What did you do in the garden today?

[fuzzi]

Did you cure the sweet potatoes after they were harvested?

Edited to add:

Sorry, I guess I forgot to add the link.

https://ipm.missouri.edu/MPG/2020/9/sweetPotato-RA/

I tried, but it wasn't good enough, apparently.

Thank you for the link.

 

[Acre4Me]

Did you cure the sweet potatoes after they were harvested?

Edited to add:

Sorry, I guess I forgot to add the link.

https://ipm.missouri.edu/MPG/2020/9/sweetPotato-RA/

Our system, bc in October, when harvested, it was too cold for proper curing. We set up the portable greenhouses, sweet potatoes on the shelves, radiator style heater, and a bowl of water, everything wrapped to keep in the heat, goal of around 90F.

 

[Sally PB]

Would love to hear any comments or suggestions on improving this project. This was just my first attempt at making an arch for the raised bed and I'm open to any improvements.

is my comment.

You are right, you need short season ones.

I’ve ordered 2x from Sandhill Preservation. Slips in good condition, all grew well last year (only 1 died out of around 100 planted), but black plastic for the win for harvest. They have huge selection and indicate season length, and type of vining (semi-bush through vigorous vining). They were shipped USPS priority mail.

This year I focused on only short season varieties, ones that were semi-bush through vining, and ones that indicated they had excellent yields.

We got ours late last year, June 24, and still got a good harvest. You can still order from them this year.

Good luck with the ones you have already planted.

You had me at USPS. This is where I'm getting them next year.

Our system, bc in October, when harvested, it was too cold for proper curing. We set up the portable greenhouses, sweet potatoes on the shelves, radiator style heater, and a bowl of water, everything wrapped to keep in the heat, goal of around 90F.

I read this when you posted it last year. That's part of what make me want to try again.

 

[Paz]

Our system, bc in October, when harvested, it was too cold for proper curing. We set up the portable greenhouses, sweet potatoes on the shelves, radiator style heater, and a bowl of water, everything wrapped to keep in the heat, goal of around 90F.

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That’s interesting, I might try and grow sweet potatoes. They’re kinda like yams, right?

 

[WthrLady]

Here's another gardening related cross post from the thread Show Me Your Pallet Projects! Posted here for your consideration...

Pallet Wood Arch added to Raised Garden Bed

Dear Wife took over one of my raised garden beds and planted some bitter melon in it. I don't know the exact Asian name of the plant, but I think we call them bitter melons in English. They grow on a climbing vine like cucumbers. So, I need to add an arch to the that raised garden bed....

I salvaged some 6 foot long 2X4's from long pallets for the vertical supports, and used ~4 foot 2X4's on the top wood frame. Put everything together with screws. The arch stood by itself pretty good, and I could have left it as it was, but I decided to put one screw into the bed frame and support on the bottom as well. That made the arch rock solid and you could swing from it.

I had some leftover 2X4 inch fencing that I stapled on to the arch. I have a powered staple gun which I loaded up with long staples and just shot them into the wood. That will be plenty good to hold the wire, and if I ever want to remove the wire from the arch, all I need is a screwdriver and/or pliers to pull out the staples. Here is a closeup of the staples....

OK, these 9/16 inch Arrow 50 staples are nowhere near as strong as fence post staples, but I just shot a staple in about every 6 inches and that should be plenty strong for the trellis. Again, the idea is that I might want to take apart that arch someday and these staples will be much easier to remove than fence post staples.

Fence post staples, which you might use for building your chicken run, look like this...

I thought fence post staples would be overkill for a trellis. Also, Arrow staples are much cheaper and easier to shoot into the wood with my 18v powered stapler.

I was telling Dear Wife that I was going to trim the fence wire to be flush with the 2X4 vertical supports. But she asked me why I was going to trim the fencing because the plants don't care if some of the wire fence is hanging out over the supports. Thinking about it, it was easy for me to agree with not trimming the fencing, because, if I ever take down that arch, I still have the entire fencing wire to reuse instead of a shorter piece.

Picture of wire fencing overhanging the wood...

Also, the wire fence overhang just provides a bit more room for the bitter melons to climb up. That should be a good thing, I would think.

This was one of those pallet projects that I turned over and over in my head for a few weeks. I had considered ripping the 2X4's in half to make a lighter frame. I could have done that, but eventually I decided to use the full 2X4's for added strength. I had also consider ripping some wood to make slats for the plants to climb up on. However, since I was attempting to grow food, I thought the wire fencing would provide more sunshine as the plants grew. If I had used slats running up the supports, I was thinking that the slats would partially block the sun and that is not what I wanted. I had also considered a number of arch types, but eventually decided on the flat top as the easiest and perhaps the strongest with 2X4's as the frame. Basically, I had grand plans on different options and eventually decided on a much simpler, but stronger, build on this arch.

Would love to hear any comments or suggestions on improving this project. This was just my first attempt at making an arch for the raised bed and I'm open to any improvements.

FYI your arrow staples will be rusted through and broken off in a month. And you'd be amazed and the stresses a trellis undergoes.

 

[Acre4Me]

That’s interesting, I might try and grow sweet potatoes. They’re kinda like yams, right?

Sweet potatoes are in the morning glory family, while yams are in the grass family.

 

[Acre4Me]

That’s interesting, I might try and grow sweet potatoes. They’re kinda like yams, right?

Yes, you can try, sweet potatoes do well in hot climates, but they are water hungry the first couple weeks while they get established -do not let them dry out, water a lot at first to keep them moist.

I don’t know your climate, but in the warm southern US, people can grow them as perennials and just harvest as needed. They still need to be cured for a couple weeks though before eating. Apparently they are rather tasteless and not sweet when not cured. The curing allows s second protective skin to form, any wounds to heal for better storage, and for the sugars to increase.

As I understand it, a sweet potato has tuberous roots. This is not the same as a tuber (like in a regular potato). So, a sweet potato puts out many roots and some expand at a point into a tuberous root, but the root continues past that point. A regular potato forms tubers, but no real roots past that tuber.

 

[fuzzi]

Update from Thursday

Summer squash experiment (staking):

Watermelons! (volunteer plants):

German Johnson (heirloom) tomatoes:

And plum tomatoes:

 

[Smokerbill]

Speaking of sweet potatoes, when living in Kansas I had a nice garden with a row of sweet potato plants. They were in the garden for just a few weeks and starting to take off growing.

One day as I was checking out the garden, one of the sweet potato plants moved.... downward! It kept jerking down into the ground and finally disappeared!

A dang gopher pulled the plant right down into its hole. It was really funny, like watching a cartoon in real life. I don't think I ever got rid of the little sucker, but I did end up with a good crop of sweet potatoes anyway.

 

[TJAnonymous]

Harvested about a dozen potatoes out of a couple of beds. I'm thinking these grew from volunteers I left in the ground last year because most of my potatoes still have green foliage although in the post flowering stage, I think.

I've had a big problem with ants this year making nests in my potato beds. This is an issue because they eat the potatoes and they also swarm when you start digging or even touch the bed or foliage. I've got the same problem in one of the big planters I'm growing carrots in. Guess it's time to put out some Borax (once it actually stops threatening to rain every day).