Hello! And welcome to the November edition of Food Gardening Magazine! Here at Food Gardening Network headquarters, fall has slipped in beautifully. The tree leaves are brilliant shades of crimson, gold, orange, and even some purple here and there. The air is turning crisp and it’s definitely getting chilly at night, even if the days are still comfortable.

That also means that many of our gardens are no longer bearing summer fruits like tomatoes and eggplant. Instead, we’re starting to harvest those warm, comforting fall fruits and vegetables, like carrots, potatoes, sweet potatoes, cranberries, Brussels sprouts, kale, onions, rutabaga, turnips, late season radishes, and more. Even then, it won’t be long until many of our gardens are ready to rest for the winter.

The good news is that our late fall garden bounty is ready-made for winter storage, whether in root cellars or a cool, dark bin in a corner of the kitchen. There’s nothing better than pulling our own carrots and potatoes from storage for a hearty mid-winter soup! And we can still spend time in the garden, cleaning up and prepping for the quiet of the coming season and getting things ready for spring planting!

The November issue of Food Gardening Magazine is dedicated to those wonderful fall crops, with their subtle flavors that fill us with warmth and comfort.

Food Gardening with Amanda articles—Food Gardening Network’s Senior Editor and Producer Amanda MacArthur is one fabulous food gardener! She takes gardening seriously, makes it fun, and delivers some great content—including companion videos to show you, not just tell you, exactly what to do. Check out these helpful articles from Amanda this month:

• November Gardening Tasks and Chores: For many of us, November signals the end of the outdoor growing months and a big end-of-season clean up. While the clean up tasks might not be the most exciting, with a little elbow grease, you can clean out your garden, protect your plants, and be ready to spring into action for the next growing season.
• How to Store Potatoes, Carrots & More for Winter: From beans and beets to butternut squash, find out how to store your fresh garden fruits and vegetables so you can enjoy your fall harvest all winter long.
• Spud-tacular Crafts: Unearth the Potential of Potatoes: From savory dishes to hearty meals, there’s no end to what you can create in the kitchen with potatoes. But what happens when you’ve got more spuds than you know what to do with? How about diving into some delightful potato crafts?
• Easy Maple Roasted Potatoes and Squash with Bacon: Just when you think roasting these root veggies and squashes in bacon couldn’t make the dish any better, you toss it in maple syrup at the last moment to quickly caramelize and transform it into a sweet but still savory dish that’s only made better by how easy it is to make!
• From Martian Meals to Apocalypse Eats: The Unbeatable Power of Potatoes: This article comes from our sister publication, GreenPrints Magazine. In it, writer Becky Rupp takes us on a journey through numerous fictional survival stories to highlight the importance of the potato to classic literature, sci-fi adventures, and even real life.
• Bagged Spuds 101: From Patio to Plate: Gardening isn’t just for expansive backyards or dedicated plots of land. Even if you’re constrained by space or looking for a unique gardening adventure, growing potatoes in a bag offers a fantastic solution.

And this issue of Food Gardening Magazine includes details on three featured foods this month—concurrently with publishing this issue of our magazine, we’re also publishing and updating three gardening guides on garlic, potatoes, and cranberries. As a premium member of Food Gardening Network, you get full access to the magazine and these gardening guides:

Garlic: It’s probably no surprise that garlic is one of civilization’s earliest cultivated crops. You’ll find garlic mentioned or represented in art and texts from ancient Egypt, China, and Babylonia. Hippocrates prescribed garlic as a cure for a multitude of ailments, and you’ll still find it in many home remedies today. And if that’s not enough, garlic will even ward off vampires. What more could you ask for? Learn more about the history and cultivation, as well as gardening and enjoying garlic, in Glorious Garlic: From Garden to Table!

Potatoes: The potato may be humble, but it’s one of the world’s most important crops. You’ll find it in culinary traditions ranging from South America to Europe to India, and it grows happily at sea level and elevations up to 15,000 feet. In fact, the potato originated in the high plateaus of the Andes Mountains some 8,000 years ago. Today there are more than 4,000 varieties of this delicious, versatile food. Learn more in How to Grow Potatoes: Everything About Growing and Enjoying Spuds!

Cranberries: The festive cranberry is native to North America, and grows in temperate regions in the eastern half of the United States and Canada. Contrary to popular belief, however, cranberries don’t grow in water. That is a harvesting technique that works well in larger bogs, since cranberries float. This means you can grow cranberries at home, without flooding your garden! Learn more about growing these nutrient-dense treats in our Cranberries Gardening Guide!

Here are some interesting tidbits about the foods you’ll find in these gardening guides to get you thinking about what you might want to plant in your garden.

• You already know garlic is good, but did you know it’s also incredibly good for you? Lab studies have shown that compounds in garlic have antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory properties. Additionally, some studies have shown that garlic can help inhibit the growth of cancer cells, lower blood pressure, help decrease plaque in arteries, and improve skin health!
• Potatoes are so rich in vitamin C and other nutrients that it is possible for humans to survive solely on potatoes if necessary, at least for a short time. Potatoes have just 100 calories, no fat, 21% of your daily recommendation for potassium, and a whopping 45% of your daily recommendation for vitamin C!
• When it comes to nutrition, cranberries are true powerhouses. The anthocyanins in cranberries not only give the berries their vibrant color; these compounds also have anti-cancer and anti-inflammatory effects, while the vitamin C in cranberries helps boost your immune system and helps neutralize free radicals in your body. Cranberries are known to ease the severity of menstrual cramps, help prevent urinary tract infections, help keep your digestive system healthy, and they’re good for oral health, too!

In this edition of Food Gardening Magazine, you’ll find Gardening Guide Close-Ups that focus on garlic, potatoes, and cranberries to help get you started with these three foods and our gardening guides. These articles give you valuable tips and advice about these three foods, and you’ll have instant access to the premium gardening guides themselves, too. Be first to read these Gardening Guide Close-Ups and get a head start on how to grow and use these foods:

• Hints of caramel and molasses. Sweet, smoky notes on the back of the tongue. A little tartness à la balsamic vinegar or tamarind. If this sounds delicious, you might be wondering how to make black garlic. In How to Make Black Garlic, we’ll explore this culinary delight.
• Many of us gardeners are more than happy to ignore a blemish or two if it means we can eat fresh produce tended by our own hands. But some things you can’t overlook. One of those things is your potatoes turning green. In Potatoes Turning Green? How to Stop Your Tubers From Spoiling, we’ll look at why green potatoes are a no-no, and what you can do to avoid your potatoes turning green in the first place.
• Cranberries aren’t just a Thanksgiving and holiday thing. If you like cranberries, you can learn how to use them all year long—to fill your life with the joy of this bright, deep-red berry. Check out How to Use Cranberries All Year Long, to discover six fun and unique ways to use this brilliant berry.

And then there are the recipes you’ll find in the three gardening guides! Here are some of my favorites that are tasty, unique, and easy to make:

• Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic: I often wonder, when I read recipes, if there’s a misprint when there are only one or two cloves of garlic. Maybe they meant five or six? And you might be thinking the same thing with the 40 cloves listed here. That’s a lot of garlic, even for garlic lovers! But because garlic mellows beautifully as it roasts, the result here is succulent chicken deliciously accompanied with savory-sweet garlic that you can enjoy by the forkful (maybe just not on a first date!).
• Oven Fries: Sweet Potato or Regular: This recipe is simple, and yet, so tasty. I’ve been making potato and sweet potato fries for years and still enjoy them every single time. Why buy frozen fries when you can make your own so easily, and so, so much better?
• Cranberry Brussels Sprouts: Two delicious fall flavors all in one dish! This recipe is especially tasty with a balsamic cranberry glaze!

I hope you enjoy the November 2023 issue of Food Gardening Magazine as much as we’ve enjoyed putting it together. We’re so happy to have you here! Now let’s head out to the garden!

Happy harvesting—and happy eating!

Christy Page
Editor & Publisher

P.S. Please enjoy this issue of Food Gardening Magazine, and let me know what you think about it by commenting below with your feedback! Your input is valuable to us and can help us make improvements.