Tag Archives: growing food

Growing Your Own Lettuce

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Put potting soil or compost in a sour cream container that has holes in the bottom. Water the soil and then sprinkle your lettuce seeds over top. Sprinkle soil about 1/8” over the seeds. Water daily, making sure you don’t water too much or the seeds will wash down and won’t sprout.

Once your lettuce is 1-2” tall, transplant them individually into a small cell tray. Once they’ve reached 4-5” tall, it’s time to plant them outside.

Plant them about 8” apart in rows. We put manure and water in the holes before planting. Water everyday until they’re established.

We lightly mulch around ours to keep mud from splattering on the lettuce when it rains.

Our Beets and Lettuce growing side by side in our garden

Once they are ready to pick, pick only the outside leaves working from the bottom up, leaving the smaller ones in the middle. Remove any yellow leaves and put them on the compost pile, or feed it to your sheep or goats.

When you notice your plants starting to grow slower, you will need to put manure around them to help feed the soil.

Doing it this way, you will get more lettuce from your plants, the lettuce stays clean and they will produce longer.

“And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.”

Gen. 1:29

Planting, Growing, & Preserving Your Own Garlic

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When you plant garlic, you plant the garlic cloves.

You want to start by breaking your cloves apart from each other. Do not pull the ‘paper’ off of your cloves. Make sure to pick your biggest and best looking cloves, not the inside ones that are small and clumped together. Otherwise, you won’t have big bulbs when you harvest them midsummer.

He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully.

2 Cor. 9:6

Planting

Garlic grows best when planted in the mid fall. First, work up your soil where you want to plant it well, and mix in plenty of compost.

In a straight line, you start planting by taking the garlic cloves, with the stem pointing up in the air and roots pointing downward, and push it into the soil. Leave only the stem sticking up above the soil.

Keep repeating this process, making sure to plant the cloves 4 inches or so apart from each other.

When you have finished planting them, you will want to cover them with straw or old hay (and keep your chickens out of the beds!) Wet down the straw or old hay so that it doesn’t just blow away.

Growing

In the Spring, they will start to grow some tops. They will continually get taller, making bigger and bigger bulbs throughout the spring and early summer.

Garlic does not need as much water as other plants. If you water 2x per week, they will do well (remember to minus the rain you receive).

Harvesting

Note: Before you harvest, it is easier to pull them up if you wet your soil a day prior to harvesting. If you don’t want to do that, you can always use a shovel; but remember to dig them carefully!

When the tops of the garlic are laid over and dry, it is ready to be harvested.

This should be mid to late summer.

Preservation/Curing

After you have pulled/dug your garlic, lay them to dry on a table outside in the shade. Keep them there (unless it rains; then move them into a barn, garage, etc) until the stems are dry and brittle.

How do you know when the stems are dry? When you can break them easily, and they feel brittle like straw or old hay.

Why do they have to be dry?

You want them to be dry, so that when you braid your stems together, they do not mold, wasting your time and harvest.

Storing/ Hanging

We like to store our garlic by braiding the stems together and hanging them in the coolest, driest place possible.

To begin braiding, take 3 garlic (we leave our stems long and intact) and begin braiding them like you would someones hair, adding more as you go, like in a french style braid.

Take some sort of twine, yarn, or whatever will do the job and tie the end of your braid. Knot, and make a loop to hang it from. Hang your loop on a nail or something in a cool dry place. If some of your bulbs break off, it’s alright. You can store them in an onion bag or just use them first.

Don’t forget to save some back to replant in the fall!

May Yehovah bless you as you grow some of your own garlic for the first time!

How to Start, Grow, Harvest and Preserve Your Own Sweet Potatoes

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Starting Your Slips

In mid-winter take your best sweet potato and put it in a quart canning jar filled with water. (DO NOT CUT YOUR POTATO!)

Don’t have a sweet potato you grew? That’s okay, just get a couple from the store.

Set your canning jar in the window sill. Change the water every few days, or when the water begins to stink.

After about 3 weeks, your sweet potato will start to sprout. Once your sprouts/slips are 3”-4” tall and leafed out, snip off the slips and put them in a pint jar of water.

Once they are in the jar of water, they will start growing their own roots.

If the slip or root growing process seems to be taking awhile, adding some compost to the water helps to speed up the growth.

Once your slips have grown roots that are 2-4”, they are ready to transplant.

We have found that it works best to plant them in a pot of dirt that is VERY wet.

This prevents them from going into shock, by just going straight from the jar of water, into the garden.

You want to keep them in your pot of wet dirt for at least 5-7 days, longer is okay.

If it is still cold outside, keep this pot indoors in a window sill as well.

Planting Sweet Potatoes Outside

You want to plant your slips outside after your last frost date. With your hoe, make small hills about 1′ around and 1′ high.

With your hoe handle, make a 4” deep hole in the center of your hill. Take your slips (we like to do 3-4 per hill), spread out the roots and cover with dirt. Then top your hill with compost.

Watering

Water WELL everyday until plants are established. This is VERY IMPORTANT!

Once established water a couple times a week (unless it rains, of course).

Pests

There are many garden pests who will attack your potato vines. These include sweet potato weevils, sweet potato beetles, wireworms, flea beetles, and blister beetles.

If any pests attack your sweet potato plant, spray Neem oil (organic spray) 1-2x per week, or more depending on how bad the bugs are and how much damage they are causing.

If it is blister beetles that are eating your sweet potato plants, remove them WITH GLOVES (THEY DO GIVE BLISTERS) into soapy water. You will have to be on top of it checking daily, or several times daily, until they are gone. Otherwise they WILL destroy your plants.

Feeding the Plant

If your sweet potato leaves are looking a little yellow, or just not growing well, you need to feed the plant. You need to add compost around the hill and plant. It is also a good idea to put hay or mulch around the hills in the dry season, to keep the moisture in.

When to Harvest

Harvesting is an exciting time, and a time to be thankful to God for what He has blessed us with. Ecc. 3:13 says, “Every man should eat and drink, and enjoy the good of all his labour, it is the gift of God.”

Before your first frost date (it is alright if the plants get frosted on, just make sure they don’t get frosted on repeatedly.)

Take a potato fork and dig up the hills, being careful not to dig the fork into the potatoes themselves.

Carefully brush off any dirt with a soft bristled brush, making sure you do not remove or scratch the skins.

Storing

Store them in a cool, dark place to let them cure for about two weeks. You can begin using them after this time; but they longer they cure, the sweeter they will be!

Preserving

If your sweet potatoes are not keeping well, for whatever reason, you will need to can them.

Prov. 12:27 says, “the substance of a diligent man is precious.” We don’t want what is ‘precious’ to us to go to waste!

Canning

You begin this process by washing the potatoes well. Cut them into bigger chunks, (you can peel now, or after the boil) put them into water and bring to a boil. Let them boil for about 10 minutes, then remove from heat. Do not strain the water out of the potatoes; you are going to use it in a moment.

Take the potatoes out of the water with a slotted spoon. If you did not peel them beforehand, you can slip them off now. Fill the jars with the peeled potato chunks.

Ladle the water you boiled them in over the potato chunks, leaving 1” head space between the water and lid. Put your lids and rings on the jars tightly.

Place your jars in the canner with hot water, and slide the lid into ‘lock’ position. Once steam starts to come out of the vent pipe, set your timer for 10 minutes.

When your timer goes off, and your ten minutes in up, put the weight on, and let the pressure build up to 10psi.

If you used pint jars, keep at 10psi for an hour and 5 minutes.

If you used quart jars, keep at 10psi for an hour and a half.

When the time is up, let cool as the pressure comes out. When all the pressure is out (your psi is back to zero) Remove your jars from the canner. DO NOT re-tighten bands if they came loose.

Allow to continue cooling for about 12 hours or so.

Check your seals (use any if they didn’t seal, soon) and store.

DON’T FORGET! Save some of your potatoes to start your slips in mid winter! Then you’ll never have to buy slips from a greenhouse again! 🙂

What to do with Canned Sweet Potatoes?

You can heat them up straight from the jar, mash, and put cinnamon and butter on them, or you can add them to soup.

Have you ever had Sweet Potato Pie? If you like Pumpkin Pie, Sweet Potato Pie is just as good. Some in our family would say EVEN BETTER!

Here is our family’s favorite recipe: