Dear Helen: Are preferred storage conditions the same for onions and potatoes?
S.L.
Though some of their ideal storage conditions are similar, there are significant differences as well.
Both need free circulation of air in the storage place, ideally with the vegetables in slatted boxes or arranged in a single layer in shallow boxes. Both require darkness to hold back sprouting and to keep potatoes from developing a green colouring, which indicates the presence of toxic alkaloids.
Onions need dry, cold conditions with temperatures barely above freezing and humidity levels at 70 per cent or lower. In these conditions onions store well for six to seven months.
Potatoes require high humidity levels and storage temperatures between 3 and 5 C. Colder temperatures affect the taste. In these conditions, potatoes keep for five to six months.
I have in the past wintered both these vegetables together in a storage room off the carport, with results that were not perfect, but acceptable to me.
This year, I鈥檓 keeping just a few potatoes at a time out on carport shelving, covered with newspaper to maintain darkness. The air will be damper than inside the storage room. The rest of the potatoes will remain out in the garden, well mulched, for digging as needed.
The onions have been placed, as usual, in the storage room, where the air is drier. Though temperatures in the room are not always as cold as the ideal, most keep acceptably well.
听
Dear Helen: Is there a patron saint of gardeners? Divine assistance would be nice.
R.G.
St. Fiacre, whose feast day is Sept. 1, is a patron saint of gardening and also of cab drivers in Paris.
Fiacre was a monk in France in medieval times. He was given a solitary dwelling in a forest, where he created gardens. One portrait of him with a sacred text in one hand and a watering can in the other illustrates both his religious calling and his devotion to gardening.
Gardening tools in the picture include a hoe, rake, edging tool and pruner. A well and a wood storage tub for water are featured, emphasizing the importance of water to a garden. Fruit trees, vegetables and flowers illustrate his preference for mixed plantings 鈥� which we know these days to be a preferred arrangement for the health of gardens and the environment.
听
Dear Helen: My grandson鈥檚 first home, just purchased, has banana trees growing where an addition will be built.
One of the plants, located in front of the dryer vent, has small green bananas. Is that because of the warm air vent? Can the plants be moved successfully? They are about 150 cm tall. There are also a few tiny plants that we don鈥檛 know what to do with.
M.H.
The combination of a warm winter and a protected site with supplemental heating probably helped to keep the rhizome warm enough for fruit (actually, berries) to form.
To fruit, the plants need a minimum 12 months of warm weather.
The little plants are suckers. In banana-speak they鈥檙e called 鈥減ups.鈥� Once a banana plant has flowered and set fruit, it dies afterward and is replaced by a pup to start the next generation. Bananas don鈥檛 grow on trees, but on herbaceous perennials with succulent stalks.
I just watched a documentary about the Buganda tribe in Uganda, whose main crop is matoke (pronounced ma-TOKE-aye), a plantain type banana that is eaten steamed inside banana leaves.
They harvest the immense banana 鈥渉ands鈥� by cutting the plant to bend it over and make the bananas reachable.
I taught school for a year inside the compound of the King of Buganda. The school lunch was matoke with peanut sauce, except when the biology classes raised bunnies. Then there was rabbit sauce.
Spring is the preferred planting time. It will probably work best to pot the healthiest, most sturdy pups to winter in a sheltered, frost-free place.
In spring, plant in the warmest, sunniest, most protected places available. At the newly located dryer vent emerging from a south-facing wall would be perfect.
听
GARDEN EVENTS
Floral arts. The Mid Island Floral Art Club will meet on Thursday at 2:15 p.m. in St. Stephens United Church Hall, 150 Village Way in Qualicum Beach. Guest speaker Laura Dempsey, from Petal and Kettle, will demonstrate Sticks and Stones: Minimalist Design with Maximum Effect. Further information is available at 250-757-8969.
