Thursday, March 14, 2013

Preparing for Spring

This week I finally brought out my sweet potatoes. I started them last week sitting near the radiator, but now they are in the window. Hopefully they will grow well. I need slips and I'm worried about the purple ones producing slips. Last fall they started to grow and I rubbed off the growth. Will I get new growth? I hope so. I do have more purple ones in my box of sweet potatoes. Maybe I should bring more out. I do love their taste. I've started Beauregard, Garnet, and Purple, which are the three that did best in my garden last year.

I'm a little late doing it but I went out yesterday to prune. It was the most glorious day. In the 50Fs and very sunny. I didn't even have to wear my coat. The raspberries were first. I lost a lot of canes to last year's lack of rain. I'm hoping I didn't lose whole plants. But I'll see once the spring growth starts. Then it was off to the peach trees. I'm no expert on fruit trees. This is the first time I've ever grown them. But all the books say open up the middle to an open vase shape. So I tried doing that. I've got five main branches on both peach trees. Not sure if I'm doing things right, but hey, I'm sure I'll learn.

The snow is mostly melted (or at least in the beds that see sun this time of year) so I tested the beds and found the pea bed was defrosted all the way down. The spinach bed had frozen soil at about 5" deep. I've planted spinach like this before and it does fine. So I might go out on the next warm day and get that in. I'll also get my peas in soon. Not all of them, but the warmer parts of the bed. The other parts will have to wait two to three more weeks.

The soil is unfreezing and my Asian greens that I sowed inside are starting to pop up. I'm really getting excited for the gardening season to really start.

11 comments:

  1. Well you know how I feel about purple sweet potatoes!

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  2. I'm trying to grow my own sweet potato slips for the first time and so far nothing is happening. My sweet potatoes didn't store very well. I had them in the potting shed and it must have gotten too warm because a lot of them are rotting, but unfortunately not sprouting.

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  3. Love purple sweet potatoes, hope you get some slips from it. I need to prune our apricot tree, it's budding already.

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  4. I tried last year to grow a sweet potato slip. No luck. Am wondering tho if I want to take up my garden space for that to try again. Sweet Potatoes aren't on the dirty dozen list and are one of the lowest in pesticides to buy so will see. I need someone to show me hands on how to prune my peach tree! Nancy

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  5. I have grown sweet potato slips by accident the last couple of years - they just sprouted in the back of the cupboard. One thing i did notice is that you can keep the slips for quite a long period before encouraging them to grow much. I kept the shooting potatoes in the back of the cupboard with slips attatched for a good 3 months before I took off the slips and put them in water to root.

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  6. I haven't started my sweet potato slips yet. I was thinking I would start mine around the first of April, since I don't usually plant them until the first of June. I bet your purple ones will sprout new shoots.

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  7. I really wish we had warmer summers so I could attempt growing some sweet potatoes. Your post is reminding me though that I need to start chitting my regular potato seed stock too. Your fruit tree looks rosey with good health.

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  8. Really enjoyed reading your blog..

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  9. I think generally you should leave 3 main branches..these would form the main structure of the tree..

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  10. That's interesting re your sweet potatoes - is a "slip" just waiting for it to sprout so you can plant it? How do you "store" the sweet potatoes so they don't rot?

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    1. Yes a slip is just the sprout of a sweet potato. Unlike regular potatoes you just plant the sprout and not the whole potato. If I have time, I'll put the spouts in pots and the plant will grow and branch and I'll get even more slips.

      Before storing a sweet potato you have to cure it first. You need temps between 80-85F for a week or two for the best curing. But mine are typically done at a lower temp (maybe by 10 degrees) and a longer time (three weeks). I store my sweet potatoes in the basement mostly. I want to keep them between 55-60F. Sweet potatoes are a tropical plant. If a sweet potato gets below 55F it can start to rot. My basement does go below 55F so I tend to walk them up the stairs, keeping them at 55F. The colder it gets downstairs, the closer to the main level of the house they get. I keep a remote thermostat in them so I can make sure during cold snaps they aren't getting too cold. And they keep a very long time. I've seen no rotting at all. The littlest ones have started to shrivel. So they do dry out over time. But not one has rotted yet and it has been six months. I have heard they can last 12 months easily in storage, but I'm guessing when the weather warms even the basement will be too hot and they will all sprout at that point.

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