Musings about vegetables

Before I started growing them myself, I used to think that onions and potatoes were about the same home-grown vs. buying them. Boy, was I wrong. Fresh onions and potatoes are nothing like their stored versions, fresh being deliciously succulent (full of water in their cells, I guess) vs being cured (or dried out). I harvested the last potato bed this afternoon, but plan on replanting the smallest potatoes as 'seeds' for potentially a fall harvest. I tried a fall planting last year, and had a nice (small) harvest.

Fresh-picked squash are another revelation; the eight-ball squash, green scalloped squash, and yellow squash that I harvested (and we ate) for dinner this evening, cooked with fresh garlic and onions, are hard to beat -- not a bit of toughness in the skins.

Something called 'mixed summer squash' that I sowed in early June is now started to produce fruit. I think they were Curcurbita moschata, normally grown as winter squash, but hopefully delicious as young fruits.

Rotations are so important, and I need to step up my record-keeping in addition to my 'online notes'. At the botanical garden, a couple of our raised beds in the Food for Thought are showing signs of lack of rotation and planting diversity -- squash bugs, wilt in some tomatoes (perhaps not resistant varieties), etc. And, there was another woodchuck boldly running up past the Ethnobotany Garden this morning. This, after relocating three of them already!