Not So Common Chive

I walked in my garden this week in our BestComposters.com Lawn Aerator Shoes so that all that wonderful moisture that we’ve gotten all week can make it’s way down to the roots of our lawn. It’s a really easy way to do something nice for your lawn! Beforehand, we’d spread a little of our compost as a dressing onto the lawn as well, and the nutrients will be absorbed more quickly with the aerating too. As I did my aerating and checked out what damage the storms might’ve done in our yard, I was overjoyed to see my alum schoenoprasum, or Common Chive, poking up through the Spring snow. This hardy and easy to grow perennial is one of two planted in my garden years ago when I discovered that my family enjoys snipped chive on baked potatoes. I personally love the sweet pink blossoms and look forward to adding them to my salads for a blast of color and splash of mild onion flavor. The chive plant is a member of the same family as onions, garlic and leeks and is lovely whipped into softened butter and added to mashed potatoes or on grilled meat. It can be added, as well, to sauces, soups and salads, and is especially yummy in chicken or tuna salad. The vibrant green pleases the eye as much as the flavor enhances the salad!

You can plant the seeds of the chive plant now in your garden, or anytime in a pot to set on a sunny window sill. Once it has bloomed (don’t forget to add those gorgeous clover-like blossoms to your salads!), the tops should be snipped all the way to the soil. You’ll be pleased to see them shoot right back up and provide you with more chives all through the summer and early fall.

Being from the garlic family, the flavor of chives is comparable to garlic, but can be savored by those of us who are sensitive to garlic without concern. And like garlic, chive has therapeutic qualities. It won’t keep the kids from Twilight away in a ring around your neck, but will aid digestion of rich foods, protect your respiratory system, and has antiseptic value.

Hints:
1. Freeze fresh chives by mincing the shoots, spreading in a flat casserole dish and flash freezing. They can then be stored in plastic freezer bags.
2. When cooking with chives, add them at the end of cooking.
3. Make chive butter by creaming 4 TBSP chopped chives with ½ cup softened butter. Add ½ tsp fresh squeezed lemon juice and salt and pepper to taste. Roll into a cylinder in a sheet of parchment paper and refrigerate for approximately one week.

Growing Potatoes in Containers

You may remember, or you may need to check back in the archives for a January blog of mine about growing potatoes in a garbage can.  In that blog, I talked about how I loved the idea of growing my own potatoes without having to dedicate so much of my garden space to it.  Growing potatoes in a garbage can solved the issue of space requirements, and also watering issues, since hubby is going to place the can under one of our hanging tomato plants that he's set up with a drip system!  Clever, isn't he?

So I went out and got a new garbage can for my trash and am ready to drill air holes in the sides of the old garbage can (AFTER I clean it thorougly with BiOWiSH™ Bin Wash.  That 100% organic cleaner will remove all the odors and odor causing bacteria from my old trash can so that I can start this grow with a nice clean can.)  But then I read an article in my Friday, April 9, 2010 The Denver Post Grow insert called "Potato box yields scads of spuds" and it gave me pause.  It seems that this fella, Greg Lutovsky, out of eastern Washington state has developed this 4 foot square spud box that can provide a really impressive yield of potatoes!  Mr. Lutovsky lists five steps to succes in this process:
1.  Select late-season potatoes.  My hubby says this is vitally important because short-season potato varieties produce a limited amount of potatoes and then the plant dies off.
2.  Plant in multiple layers; like lasagna, put in a layer of soil, a layer potatoes and additional side panels as the vines grow a foot above the soil level, making sure to leave at least 2/3 of the vine above the new layer of soil.
3.  Wind a soaker hose through each successive layer of soil and taters so all layers of roots get even moisture.
4.  Provide the potatoes with a medium of loose soil, like compost mixed with potting soil.
5.  Don't overfertilize!  He recommends a 5-10-10 fertilizer instead of a standard plant food.  I think I'll stick to my organic compost that I make in our tumbling composter that our website offers, so that the potato plants will be continuously nourished by the compost.
This all sounds like simple, sound advice.  And frankly, harvesting the vegies sounds like a walk in the park!  The only trouble is that we'd already planned on a garden addition this spring, adding a raised garden in our backyard so that: a) we have more space to grow vegies and b) we have less lawn to mow (!).  This addition will entail a trip to the hardware store for wood, funds for the wood, time planning out where exactly to put it in our yard and how to build it, laying down newspaper over the grass to keep it from growing into the planter and filling it with compost and soil.  This is a large enough investment of time and money to have me putting the Potato Box on hold until next year.  So if you're interested in growing your own potatoes with a limited amount of space and effort harvesting, and you like woodcrafting, Google "Build a Potato Box" or check out the diagram available on lifehacker.com.