What did you do in the garden today?

[karenerwin]

I haven’t had time to do much of anything but water.

 

[igorsMistress]

98% done. I...AM....BEAT.
Storms coming later so I am done for the day on the outside bit.
Please excuse the hail shutter sitting there. I do need to put it back up later.
One hen refuses to go back in, so I suppose she's spending her day out.View attachment 3651000

That looks fantastic!

 

[igorsMistress]

I dug some purple potatoes today. My back needed a break from the up-and-down motion of dig/bend/pick up, so I pulled some weeds. Then I started thinking about the sweet potatoes (right next to the regular spuds, so not a long thought process). I really wanted to see if there might.... maybe ... be a sweet potato with a bit of size to it....

So I dug around the base of one vine a little bit and dug out two tubers. There are more in there, under that plant. And 19 or 20 more plants.

View attachment 3651291
I am blown away. Wow, just freaking wow.


Now I need to get them all dug before we get too many chilly nights. I'll cure them in the green house.

Wow! Those are huge Sally!

 

[WthrLady]

That looks fantastic!

Thank you.

 

[Dadanga]

You should try dwarf or determinate tomato varieties in double stacked wicking buckets or earth boxes.

I want to try that with those 200L blue drums but I need to find ones where the tops are still sealed and then basically cut it in half and use them with a bit of pipe coming out. The wicking beds sound like a lot of fun and I mean it's kinda similar to the 200L tomato kratky when I fill it with coco/perlite. I basically let the bottom just barely touch the nutrient layer and then water once from the top and leave it. Trying some water hungry veggies would be fun. Actually got some more kankong and that would be a really fun one to try in there. I know the chooks love it.

Today was spent visiting a few garden centers where I finally managed to snag those sungold seeds. It was the last packet. Also got some habanero, twilight rainbow chilli and pizza thyme seedlings to put in the NFT system. Speaking of. I pried some seedlings from the seedling trays to put in collars and I decided to do a cutback on the aggressive viet mint. I like how it looks as if it's shielding the baby chilli seedling in the foam collar.

I also reorganized the big black 200L kratky barrel by my green house. It gets a lot of shade so it should stand up to the summer heat but I wanted to put in something vining and so finally decided to break up the viet mint passionfruit romance and put the greek wonder to work. I've got it suspended on a series of hangers but not sure what I'm going to do once it reaches the roof since there's nothing to really climb on. On the other side of the Kratky barrel is some mixed squash and bubba okra. They should easily fruit by the time the passionfruit vine gets going and during the winter I'll probably refill the barrel and cut the roots of it back to go again.

The strawberry is getting darker, the other plant is completely shut up shop. Part of me wants to get predator mites and then the other part just wants to rip it from the system and drown them in a soapy mix. I really need to stop procrastinating on it before it takes over. The aphids on the chocolate mint might also get a bath.

I've got 60 new cells to go. Will be planting out a tonne of leafy greens along with the sungold and amish paste tomatoes, golden nugget pumpkin and garlic chives. I'll be making a new NFT to go along the neighbors fence that'll house a lot of these greens. Kinda excited to see how the little gem cos lettuce goes. I also have seeds left of the bigger version that I'm tempted to pop.

The garden itself seems to be doing alright but I don't have much hope for the pak choi seedlings I seperated. Who knows. Some of the leafy greens I might still use to fill gaps, especially the gourmet variety and I catch some red looking ones.

 

[igorsMistress]

@Sally PB I see you have a shiny new badge, congratulations!!

 

[Sally PB]

Before-ish: I'd dug a row of sweet potatoes before I remembered to take this picture.

The vines cover the ground pretty well.

They're in the green house now. That's water on the (dirt) floor to raise the humidity.

I discovered that one does not "dig" sweet potatoes. One "excavates" them.

This one has as much still in the dirt as what is showing. Also, if you try to pull them out, they break at any bend. Or just because they want to. They seem... brittle...? for lack of a better term.

I found the best way to get them out was to dig a circle at least 18" away from the main stem, and then get down on my hands and knees to move the soil away. The skin will rub off in your fingers, it's that thin!

The main stem is where they are, so at least you're not digging up the entire patch.

I had to put my hand down on the ground so it didn't look like "that" finger.

 

[jerryse]

Got home last night. Unloaded and checked the garden. 10 Dickinson pumpkins and 2 pink banana squash. I will be canning next week. Cucumbers starting to bloom and seed squash about ready. Lots of yellow squash ready to pick plus a couple of zuke. Already ordered 3 new to me squash variety seeds. Maxima group. A few ripe tomatoes picked. So much needs doing after 3 weeks.

 

[WthrLady]

First frost is looming Friday night. We'll see if the giant lake beneath me keeps me warm and toasty this year. Not that it matters. The garden has been done for WEEKS.

 

[jerryse]

Cooked some pink banana squash. A very good squash. I actually ate my portion before anything else. It is that good. Not a very productive variety IMO as I only got 2. I will grow it again.