Composting with Grubs

In the past, I collected worms from different locations in and out of Tucson and dispersed them into my watered garden. After multiple attempts to start a worm colony in my soil, I have very rarely seen worms, even when watering my garden in the off-season. Without the aid of worms, what living organisms do I discover when I dig in the ground and in my compost? Grubs, of course.





Japanese June Beetle Grub

Because grubs can often eat away at roots, causing havoc to seedlings as well as damaging root crops, my previous tendency was to dispose of them by throwing them violently against a wall. However, because my children have taken the time to spare the lives of some fortunate grubs in buckets, I have experienced a recent change of heart.

Adult Japanese June Beetle

My change of heart transpired while I was upset at my daughter for putting my valuable compost into the grub buckets. As this blog is not devoted to my irrational behavior, I will just note that I need to make a mental impression to not be so quick to judgment. I suppose this is one example of why my wife keeps reminding me of this attribute I need to develop. In any case, once my initial anger about the compost subsided I quickly realized that she had not put any compost into the buckets. Instead, the rhinoceros beetle grubs had eaten away at the wood chips provided for them and turned it into rich compost.



Perhaps grubs can be useful after all.



Inside of Grub bucket - where the compost happens

 




Compost from Grubs

I am continuing to experiment with grubs to determine what environment suits them best, but so far I have learned the following:

1. Larger grubs are easier to work with. I can sift out the compost and leave the grubs if the grubs are larger.



2. Different varieties of beetle require a different diet in their composting environment. The large green Japanese fruit beetles prefer bedding with more nitrogen-rich foods (such as wood chips) while the very large rhinoceros beetle grubs prefer bedding that consists of more carbon-rich foods (such as horse manure).
 

Rhinoceros Beetle Grubs - Pretty gross!



An adult Rhinoceros Beetle

Should I learn any additional information concerning the rearing of grubs for compost purposes, I will gladly add it to this post.

 

If worms don't work - try Composting with Grubs!

Purple Sweet Potato Pie at Christmas

The Friday before Christmas I took my sweet potatoes to a local farmer’s market. Unfortunately, there was very little interest in them. Perhaps I can try again soon.



Making Purple Sweet Potato Pies



The next day I made some purple sweet potato pies in preparation for Christmas. It was humbling to see how much everyone enjoyed the pies - everyone wanted more.



Purple Sweet Potato Pie



Gluten-Free Purple Sweet Potato Pie

I made four pies – two with graham cracker crust and two with a gluten-free crust. I wish that people’s love of pies would translate to their buying my purple sweet potatoes.



Kids love Purple Sweet Potato Pie

Oh well – I’ll just keep trying! (=



21 people + Purple Pie = No more pie.



The Garden of Invention: Luther Burbank and the Business of Breeding Plants



While looking at some other books about gardening and vegetable breeding, I happened upon this book by Jane S. Smith. It tells about Luther Burbank, a plant breeder who lived the majority of his life in California around the turn of the 20th Century. Burbank was given the opportunity to follow his passion and, despite how others feel about him, helped to show that, with concerted effort, one can make a living breeding plants. Although parts of the book were laboriously boring, other parts were quite interesting.

What Luther Burbank is widely known for is for the developing of the Russet Burbank potato – the most common potato in the U.S. He happened to find a seed pod growing on another potato variety and, by saving the seeds and planting them selected a potato variety that produced, and kept well, peeled easily, was decently dry, and happened to be resistant to potato blight. One other really fun story was when Luther Burbank grew out thousands of plum trees in a single season by grafting them to almond seedlings.



A very interesting read



Of all the quotes from this book the one I related to the most comes from an address Burbank gave to the American Pomological Society in 1895 on “How to Produce New Fruits and Flowers”. During his address he noted that we must, “listen patiently, quietly and reverently to the lessons, one by one, which Mother Nature has to teach… she conveys her truth only to those who are passive and receptive”.

As I came close to the end of this book I thought about whether Luther Burbank was a good or bad for long-term gardening. I believe he was both. He made it possible for seed breeders to make a living by supporting patients on plants and by hybridizing plants. What large companies have done with this have been to work harder to protect current varieties than actual help society with the varieties they produce. The unintended consequence of hybridization is losing seed stock to varieties that may grow better- for only one season. Another negative consequence of Burbanks efforts are that, in creating new and better varieties, no one is willing to preserve the seed of old varieties that may enable the future survival of many plant species.

The positive consequence of Burbanks work is that we now have, from his efforts, many beautiful flowers as well as big, flavorful fruit. Additionally, many Americans have access to fruits and vegetables from around the world that were introduced by Burbank himself. Luther Burbank defined what it means to be a high-quality plant breeder and worked hard to ensure that many of his creations were both a source of nourishment and beauty for society.

Tropical Aspirations

While visiting a friend of mine, who is also an educator and a gardener, he showed me some  tropical plants he had been growing. Though the bananas are in the greenhouse, he has managed to plant some papaya and pineapple outside.



A banana tree growing in a greenhouse

A papaya tree in Tucson



Growing Pineapples in Tucson can be a bit risky.

I may take my chances in my gardening aspirations, but I don’t think I am ready to try growing tropical plants in a Zone 9 climate. I really think what my friend is doing is cool – though I personally have neither the time nor the desire to experiment with exotic tropical plants.

All Purple Sweet Potato

Along with all the other contributions that have been made to the gardening world by Southern Exposure Seed Exchange (SESE), the All Purple Sweet Potato has been a wonderful addition to gardens around the United States that would not have been made possible without the desire of those at SESE to trial and distribute the most hardy, adaptable vegetable seeds and starts. SESE selected the All Purple Sweet Potato from other purple varieties because of its ease to sprout and to produce hardy slips; these are two very important factors that made it impossible for me to produce slips from the purple-fleshed Okinawan sweet potato.

Purple Sweet Potato Slips

All Purple Sweet Potato Leaves

The moderate vining habit and beauty of the All Purple Sweet Potato lends it to planting as a groundcover below taller vegetables. The tight overlap of leaves is thick enough to keep soil moisture relatively high, even in my desert garden. The beautiful white and purple flowers attract plenty of bees and would be a fine complement for any flower bed. The main problem I encountered with the vines is that, once slips are established, there is little to be done until it is time to harvest. My experience with sweet potatoes in the hot desert is that they are extremely low-maintenance crop.

Bees enjoy the flowers of the All-Purple



One of the few roots growing near the surface of the ground

The roots of the All Purple tend to grow long before they grow stalky. I would take caution to plant this variety in their deepest beds as their length lends them to be slightly brittle and set deeper than many orange varieties. I had difficulty finding some of the longer roots near the bottom of my 24 inch deep beds. As with other sweet potatoes, this variety did not require much input, other than deep organic soil and consistent watering. In mid summer I watered my garden roughly 3 times per week on a soaker hose for 3 hours at a time. Planting of slips began in late April and vines were removed for harvesting on November 12th, shortly after a very light frost burned the tips of some of the leaves.

 

A slight frost and a free day allowed time to clear the vines for harvest

I was humbled and blessed with a very decent harvest. Over the course of several weeks I harvested over 70 pounds of purple potatoes. Although the harvest, per slip, was not as vigorous as my orange variety, it was very much worth the wait. Because I use my sweet potatoes more as a ground cover than a main crop – which led to the vines getting less than adequate sunlight - I was glad to see that the slips had done well.

I just love the cross-section of this picture!

A bucket while harvesting Purple Sweet Potatoes

Large All-Purple Sweet Potato

This root was too heavy to weigh with the others

Most of the All Purple Sweet Potato Crop

When cutting into the All Purple Sweet Potato the first thing I noticed was that many of the roots are not purple all the way through. Minor streaks of white do make their way through many of the tubers – though I am not sure if this is something that can be selected for. The reason why this I’m a little unsure about selecting for the “complete purple” trait is that many of the potatoes will have a lighter interior on one side of the root and a darker interior on the other side. When I cook the potatoes with the skin washed (not peeled) most of the white tends to disappear and I am left with dark purple steamed potatoes.

Minor streaks of white

A typical cut Purple Sweet Potato

Purple Sweet Potato Slices

Steamed Purple Sweet Potato

So what, do you ask, do the All Purple potatoes taste like? The flavor is reminiscent of the blue “tanginess” you encounter when biting into a blueberry – but not as sweet. As noted on SESE’s description of the All Purple, the roots are “starchy, dry, slightly sweet (and) good for storage…” They tend to be “good in savory dishes and mixed mashes”. I used some of the more perishable roots to bake some one pie for a potluck at TOG (Tucson Organic Gardeners) and to bake a couple more pies for dessert at Thanksgiving.

Cooked Purple Sweet Potato

One of my Purple Sweet Potato Pies - Yum!

Above all other reasons I believe gardeners should flood SESE with orders for their All Purple Sweet Potato slips is the fact that these roots are plain cool. They are purple, and apparently the anthocyanin - the chemical that makes them purple - is really healthy for you. While researching anthocyanin I came across a comment that noted that the anthocyanin chemical acts a bit like a crude pH meter. The color of the purple juice extracted by purple crops will turn from purple to red in the presence of lemon juice and from purple to green in the presence of baking soda. So of course I had to try it and guess what? It works.

Anthocyanin 1 minute after adding baking soda and lemon juice

Anthocyanin 15 minutes after adding baking soda and lemon juice

To summarize, Purple Sweet Potatoes – especially the All Purple – are cool and easy to grow. Though they neither paid me nor bribed me to say so, Southern Exposure Seed Exchange is a fantastic company. Including this sweet potato variety, they are often on the cutting edge of reliable and productive non-patented open-pollinated vegetable cultivars. The staff at SESE know their customers and provide them with great products. If you already have your garden favorites I would encourage you to try something a little different. Perhaps you’ll decide to add a bit of flamboyance to your life this summer by adding some more purple to your garden.

Proliferators of Purple Potatoes: Here are two other companies that sell Purple Sweet Potato Slips:

Duck Creek Farms and Sand Hill Preservation Center each sell 3 purple skin/fleshed varieties.

Additionally, Kerr Center did some trials with several of these Sweet Potatoes.