Last updated on December 2nd, 2011
HERE IN ZONE 5-b, it’s too early to start my kitchen garden. But it’s not too soon to make intelligent decisions about what to grow there. Amid current reports of contaminated supermarket produce, I feel my garden must provide a year’s supply of food for me and my partner. What to plant? Well, the underground dwellers — potatoes, onions, carrots and beets — are the first things I’ll schedule. Here are my favorite “keepers”:
Potatoes should be planted as soon as the soil can be worked; click here for planting instructions. My harvest from last year was considerable, and easily managed in a small, 8×4-foot bed. After harvesting, let the potatoes dry in the sun for exactly 3 hours, and then gently rub away excess dirt (do not wash them). Store in double thicknesses of paper bags, placed someplace cold but above freezing. Mine go in the unheated mudroom. Excellent storage types, based on my own trials with them, are Purple Viking, Kennebec, Yellow Finn, Red Pontiac, All Blue, German Butterball, Yukon Gold, and Superior.
Onions. These are remarkably easy to grow, and if you plant them on the perimeters of your beds they create a “fragrant” barrier that rabbits and woodchucks will not penetrate. I can tell you that Southport Red Globe is the best keeping-onion for northern climes. Yellow onions, although I grow them, are not good keepers here; they tend to sprout even in cool, dark and dry storage, and also they become mushy over time. In event event, avoid sweet onions like Vidalia if your ultimate goal is winter-storage. Click here for storage instructions.
Carrots, presuming you will eat them, are also indispensable in the Kitchen Garden. You can plant your first crop in early spring, and another, for winter storage, in September. Plant the seeds some place free of foot traffic, such as a raised bed. Foot-trampled soil always produces misshapen roots. All varieties are good for winter storage, including my favorite two: the squat, sweet Danver’s Half Long and the succulent, cigar-shaped French Nantes. To store carrots whole, cut off green tops and place the roots between layers of sand in a box. Set the box in a cold cellar. Or, blanch and freeze your carrots, or cook and can them. And if you haven’t the energy to store carrots in the fall, just leave them, as I did one winter, in their raised bed. When the ground thaws in spring, you will find a nice crop of fat, sweet treats waiting for you.
Beets. I plant beets for the nutritious roots and crispy green tops. My personal favorite is Detroit Dark Red, which produces, in only 60 days, ruby globes 3 inches in diameter. You might like the red-and-white striped heirloom Chicoggia, or the carrot-colored Golden. Plant in early spring, and again in late summer. Cook the globes whole, and then peel, dice and freeze in air-tight containers, or can them, as our grandmothers did, in glass jars.
Which root crops will you grow this summer?
Don’t miss a beat at A Garden for the House…sign up for weekly updates!
Related Posts:
How to Plant Potatoes
How to Harvest & Store Onions
A Virtual Tour of the Kitchen Garden in June
Easy Kitchen Garden Design
Carol says
I think you are right about yellow onions and storage problems. Mine (I don't remember the variety) all sprouted in the basement! I'll look for Red Globe this spring.
Adele says
Kevin, thanks for the storage tips! I'm going to plant potatoes this year, and I will certainly select from the varieties you recommend.
Thanks also (I think!) for the Huffington Post link — I will never buy salad from the supermarket again! SHOCKING!!!
Randy J says
Kevin,
I am adding 2 beds just outside of my garden this year specifically for Potatoes and Onions and garlic. Since they do not need protection from the bunnies I won't need to take up space in the fenced garden for them, and honestly these three veggies are what I use the most of.
Of course I will also have beets in the garden. I am also planting both the golden as well as red beets this year. I received the seeds for the golden beets last week. Is it almost spring yet!?!
Kevin Lee Jacobs says
Carol – do plant the Southport Red Globe onions. I'm still eating mine…they are wonderful sliced raw for salads, and diced for cooking.
Adele – I have not purchased bagged lettuce from the supermarket in years. I do, however, buy greens from The Berry Farm in Kinderhook, NY, because they grow their own in a greenhouse.
Randy – Great idea. Mind if I copy you?
Erika says
Your post has really inspired me to plant more edibles this spring/summer. I would LOVE to have carrots, potatoes, onions and beets all neatly stored in my cellar. Once the snow melts and the ground thaws, I'm going to dig out a much bigger vegetable plot. Who needs all that grass, anyway?
Kevin Lee Jacobs says
Erika – I agree. It's better to grow food than a (high maintenance) lawn.
Andrew Thompson says
I always grow beets during the warm weather months, and then freeze them for winter. For me, they are the true “taste of summer.”