WOW! Looks like some great eatin' at your home!!! :-)

I love fall crops, but they are often foods people don't eat much anymore.

Fall is also a great time for mastering fermented vegetables. I was looking at a recipe last night in "Nourishing Traditions" for fermented sweet potatoes, and another for "Potato Cheese", which is fermented cooked potatoes - a recipe from "The American Frugal Housewife" published in 1833. That should provide something different for Thanksgiving dinner this year (LOL).

-Grainlady

Thanks for the visit to your household. I enjoyed it. That is one happy looking woman and great looking vegetables.

Jim

WOW!
Beautiful vegetables!
And yes, a VERY happy looking woman.

I love all the coles, and would be hard put to have to choose a favorite.
So I am really drooling here.

I've never heard of white sweet potatoes.
Please tell us about them,
How to they compare to 'regular' sweet potatoes in flavor, texture, etc?

Thanks for sharing.

Rusty

Oops. . . ..

"How to they compare"

Should read "How DO they compare. . ."

Rusty

Everything looks so good!! Enjoy.

I love it when I can find fresh Brussels Sprouts on the stem and those are amazing cauliflowers! Great haul!

Alexa

Nice pair of cauliflower - I've never seen them so big!

You can win many prices with such incredible harvest.

Wow!

BTW, how far away are you from 3-Mile Island? :-)

dcarch

Wow, my Brussel sprouts look positively aneamic next to those stems.

Lucky you

Thanks everyone! Now if I had only grown them myself. But when they produce stuff like that... why bother? Believe me loves2 when I grow them they don't do as well. Smiles. This does look like a particularly good crop this year, particularly for the sprouts. That's about as good as they get. Last year they were smaller but they've been this size pretty often. I have seen the cauliflower even bigger though. I remember one of the first years we moved up here I had to take a pic of one of the cauliflower to send to Christy's family in New Orleans so they'd believe her. LOL. This weekend was the first of the brussels, so I look forward to many more of them. She got the last two stalks.

Rusty, the white sweet potatoes are starting to show up in grocery stores around the country in the past few years so keep your eyes peeled. They're sort of a creamy color inside when raw and a yellow when cooked. The texture is nice and fine, smooth, just what you'd want a really good sweet to be like. They are a little sweeter than regular sweet potatoes. If you boil or bake them and then later saute the halves in some butter they will carmalize much more than other sweets, forming a great caramel crust. I always like to take the extras and peel and halve them and fry them up in butter.

DCArch.. lol.. probably about a hundred miles. It's just that great black NJ loam from thousands of years of old growth forests, close enough to the pinelands to give some sand for drainage. Just great soil and good location/atmosphere. My other friends farm in town was one of the first to do the giant pumpkins. They stopped competing years ago but did have some winners. They still carve a couple dozen giant pumpkins and line the driveway to the farm with them. Purty.

Thanks for the info on the white sweet potatoes, coconut.
That is interesting, and
They really do sound good.

Seems like it takes forever for anything new
to make its way down here.
Maybe because folks in this area are
pretty resistant to change.
Not many adventuresome souls willing to try new things.
And in this economy, the stores only stock what they know will sell.

But I will be watching for them.
And thanks to you,
I'll know what they are when and if they do show up here!

Rusty

Coconut, Elery loves the white sweet potatoes, he grew up eating them he tells me and he prefers them to the darker orange ones. I planted some, Nancy Hall variety, and also planted the orange Georgia Jet. The Jets grew well but the Nancy Hall not so well, I only kept two alive out of a dozen. I got about half a dozen pretty small potatoes from those, darn it. I guess they don't like my climate or something.

Those are some darned nice cauliflowers, and you reminded me that I still have brussels sprouts in the garden waiting to be cut, I'll have to do that Wednesday, it's getting pretty cold here.

Hi, Christy!

Annie

I am sure you know this:

Sweet potato leaves are delicious.

dcarch

Yw Rusty. Yes, it's hard for grocers to take a chance on new items. I've had some luck by asking managers to carry something and then following up and asking again in a month or two. Our local IGA didn't carry pastina, the mini star pastas and after about a year they started and did find they had a customer base so still carry them.

Annie, Christy would say Hi back if she were awake. LOL. Thanks. Yes, I think ours are Nancy Hall too. A good old fashioned variety. Hope you give them another chance. I think they'll like your climate....eventually..lol. Last year all the Nancy Halls I saw were small so as usual, with any type of farming/gardening, ya never know. I have heard that some places need to throw down some black plastic to warm the ground before they put them in. I agree with Elery, they're my fave by far. I hear ya on the harvesting. It's in the thirties tonight. I even broke down and put the heat on for the first time this evening. It was 53 in the house and while I can take it all the animals were huddled like I had them outside in the snow. LOL.. Last night when I went up to bed, all three upstairs cats were plastered against Christy for heat.

Yeah dcarch, that's one of the real downsides to buying instead of growing. You miss out on some of those good parts.

Wow what a haul, those are some fine looking cauliflowers! I love the Fall crops too especially squash. Never met a squash I didn't like.

Interesting about the white sweet potatoes, I'll have to keep an eye out for them.

Thanks, coconut, I'll give Nancy Hall another try next year. It was inordinately hot this year, so I kind of assumed that they'd be OK. The Georgia Jets were amazing and they are so sweet they don't need anything else at all.

Annie

Love sweet potatoes just about anyway you fix them. Have kinda gotten burned out with the sweet potato casserole w/marshmallows although I fixed it for years.

I got this recipe from P Allen Smith(the gardener) yesterday and had a much smaller amount last night with baked sweet potato. Not many white sweet potatoes around here so we use the orange ones.

6-8 Sweet Potatoes
1/4 lb. butter
4 T. brown sugar
2 T. Dijon mustard
pinch of salt

Bake sweet potatoes at 350 degrees until soft. In a small mixing bowl mix butter, brown sugar, Dijon mustard and salt. Blend well. Remove potatoes from oven, slice top open. Add dollop of butter mixture.

Very good!

BTW, I never heard of eating the leaves until I saw a post on the Harvest Forum recently.

jude

Now that's one happy looking lady! I can assure you that if I made my DW pose with brussel sprouts she'd not look that happy.

This thread is reminding me to go to my farmstand and see what they've got these days. I do remember loving their cauliflower last year, in fact it was then that I came to actually appreciate cauliflower. I'll buy two, and if I can get DW to pose like Christie I'll post it. Don't hold your breath though, esp if she figures out it's for CF!

There are four kinds of sweet potatoes in the Asian stores here, white, yellow, orange and purple. They all have a much firmer texture and taste like chestnuts. Very nice.

I bought some yellow kind and managed to get some slips to grow this year.

dcarch

Coconut and Christy, those vegetable are amazing! I would love to find sprouts on the stalk and huge cauliflower around here. I envy you your good NJ soil and industrious farmers. Years ago I tried some white sweet potatoes grown in NC, but I wasn't impressed, so I stick with our good crops of the regular sweets.

Just had to post a picture of my "crop" in this thread! Ha!

{{!gwi}}

There is a story behind this basil plant: back in early May I bought this pot of 2 basil plants (in the same 4" pot) from a farmer at the market where I sell my bread. So.....I didn't get it planted, but sat it in a small saucer on top of a glass canister so it could get some light in my north facing kitchen window. I plucked a few leaves now and then as needed and now, 6 months later, it is still living!

Close-up, Mr. DeMille:

{{!gwi}}

The plants have not bloomed, but now I'm thinking about a bigger pot next year with several plants in it. Wonder if I can keep a bigger pot going? I thought about using it all up and tossing the remainder, but now I kind of want to see just how long I can keep this pot going! Oh, and I have kept cut sprigs of organic basil going in a small pitcher of water since early June - same window, right beside the plant.

Amazing to me!
Teresa

What beautiful vegetables! And looks like a very happy DW too!

Beverly

Nice to meet you Christy! Dolly Parton might be jelous....LOL! : ) Looks like a great haul of fall veggies for sure. I've never heard of or had white sweet potatoes. I'll have to check and ask around down here. That's a huge head of cabbage too.

David

LOL David, the pic didn't look so Dolly Partonish until I posted it.. then I thought.. oh well.. heh. Yes, David ask some of the old farmers at a farm stand and see if anyone is growing them. Nice to get such a big cabbage too. Make me want to make stuffed cabbage but this one will be soup for a couple months.

Sharon, yes, between the cole crops and the squash I could just eat veggies all winter. Too bad Christy is a carnivore, but I must say she's come to eat a lot less meat and enjoy some strictly veggie dinners too.

Sounds good Annie. Worth a try, but when you have something that's working, that's great too. I like the sweets pretty much just with butter. I rarely bother or get around to using them in recipes.

Jude, thanks! That sounds great and Christy really likes mustard so I'll try that soon. Love P Allen Smith!

LOL Foodona... the first pic she actually seemed to be frowning so I asked her to perk it up.. lol. I was shocked she 'let' me post her pics on here. I think she was delirious with all the great produce!

That sounds great dcarch. I'd like to try all of them. Smiles.

Teresa, your basil made me laugh. I've had plants that looked just like those on my kitchen windowsill more years than not. Some years I've had them until spring and planted them... finally. LOL. Since we never know if I'm going to be mobile from one season/month/day to the next Christy will bring me home plants and it's up in the air if they'll get planted. This year I had some sungold cherry tomatoes and some san marzano type plums that lived on the sill. In the four packs I might add. I got quite a few cherries off that plant and a few of the plums. This year the basil was in water and did fine until I ran out of my freezer stock and used it all. I was desperate. I go through four or five one gallon bags stuffed with basil per winter. Smiles. So yes, a bigger pot and you should do great with it. I do try to nip it back a bit so it branches. Btw, mine is a north facing window too, so it's a wonder it does anything.

Thanks Beverly! We have eaten the veggies for three days now and she usually won't eat leftovers. Right now I have the giant stockpot on, cooking the meat for the veggie soup, so tomorrow that cabbage and other veggies will take the plunge.

David, I'm still chuckling at you.

dcarch, - OK, I have to know, because I didn't know until you said so that I could eat the sweet potato leaves.

How do you eat them? Stuffed? Chopped and added to a dish?

Give up the secret!

I'm so intriged by the fact I could eat the sweet potato leaves I almost forgot to say I love the beautiful veggies!

I wrote down the names of the sweet potatoes so I can try them next year. Never grown sweet potatoes before.

Betty

Posted by bettyd_z7_va ------dcarch, - OK, I have to know, because I didn't know until you said so that I could eat the sweet potato leaves.
How do you eat them? Stuffed? Chopped and added to a dish?

Give up the secret! ------"

Sorry! Forgot to get back to you.

You can use sweet potato leaves like spinach. They taste milder with a sweet after taste. Less watery than spinach when cooked.

I have not use them in a salad.

dcarch

Coconut nj:
That's a great Harvest. Thanks for sharing !!!
the giant crop.

But that is the weirdest looking fish, in the first Photo.
****************
My 5 gallon Garden ( Tomato Plant ) is still growing.
Have about 10 tomatoes left.
The little Plant, I grew from seed, (too late ), is about 5 1/2 feet tall,
with about 10 tomatoes, the size of a Pea.
I put it in the same pot.Don't know if it will survive, in the house?

I put more corn in the freezer for this winter, same as last year.
Are you still freezing your's with the husks on ???
LOU

Argh, I miss NJ!! We used to buy the most fantastic vegetables and fruit, farm stands everywhere with fresh, delicious produce. Best tomatoes ever. If only the winters weren't so cold. :o)

Thanks dcarch,

I love spinach. Now I HAVE to try the sweet potato leaves.

Betty

BTW Betty, sweet potato leaves are commonly used by the Asians. It's not my discovery in eating them.

dcarch

Sorry Lou I didn't get back to answer you on this thread. LOL.. yeah.. that's some fish! I do have some corn frozen in the husk but not that much. It was so good this year that I just kept eating it. We had many meals of just corn. Think I only have a dozen or so frozen, but still that will be nice in the middle of winter, eh? Your indoor tomatoes didn't do bad considering.

Petra, yes, I do love all the great produce here, but it does get pretty cold. Certainly not as cold as some get, but being between a river and the ocean it gets awfully damp with the cold. It's been warm this week [50's] but it's been so damp it really feels much colder. But I envy your zone 8 because I'd be growing my own citrus for one thing.

Betty, I'm looking forward to Christy getting to the Asian produce market and checking out the sweet potato leaves.

Coconut, we're in the Hill Country area of TX, so no citrus for us. San Antonio is over an hour's drive away and several degrees warmer, lots of citrus trees there. We planted a couple when we first moved here, and they froze. It doesn't get nearly as cold as NJ, but last night, for example, it went down to 29. Hub bought me a Meyer Lemon several years ago and it has to be brought inside every winter. We do have a pomegranate (harvested 4 poms this year and hoping for way more next year) which seems to be pretty cold-resistant.
It's a weird climate, too cold for citrus, but not cold enough for cherries.

Ah, Petra, I understand. My cousin Bobbi and her husband just retired and moved to the Hill Country. They used to live in Austin. They spent the past couple of years building their house themselves and winters were pretty cold in their temporary digs. One great perk was that this past spring they found a major harvest of morels. That's a pretty good reason to live there, aside from the beauty.

Coconut, Morels?? We've lived here since '01, and I had no idea there were morels! Did they find them on their own property? What part of the Hill Country do they live in?
The drawback to living here is that there is not much public land, most everything is privately owned. No Trespassing signs or fences are everywhere, which makes mushroom hunting difficult.

That is some amazing produce!! I guess that's why NJ is the Garden State and if I remember correctly--the Eggplant Capital of the World.

Those are beautiful veggies! My neighbor comes from New Jersey and he tells me of the wonderful sweet corn they grow.

I don't grow many fall crops and really should give it a try...but no Brussels sprouts!