The Status of My Other Experiments

One of the most valuable homesteading lessons Dan and I have learned is to think of new ideas and projects as experiments. Somehow, there is a difference between thinking "I'm going to do this," and "I'm going to experiment with this." The difference might seem subtle on the surface, but it's huge in terms of expectations. An experiment tests an idea, to see if it will or won't work and what aspects need to be tweaked or changed. With an experiment, we don't necessarily expect the outcome to be perfect the first time around; we expect to gain enough information either to make adjustments or decide that the idea wasn't as useful as we'd hoped. That's much less frustrating than seeing something as a failure. An added bonus to the trial-and-error mentality is that our imaginations have become freer to think outside the box. We no longer worry so much about failing because . . . it's an experiment!

I've recently shown you a couple of this year's experiments: using the hoop house as a trellis for a natural shade house, and my idea for trying sprawling cherry tomato plants as ground cover. Here's an update on some others.

Wicking pots

This is an example of something that hasn't worked out as I hoped.

Cherry tomato in wicking pot. Plenty
of sun and water, but still struggling.

I love that these are easy to water and with no evaporation of moisture, but I was disappointed that the tomato plants haven't grown well. I used good soil and plenty of compost, so what's the problem? I figured it out one recent sunny day when I put my hand on the pot. It was hot! Our summer shade temps are typically in the mid-90sF (mid-30sC), which puts them in the mid-100s (around 40°C) in the sun. I got out my soil thermometer and discovered that the soil temp in the pots was 100°F (38°C). So even though the plants had plenty of water, they were struggling with the heat.

Sunchokes for hopniss trellises

That link will take you to my first groundnut (hopniss) harvest post, and show you the smooth Jerusalem artichokes I planted in the bed. I read somewhere that sunchokes stalks make good supports for the hopniss vines.

Blooming sunchoke in the foreground,
hopniss on a trellis in the background.

Unfortunately, I didn't think this worked all that well. For starters, the hopniss started growing before the sunchokes, so I ended up using the trellises anyway. I have one or two hopniss vines growing up sunchokes, but mostly they've climbed the trellises. So, not exactly a fail, but not a success either.

Nitrogen fixers for the garden

In the past, I've sprinkled Dutch clover seed in my garden beds to supply nitrogen. This only works moderately well at best. Germination wasn't that great, plus clover tends to prefer cooler weather than our summers offer. So this year, I experimented with different nitrogen fixers - hopniss (ground nuts) and peanuts.

I can't remember if I mentioned planting my smallest hopniss tubers in the little garden bed on the side of the hoop house. I'm a big fan of diverse locations for perennials. I think it's a good idea to have a backup planting in case one location succumbs to something unintended. Anyway, they have happily used the hoop house as a trellis in companionable cooperation with the volunteer cherry tomatoes. They've helped my summer shade house be a success. 

Groundnut vines & cherry tomatoes have
completely taken over the hoop house.

In addition, the groundnuts have given the tomatoes a nitrogen boost, which they love. It hasn't protected them from late blight, but I'm getting tons of delicious cherry tomatoes.

The peanuts were planted in various garden beds, where they've done well.

Sweet potatoes with peanut plants (lower right corner),
with volunteer morning glories and cherry tomatoes.

Everything is thriving. The bonus will be harvesting a few peanuts, to boot! So this is definitely a success and will be standard gardening procedure for me in the future.

Landrace experiment

Before I give you my update, I'll refer you to two posts to explain what this is and why I'm doing it. 

• A New Paradigm for Gardening & Seed Saving
• How To Landrace Garden Vegetables

I'll also preface it by clarifying that I just started this this year, so I won't have actual results at least until next year. I chose two species to start - winter squash and cucumbers.

Winter squash from landrace seeds.

Early this summer, I planted a landrace winter squash from seeds I received through Permies.com. It has struggled for most of the summer, but finally responded to lots of hurricane rain and is now looking pretty good. I'm guessing it struggled so much because it was bred in the Pacific Northwest, which has a very different climate than I have in the southeast. I'm also guessing that it survived because as a landrace, it had the genetic strength to not die. The squashes are small and pumpkin-like, but I will get quite a few.

Landrace winter squash.

I'm looking forward to tasting them and saving the seed. And their offspring will hopefully be interesting because in the bed next to them, I planted sweet potato squash. The vines have intermingled freely, so I'm pretty sure I got good cross-pollination.

Sweet potato squash (spotted leaves), tomatoes, and black turtle beans.
Can you see the 2 squashes? The spotless leaves are the landrace vines. 

The sweet potato squash has truly thrived for me. Early on, I found clusters of squash bug eggs on some of the leaves, but those were discarded and the plants now show no evidence of insect damage or disease. So to add that to my winter squash gene pool will be a real plus!

Of the cucumbers, I have mature fruits from a mix of about four varieties, mixed and planted in the same row.

Very mature cucumbers ready for seed extraction.

These will be the cuke seeds I'll plant next year. (For anyone interested, I have a cucumber seed saving tutorial here.)

I think that's it for my experiments this year. Anyone else do some experimenting? I'd be interested in what you did and how it's turning out.

The Status of My Other Experiments © Sept 2021

by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com

Adventures in Cooking With Hopniss

Several months ago, I shared my very first hopniss harvest with you. Hopniss (Apios americana) are commonly called ground nuts, but since peanuts are called ground nuts too, I like using the more distinctive name. You can check out that post to learn more about them. In this post, I'me going to share the ways I've tried to cook them.

My first try at cooking them was to roast them.

Photo from my first hopniss post.

However, we found them to be too dry to enjoy this way. So the next time, I peeled and boiled them like potatoes. 

Boiled hopniss, home-harvested chevon,
and last summer's canned green beans.

This was delicious with a little salt and butter! I had plenty leftover, so a couple of days later I reheated them, mashed them, and served them like mashed potatoes with bone broth gravy. Also delicious.

Mashed hopniss with gravy, last spring's frozen snow peas & pork chops.

My last experiment was hopniss flour. According to Native American Food Plants: An Ethnobotanical Dictionary, Delaware and Mohegan Native Americans made flour from hopniss. I wanted to try this too and followed the directions at Hank Shaw's website.

Roughly peeled, sliced, and dehydrated.

I added the extra step of peeling (albeit not perfectly) for this first try. Once the slices were crispy dry, I powdered them in my blender. 

Hopniss flour

I wanted to try this as a gravy thickener. You know, something homegrown to use instead of corn starch, unbleached flour, or arrowroot powder. 

I used 1 tbsp hopniss flour per 1 cup bone broth.

I brought it to a boil and simmered for about 5 minutes, but it never really thickened like I was hoping. Still, it was very tasty, so not a fail.  

Hopniss gravy on baked potato, leftover Christmas turkey,
and steamed garden and foraged greens with onion & carrot.

When I put up the leftover gravy after dinner, I noticed the hopniss had settled to the bottom of the pot. The actual texture was more like grits than flour, so that may have been part of the problem. I'm guessing my blender simple doesn't have what it takes to powder those rock hard hopniss chunks. It still has a good flavor, so perhaps hopniss grits could be a side dish all their own.

My conclusion is that hopniss is an easy addition to the perennial garden and a delicious addition to the menu. 

Adventures in Cooking With Hopniss © April 2021

 by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com

My First Hopniss Harvest

I'm guessing you're wondering what hopniss (hopnisses?) is (are?)! They are Apios americana, also known as potato bean, Indian potato, or groundnuts. But they're nothing like nuts!

Peanuts are sometimes called groundnuts too, but these are a perennial vine that produces edible beans and edible tubers. I thought, for sure, I took photos of it growing over the summer, but I can't find them, which is too bad, because it's an attractive plant.

The tubers grow in strings, like beads. That made it fun to hunt for them and dig them up. Dan built a raised bed last spring and planted six small tubers. The other day I harvested a nice bowlful of goodly sized groundnuts. They can be harvested any time of year, but are said to be sweeter in the fall after the vines die back. Here's my first harvest.

Of course, we were curious about the taste! For our first sample, I roasted a bunch with carrots, onions, and the last of the garden broccoli.

I read it's best to peel them because the peels tend to be tough, especially on the older ones. I rarely peel veggies before cooking, but I peeled these because I wanted them to make a good impression! I tossed everything in a little olive oil, salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Then, I baked them in my toaster oven at 425°F (220°C) for 30 minutes.

How do they taste? Very mild. Dan thought even a little peanutty. Similar to potato, but drier. In fact, I think next time I'll try boiling them like potatoes. The other thing I'd like to try is to dry them and then grind them to use as flour. I read that a number of Native American tribes used them like that. 

I left the smaller tubers in the bed and planted Jerusalem artichokes with them. These are a smooth variety called Gute Gelbe. 

Jerusalem artichokes (aka sunchokes) are said to provide something for the vines to climb on. We like roasted sunchokes, but the wild ones are very knobby and difficult to clean! I'm hoping this variety will be easier.

So that's my "new to me" new vegetable! How about you? Have you tried anything new lately?

My First Hopniss Harvest © Jan 2021 by Leigh 

at http://www.5acresandadream.com