Summer Edibles

by Monica Brandies

Edible landscaping is a wise choice, even in the best of times. The food you grow yourself is fresher, tastier, more nutritious and can be free of pesticides or preservatives. And if you have trouble getting your family to eat what is good for them, let them help you grow it. You won’t be able to stop them from eating it.

Summer is down time for most vegetables in Florida gardens, but yard long or asparagus beans like our hottest weather. They take only 60-70 days to mature, and a handful will feed a small family. Closely related to southern peas, they have much the same needs, except for a taller support to climb — at least six feet. With lavender-blue flowers and long pods, they are somewhat ornamental. Pick before the seeds mature and cook like snap beans.

Southern peas thrive all summer and are easy to grow from seed. If you don’t want a special variety (zipper peas are easiest to shell), buy dried black-eye peas in the bean section of the grocery store and plant them. They grow quickly and you can pick and eat them like green beans, or let them mature and shell them out.

I first saw hyacinth bean, Dolichos lablab, growing as an ornamental vine, and only later learned that the fat, flat pods and seeds are good food. There are two kinds. The one with green pods and white flowers is not as showy as the one with pink and white flowers. The first comes from a tan seed with a white seed scar; the showy one from a darker seed with the same scar. Once you have these, they may come back from the roots or from self-sown seeds. Eat the pods when they are young and always cook them well before eating. Dried seeds can be added to soups. They need full sun.

There are at least twenty varieties of eggplant. The long, thin Asian ones are milder and less likely to be bitter. Cook them while the skin is still shiny. If the skin has gone dull, peel, cut, salt and let sit for half an hour before cooking. This will take out any bitterness. They grow much like tomatoes in size and care, but they like our summer weather.

One year I grew Seminole pumpkins and calabaza squash that produced so much I took the extras to the Rare Fruit meetings five months in a row and always had takers. In frost-free areas they are best planted from August through April, but I would take a chance even into June. Let them take over parts of the garden where little else is growing. There are many ways to cook them, including any way you would cook sweet potatoes. I cooked and froze the pulp for a constant supply for pumpkin bread, muffins, pie or cake. Roast the seeds with butter and salt for a delicious snack, and cook the vine tips and young leaves like spinach or in stir-fry.

Okra is a form of hibiscus with lovely flowers as well as tasty pods. They don’t grow easily in my poor soil and limited sun, so I put them in an EarthBox and move it until they are happy. I especially like the ‘Red Burgundy’ variety, and ‘Clemson Spineless’ is our favorite green one. They all turn green when cooked and are good raw in salads. Just two or three plants will give us enough to have them once a week. I’m trying for twice as much this year to freeze. Check them every day and pick them before they get too large and tough. They are delicious stir-fried with a little cornmeal.

Some of my family have been very successful with cucuzzi. Also called Italian edible gourd, calabash and white-flowered gourd, they love our summers. These annual vines grow easily from seeds, climbing whatever they find. They continue to produce as long as the weather is warm. The fruits look like lime-green baseball bats. They should be picked when they are about 10 to 15 inches long. They are edible well past that, but harder to skin and softer in the center. Cucuzzi won’t need to be watered once the rains start. One climbed my son Mike’s mulberry tree and spread to the top of an avocado tree and over much of the lawn.

Summer Greens
There are a variety of greens to grow in the summer. Red or purple leaves add eye appeal to salads. The darker green the leaves, the more nutrition; the more kinds of greens, the more kinds of nutrients they offer. After harvesting greens, soak them quickly in a large bowl of cold water, then shake off the water and drain in a colander. Repeat as needed. After the last draining, wrap the greens in a clean towel, put it in the bottom of a clean, empty washing machine and let it spin the greens dry for a minute. Stored in a plastic bag in the refrigerator, they’ll be salad-ready for several days.

Malabar spinach comes with red leaves, Basella rubra, or green leaves, B. alba, It does best during the rainy summer, but grows on until cold weather. Start it from seeds or cuttings. It likes a bit of shade, but will take full sun. Bengalis chop it with onions and hot peppers and cook it with a little mustard oil. It is also good raw.

New Zealand spinach, Tetragonia tetragonioides, is not a vine, but spreads a foot or so. The tender shoots, tips and leaves can be cut and eaten. The taste is milder than spinach.

Many types of amaranth are used as cooked greens. A gangeticus is an upright annual that can get quite large with leaves five to six inches wide. There is a red-leaved variety, A. tricolor, and a green-leaved one called tampala that grows well in Florida. The young leaves and shoot tips can be eaten as soon as three to six weeks after sowing.
Some types produce an edible seed head that can be used as a grain.

Okinawa spinach, Gynura crepioides, is a decorative plant with edible dark-green leaves and darker flowers. Mine grows in sun to partial shade. It roots easily from cuttings. The leaves are about two inches long and one inch wide and bright purple underneath. The plants grow about 18 inches tall and 24 inches wide.

Cranberry hibiscus, Hibiscus acetosella, is a decorative but invasive plant with edible burgundy leaves and darker flowers. They usually die back in winter, but come back every spring.

Garlic chives, Allium tuberosum, grow much better in Florida than regular chives. They have larger, flatter leaves and decorative, edible white flowers. Start from seeds or divisions and plant in full sun or partial shade.

Purslane is an edible weed commonly found in Florida. The leaves, flowers and tender stem tips can be eaten raw in salads and taste much like watercress. Start from seeds or stem cuttings. The purslane at nurseries is edible as long as it is not sprayed with poisons.

In salads, I will also use very small amounts of leaves from jewels of Opar (Talinum paniculatum), dawn dewa or cholesterol spinach (Gynura nepal-
ensis), and epazote (Chenopodium ambrosioides — the herb used in BEANO). Orach is another annual vegetable or herb with leaves that can be used like spinach.

The Manual of Minor Vegetables by James Stephens lists many more crops that will fill your garden and table all summer long. Plant and enjoy! Even a very small plot or a few EarthBoxes on a balcony can supply some of the best eating of your life.

© 2012 Monica Brandies. Originally published in Florida Gardening, Jun / Jul 2012. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

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