This is the 3rd or 4th time I've posted this and it STILL is not showing up in the Ozarks Gardening forums! Gremlins must be at work

Well I had a nice long reply written, hit a key accidentally and the whole thing disappeared. If it doesn't reappear I'll repost later on when I have more time.

Well, OK, Jacob, I
will start this again. This time I'm writing it offline and will
copy and paste it in, so if it disappears I'll still have it to paste
in again.

Tomatoes, peppers, onions and garlic,
cabbage family, cucumbers, beans, potatoes.....

Tomatoes: I have grown only heirlooms
for the past several years. I have had such poor productivity from
them in the past several that this year I'm going to try hybrid. Any
variety that I can get locally. I bought a couple of packages last
fall, but now I can't find them, so I may have a change in plans if I
can't buy more seed in the coming week. This means I'll either buy
plants or have to fall back on the heirlooms for one more year.

Peppers: My all-time favorite for
sweet peppers are the cheese peppers. I grow all three colors,
yellow, orange, and red. I like to let them develop their full color
before I pick but sometimes they will go ahead and ripen if I pick
them a little early and line them up on a tray, not in the full sun,
though. Generally I do this inside as insects and rodents love to
help themselves if they are outside. Cheese peppers have very good
flavor. Though they are small, they are thick-walled and have a very
small seed cavity. So you will be amazed how quick your container
will be filled when you are chopping them for the freezer. Sometimes
I pickle some of the red ones and use them when pimiento is called
for. Otherwise I freeze them in gallon bags, all colors jumbled
together, including ones I've had to pick too green to ripen because
of damage.

I grow jalapeno and mostly I use them
to make pickled peppers that taste like those that are in a can at
the grocery store and are labeled as “nacho peppers”. I love
these pickled jalapeno slices in beans, in scrambled eggs, in chili,
in tacos, etc.

Sometimes I grow poblano (ancho)
peppers. I let these ripen red, then I dehydrate them and powder
them. I keep this powder in a tightly-lidded jar in the
refrigerator. When I make chili, or any Mexican dish that calls for
“chili powder”, I blend together powdered red poblano pepper,
garlic powder, oregano and some paprika. If you want, you can make a
good substitute for paprika by dehydrating some of those red cheese
peppers and then processing them into a powder.

Onions: My favorite onion is a hybrid
by the name of Candy. I have bought some onion bulbs that were said
to be open-pollinated “Sweet As Candy”. I was disappointed
because they were not sweet and crisp as they were advertised to be.
But they did grow round and very large and were a pretty,
well-keeping onion for cooking purposes, but too hot for eating raw.
I don't remember now where I got the seeds from, for sure, but I'm
thinking it was Terroir Seed. True Candy onions will send up a
flower stalk, but none of the flowers in the cluster will make any
seed. Many of the local seed-and-plant vendors will sell Candy onion
sets now that they have become popular, they all seem to come from
Dixondale Farms. The problem is that they are stocked here when it's
too early to plant them, and if the onion set is bigger around than a
pencil, and quite a few are, the early spring frosts they must endure
because of arriving here too early makes many of them bolt to those
flowers with no seed in them. There can still be some of the bulb to
be salvaged, but it's so much smaller. Some of the remaining sets
are very, very thin and they won't make very big onions, if even they
survive the transplant process. I have tried keeping the sets alive
until time to plant, using various methods, none of which have been
very satisfactory. The only other way to grow Candy onions is to buy
the seed. I have, and have found they winter-sow pretty well, sown
rather thickly in the winter-sowing container and then, on a pretty
day, cutting the container so that the entire clump can be tipped out
and eased into a hole in the garden bed, and then covered by the top
of the container. Later on in spring, the entire clump can be dug,
the onion sets separated, and treated as Dixondale's onion sets are.
Whatever method you choose may depend upon the costs. Beware of
local marked-down onion-set bundles, these have often been held too
long and are picked over. You get what you pay for, in many cases.

Walking Onions (aka Egyptian Onions,
Winter Onions) are perennial and serve as green onions when young,
stewing onions if dug during the winter. I use them both ways, as my
mother did, and her mother before her. Probably was a clump in the
covered wagons that brought my ancestors west, maybe earlier on the
ships that brought them from England, France and Germany, for all I
know.

I harvest my garlic in June or July,
they tend to signal when they're ready. And then I plant individual
cloves from that harvest in September. I grow several kinds and have
mostly lost the knowledge of what's what, because my first garlic bed
here was unfenced and neighborhood dogs dug in the beds, flinging my
markers everywhere. I lost a couple of varieties and don't know for
sure which of the others were which.

Cabbage: My favorite head cabbage is
Copenhagen Market. Huge, sweet cabbage heads. I use them for
sauerkraut. We eat as much fresh as we want, as cole slaw, or
roasted in the oven, or sautee'd in real butter in a skillet and
served immediately. I have never wanted to taste canned cabbage, the
appearance and smell is awful enough, and I am familiar with the
smell, because my mother used to cook cabbage TO DEATH. This is why
most people think they do not like cooked cabbage. I do freeze
cabbage, in shreds or chunks, after a quick skillet sauteeing process
in a little butter, no added liquid. To use, allow to completely
thaw and cook only till heated through. If adding to other
ingredients, cook all the other ingredients and add it last, when
everything else is still hot.

Brussels Sprouts: Last year I grew
Roodnerf. The plants stood there neglected and bug-riddled through
another drought summer. In late fall, there was enough for a few
meals after the plants had stood through a couple of frosty nights.
Some of the sprouts started to form new plants, and these I broke off
at the stalk, dipped in rooting medium, placed into the ground with a
quart glass canning jar overturned on them, mulched and then let
winter happen. I have good luck starting things under jars during
the winter. Maybe they will take right off this spring. It's an
experiment. Some of them, I brought inside and placed in small
glasses of water. They have now made some righteous root systems.
Not sure what they'll look like in a couple of months. I may have to
plant them in pots. Another experiment.

Broccoli: The best I have grown has
been a hybrid named Packman. It has been hard for me to get seed,
when I do there are not many seed in the packet. If they are started
in the spring and can live through the summer, they make
medium-sized, beautiful heads. At least they did for me a few times
but not dependably so because of hot weather in the summer. Cabbage
family seedlings don't do well in the fall because the seeds need to
be started in late summer and that's when it's hottest and dryest
here. They generally don't make it.

Cucumbers: My favorite is Crunchy
Muncher, also known as WI5207. Sweet and straight, never bitter,
even when large. Slow to develop seed, which is a problem for seed
savers (and me). If the flowers don't get pollinated, there will be
no seed no matter how long you leave the fruit on the vine. And
sometimes the seed that look viable, when wet from being in the
cucumber, are flat and empty once they have dried.

Beans: I think I've talked about these
already. If I can get my hands on some Lazy Housewife, I'll grow
some. Otherwise it's Kwintus and an Italian bean that was so kindly
and generously sent to me by one of my dearest garden friends.

I'll grow cowpeas, because I always do.
They live when nothing else will during the drought. I've grown
different varieties before, started out just planting some black-eyed
peas out of the bag from the grocery store (eating black-eyed peas on
New Year's Day was a tradition in my family -- I understand it was
done in the South. They used to say doing so brings good luck and
prosperity for the whole year to come.) I grew Lady Peas, and
Whipporwill Peas, which are small and rather dainty but otherwise
taste pretty much the same. For the last several years I have grown
Purple-Hull-Pink-Eye Peas, because I like the pretty purple pods and
they can be boiled in water and the water made into “grape jam”.

I have Red Russian and Blue Vates kale.
So far they seem to be biennials. The Red Russian bloomed and went
to seed, I think it was spring of 2016, and Blue Vates was new in
2017, so I'm expecting to gather seed from both this coming spring.
I prefer Blue Vates and did not plant the Red Russian seed after the
first growing. It planted itself, plants came up all over the
garden, even though I gathered seed from the plants. Blue Vates seed
was bought at the hardware store in Chouteau, OK. I much prefer it
as it is more tender and easier to digest.

I like to grow a variety of lettuces
and spinach but they don't grow very good for me. I suspect
something lacking in my garden soil, will try to correct that this
year.

Every year I grow certain herbs.
Perennials like oregano, chives, mints, and things related to mint,
like horehound, come back in the herb garden every year. Biennials
like parsley, fennel, dill and cilantro may come back up, may not. I
have not yet figured out which the calendula is.

Early in the spring, I buy seed
potatoes, and if I have potatoes in the pantry that are sprouting, I
plant them as well. I generally harvest about 3 times, in weight,
what I plant. There is a dedicated bed for sweet potatoes. Lots of
people grow “slips”, but I start mine just like I do regular
potatoes and find this a lot more dependable and less fussy than the
other way. Just bury pieces of the potato that have several eyes on
them and let nature take its course. Potatoes get planted in March
and harvested in early July and sweet potatoes are planted in early
May and are harvested before the first freeze of fall.

Asparagus comes back up every year, I
grow enough for me, as Hubs doesn't like it. I start watching for
the shoots to emerge in early spring and sometimes I eat them while
still out in the garden.

Now you see why I was so annoyed at
losing what I wrote last time. I was nearly finished with this when
I hit I-Don't-Know-What-Key. Sheesh. --Ilene

Nice list, llene. Those Egyptian Walking Onions look very interesting. So do they produce for you all winter? I'm going to have to look into those, as we eat a lot of onions.

They grow thickly all summer. Get pretty spicy if the summer is dry. There is still the small bulb (like a green onion) and a little bit of green, even in the snow. As a child it would be my job to go out and dig a few for my mother's stewpot. They are very strong in the winter so just a few go a long way. In spring, they divide, sweeten up to the point where you can eat them as green onions, and then the green parts begin to toughen so as to be able to support 4 or so little little bulblets that develop on the ends. They spread in two ways. The bulb that's under the ground divides, and as the little bulblets grow heavy, the green part that is supporting them leans over until it is eventually on the ground, where the bulblets spring roots and establish themselves into the ground. In this way, the onion bed "walks" out further from the onions that are already there, which is why the onions are called "walking onions". I only knew them as "winter onions" when I was a kid because that's when we used them. The name "Egyptian onion" has to do with how the little bulbs look on the ends of the green stalks when they start making roots and/or additional bulblets. There's an informative website with pictures here: http://www.egyptianwalkingonion.com/

I'm not connected in anyway to that website, BTW...

I forgot to mention okra. I don't grow it every year. I grow a variety called "Cowhorn", which makes large tender pods. I have found, though, if they are not well watered the pods will be tough in spite of their tendency otherwise. My seed came from a seed trade and I have saved seed ever since. It takes a little learning to get good seed but once you learn to just tag the pods you're saving for seed, leave them on the plant and pretend they are not there until they dry out, turn off-white with black markings and start to split. I've known many who pick the pod too soon, and open the pod only to find the "seeds" inside are white and will not dry out into seeds, no matter what you do. Ripe okra seeds are black. The trick to successful seed saving is often, .....just patience. There is another variety of okra I want to try and that is Beck's Big Buckhorn. Looks like Baker Creek still has some seed. They were recommended to me by the Kansas farmer that grows my wheat. They said that this variety is not good for Farmer's Markets because people take one look at how big they are and won't think they'll be tender. These grow fatter than Cowhorn and not quite as long. But for this year it'll be the Cowhorn because that's the seed I have. When I share with neighbors, I always have to educate them about how this okra is a special variety that will still be tender. Otherwise, they thank me profusely and then throw them in the trash when they get back into their house, knowing only the okra variety that gets woody, if it is even ABLE to get that big. I often mix okra with tomato and onion, seasoned with lemon juice. The acidity of tomato and lemon cuts the gummy texture and it makes a nice hearty salad to which I often add cooked and drained black turtle beans. This is good cold or hot.

Might I add, Jacob, that you are a very lucky young man to have that seed treasure trove in the freezer. And your grandparents are very lucky to have a grandson who is interested in their garden heritage enough to carry it on through to another generation. You go, Jacob! Heh.

@rockwhisperer,

The Sample Seed Shop has Lazy Wife beans. Tell Remy that Mr. Knuckles sent ya.

Thank you Mr. Knuckles! I just went to sampleseeds.com and the website says it's down. I see Remy has a presence on FaceBook but I don't do FaceBook. Any ideas? I'd like to check them out.

@Rockwhisperer

well I be darned. I just ordered some stuff yesterday. I'll give her a heads up. Thanks for letting me know.

Thanks Mr. Knuckles, I got on the site today and got carried away, had $30 in my shopping cart before I knew it! The Lazy Housewife beans were out of stock but in reading the descriptions, I think the ones I wanted were Lazy Wife and she did seem to still have those in stock. I sure hope nothing's gone out in the meantime! Looks like people are happy ordering from there, prices are reasonable, too.