Sunday, 12/14/14

Veggie garden area with large sweetgum and smaller persimmon trees growing at the edge.  Were we totally hardcore gardeners, I suppose we'd cut down the trees growing so close to our garden so their roots would not grow into the garden beds, but we are "tree huggers" and just put up with the tree roots stealing nutrients from the beds.

High, thin clouds late morning and for most of the day.  South wind increasing.  A new cold front nearing.  Should arrive Monday.

A full schedule of fall shows; meant we did no fall garden housekeeping.  Jo took advantage of a nice winter afternoon to clean up the asparagus and corn beds.

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Sunday, 12/14/14

Sweet Potatoes

A light freeze is predicted for this weekend, so it's time to dig our sweet potato crop.  They say the potatoes will rot if left in the ground for very long after the tops freeze back.  I don't really know if that is true or not.  We always dig when a freeze is predicted or right after the green tops are nipped by a freeze.

Jo is removing wire row covers so we can get to the bed.  It may look as if she's dancing, but her arms are wrapped around a welded wire tunnel.  The way the sweet potato vines are trimmed back to the wire shows why the wire covers are necessary.  Rabbits and/or deer would feast on the green sweet potato vines if they were not covered.

We had a mediocre sweet potato harvest this year:  A little over 47# from thirty feet of garden bed.  There was quite a bit of rodent damage, but there always is.  I don't know how to fence out mice and voles.

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Sweet Potatoes

In The Garden: July 29, 2014

 Asparagus Bed

The garden bed I'm currently re-mulching.  We should keep a layer of mulch on the bed year round, but it's getting very thin and the red sorrel is invading the bed.

Tomatoes

Our tomato plants were looking really good earlier in the season.  Now, the leaves toward the bottoms of the plants are dying.  Also, some critter(s) is eating more than it's share of tomatoes before they ripen.  Most of that damage occurs relatively low on the plant, so we assume it's rabbits.

Surprise Lilies

Blooming for a week or so at various places in our yard.  Planted by previous owners, but now some clusters expanded and relocated by Jo

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In The Garden: July 29, 2014

Planting Sweet Potatoes

Sweet potatoes were our last major planting in our spring garden.  Yes, we're running a little behind schedule.  What else is new?

Jo is measuring where the next sweet potato set should be planted.

Digging a shallow hole.

Placing the set (slip) into the hole.

Filling in around the newly planted set with dirt.

Planting Sweet Potatoes

Carrots

Jo figured she might as well go ahead and harvest our fall carrot crop. They'd grown all they were going to grow. Leaving them in the ground would only risk rodent damage.

Lettuce and carrots Jo harvested. We've never had any luck growing carrots. Because our soil is thin and contains a lot of clay and rocks, our carrots were always short and stubby. We "solved" this problem and achieved success at growing carrots by planting a short, stubby variety.

Not all the carrots fully developed. They're still tasty, but peeling is tricky.

Carrots

Asparagus

Our asparagus is finally starting to yellow and die back for the winter.

Asparagus

In The Garden

Out in our garden Jo and I are mostly focused on clean up and preparing for winter.

We've had temperatures slightly below freezing and several frosts, but all the volunteer dill weed is still looking good. I never realized dill was so hardy.

Almost finished mulching this bed. When finished; I'll cover with chicken wire which will help keep the leaves on and the armadillo out.

Garlic is still growing since our temperatures remain relatively warm. The garlic that got covered when I mulched the bed is growing up through the mulch.

Not everything has given up on blooming here in the late fall. This dandelion is doing just fine.

In The Garden

Bok Choy

Warm fall temperatures are causing our Bok Choy (Chinese cabbage) to bloom and go to seed.

Bok Choy

Garden 2011: Planting Corn

Jo planting corn while Rusty watches intently. Dogs believe dog treats are the one and only small items ever contained within small bags. One year we when we weren't paying attention, Rusty dug up and ate several of the green beans Jo had planted. We kept a watchful eye on him this time.

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Garden 2011: Planting Corn

Sweet Potato Harvest

Sweet potato vines right before harvest.  We grow our sweet potatoes under wire so the deer and rabbits cannot eat the vines.  I mow the vines to keep the aisles around the sweet potato bed open.  Otherwise, they'd probably cover half the garden.

We've grown an unknown variety of sweet potatoes for many years.  A friend gave us the sets.  We planted them.  They produced well.  We saved some potatoes for the following year's sets.  This system worked well for several years.  However, in recent years, production fell dramatically so we decided to try a different variety.  We chose the Beauregard developed by Louisiana State University. 

Beauregard sweet potatoes produced a lot of above ground growth.  I don't know if that is typical for this variety or the result of our growing conditions.

We normally let our sweet potatoes grow for as long as possible in the fall.  We wait until a frost is forecast before digging the potatoes.  Once the tender vines are killed by frost, you must dig the potatoes or they will rot.  However, first frost is late this year.  It still hasn't happened.  Jo and I decided to go ahead and dig our potatoes.  We figured they already grown as much as they were going to grow.  Additional time in the ground would probably only increase mice and vole damage.

A typical bunch of freshly dug sweet potatoes.

Beauregard produced well for us.  We harvested 163 pounds of sweet potatoes from a forty foot bed.  That's over 100 pounds more sweet potatoes than we harvested from the same amount of space last year.  Summer 2010 was hot and dry here.  I attribute the increased production to the Beauregard variety.

One of the more distinctive misshapen sweet potatoes

Beauregard produced many strangely shaped potatoes and seemed prone to more above ground growth that is normal for sweet potatoes.  I don't know if these traits are characteristic for the variety or the result of our growing conditions. We also had quite a bit of mice and vole damage, but that's not the potatoes' fault.  We've yet to come up with an organic solution for the mice and voles that eat our root crops.

Total harvest.  163 pounds of sweet potatoes.

So how do the Beauregard sweet potatoes taste?  We don't know yet.  Sweet potatoes must cure for a month or so before they're ready for eating.  They need time to convert starches into sugar. 

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Sweet Potato Harvest

Garden 2010: Cabbage

Our cabbage is starting to think about forming a head.

(Photo: Marvin Smith on 5/12/10)

Garden 2010: Cabbage

Sweet Potato Harvest

We received our first frost of this fall Sunday morning. Therefore, Jo and I needed to get our sweet potatoes dug or risk them rotting underground. The first step in getting the potatoes out of the ground was removing the wire cover. Deer have been in the garden feeding on the protruding sweet potato vines recently, making wire removal much easier. We didn't have to trim off the vines to expose the wire.

This plant with a couple of modest sized sweet potatoes was about as good as our harvest got. Some plants had no edible-sized potatoes. We've had paltry sweet potato harvest for the past few years. We've also enjoyed some great harvest growing this variety. I don't know what the problem is. We need to do some sweet potato growing research and, maybe, change varieties.

"Where's mine?" says Bucket. She's stationed herself between Jo and the bucket of potatoes, hoping for a sweet potato treat either intentional or accidental.

Rusty is watch, ready to join Bucket if Jo starts handing out sweet potatoes. Both dogs got an undersized potato when we were through digging. Giving it to them any sooner would have guaranteed and increased level of pestering by the dogs as we dug.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

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Sweet Potato Harvest

Peach Blossom Time in the Ozarks

                                                                                                                                  (Photo taken on 03/18/09 by Marvin)

Peach Blossoms

Growing peaches in the Ozarks is an excellent hobby for anyone who thrives on dashed hopes and expectations.  Here in northern Arkansas we are far enough south that longer days and warmer temperatures coax our peaches into bloom about this time -- or a little earlier -- every year, but we are far enough north that we will get at least one more hard freeze -- hard enough to destroy blooms or recently set fruit -- four years out of five.

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Peach Blossom Time in the Ozarks

Our 2009 Gardening Season Begins

Jo is weeding the bed where our red potatoes will soon be planted.


The veggie gardening season of 2009 has officially begun. On the one hand, it's terrific that we can finally get outside and get to gardening. On the other hand, ahead lies about six months of almost daily work out in the garden.

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Our 2009 Gardening Season Begins