism is to fall off the plant—and put them in soapy water, you shouldn't have any long-term effects.

Rows should be 1½ to 2 feet apart. Consider Laurentian rutabagas for high yield or Helenor for uniformity. This may involve irrigating, waiting several days and raking before you seed or or transplant.

Then I found plants with glued stones as mulch, with spongy moss where I expected bark, or with some other impenetrable surface treatment that defied any attempts to know just what was in that pot.

It exposes developing larvae and pupa to both freezing temperatures and predators, such as spiders, ground beetles and numerous species of birds. If you follow a few simple guidelines, baskets full of crisp, peppery radishes will find their way to the...

Although the flavor is fairly mild, it does develop a bit of spice when the weather warms. White Beauty Tomato Of all the white tomatoes I've grown, White Beauty (pictured above) remains my favorite beefsteak variety—Snow White is my favorite cherry-type.

Potatoes prefer a soil pH between 5.5 and 6.5, and soil that is well-drained. Once they have rested, they're ready for storage. If a root cellar isn't an option, put your harvested potatoes in a wicker or plastic basket, a brown paper bag, or a cardboard...

The soil must be over 40 degrees F for the seeds to germinate. Tags The Dirt on Gardening As it turns out, these roots are surprisingly divine and totally worth growing. Thin the resulting seedlings to a spacing of six to eight inches apart on center.

Peel the rough, gnarly skin by cutting a slice off the top and the bottom (the way you would peel a melon or pineapple). Celeriac has the same flavor as its distant cousin, pascal celery.

It's likely that the plant will completely die back to the ground, but its roots should remain alive and readily sprout in the spring. I ended up with a bad case of the blight , and that, combined with the stink bugs , was a recipe for ‘mater failure.