A Very Nice Morning

Sweet potatoes vines that need to be tucked back into their beds

We have been having such hot and oppressively humid weather recently. I was sweating even when I went out early in the morning to do garden chores. But this morning it broke. The temperatures dropped as did the humidity. At 58F I even had to wear a sweater. I love mornings like this.

First corn succession starting to silk

I'm sure the corn prefers it a little hotter. I've been shaking the plants each morning to help pollinate the ears. Often I see swarms of of some kind of black bee on the tassels, but so far this year I've only see one or two.

It was also nice to see the other summer crops coming along well. These will be my first cucumbers in a day or so. Yesterday I picked my first small zucchini and three beans. Yes just three, but they will add up over time as more start to flower and produce. Remember only two plants survived the groundhog attack and the rest that were replanted have to catch up.

The lettuce hasn't been doing so well with the hot weather. The plants have been bolting before they size up. Some that have sized up are bitter. I ate my last salad last night. I don't know if I'll get to have other any time soon or not. The onions should have been picked already, but I never needed them. I'm now using the sweet onions as they bulb up.

Winter savory is in the upper left

This morning I picked and dried winter savory for the first time ever. I've tried in past years, but this is the first year it has done well. I love the scent. It is kind of like a lemony oregano.

I also picked some chard. I blanched about a pound this morning to put in the fridge for meals for the next few days.

While picking I noticed that some of the stems had spots on them. I've never seen this before. It only seems to be affecting the stems, and I don't eat the stems. I don't know if I should be worried about it or not.

Another thing I noticed was some leaf miners in the amaranth. They have attacked the green leafed ones, but not the red ones yet. I don't know if they are worth covering or not. Amaranth is a new crop for me. If the damage is small, I'll just pick off those leaves. If they damage most of the leaves, I'll have to cover them. I'm not growing these for grain, but for eating the leaves, so the leaves matter. Since my first carrot bed was starting to come up and one section of amaranth is by the carrots, I covered both of them at the same time. I'll leave the other amaranth section open and see how it does. A new crop always requires a bit of learning about how to grow it well.

It was just a lovely morning. I hope the low humidity lasts for a while.

This and That

I had to get my lettuce seedlings planted. My wonderful successions are starting to fall apart. Some lettuces take longer than others. To plant these I took out four plants. One that just wasn't growing. A Deertongue which I know gets bitter in the summer heat, so I didn't want to leave it in very long. A romaine that sort of headed up. And a nice pretty red oakleaf. And two of the lettuces I planted in the spot the basil used to be in.

So now I have a patchwork quilt of lettuces. I'm finding that two week successions is too short and three is too long. Somewhere in the middle is the sweet spot for my space. Though the pretty crisphead that is growing well and sizing up nicely, is taking a long time to grow. I think these kinds of successions work better if you know what you are growing. When one lettuce takes a month longer to size up than another, it just doesn't work well. It either leaves holes, or you are pulling plants prematurely, or just not planting all of the seedlings.

I also planted out the next attempt at basil. If you will remember my first set all died from downy mildew even though I planted them in random spots in the yard. This one was planted in the herb circle. I hope it survives for a couple of months.

The last succession of corn needed thinning out. I plant three seeds. Most of them come up, but some are stronger than others. I also thinned out the squash at the end of the bed.

I was checking on the first four successions. Three and four have caught up to one another. I always plant toward the fence first. That bed is more shaded. And it gives the squash a chance to get going faster. But it does bring the beds together in timing a bit.

I usually don't let my rhubarb bloom like this. I like to keep it cut back better since it is in front of my air conditioner. I finally got around to it. Now it is much more under control.

The sweet potatoes have started to vine. Whoot! This meant I could take out most of the bamboo poles I put around them. I like to cover the ground enough to keep the cats from digging. We have a horde of cats living in the neighborhood. But they leave the soil alone once the plants grow big enough.

I was checking some photos from last year. My sweet potatoes seem to be a little bigger than last year, but the melons are way behind. I might be picking my melons in September, which is sad as they won't be as sweet that way.

Planting Sweet Potatoes

Today I was out early this morning planting my sweet potatoes. Today is the first of seven days that are predicted to be in the 80s, maybe even higher later in the week. The slips were ready, so I put them in. On the northern side I used the mycorrhizal fungi and didn't closer to the compost. I'll see if one does better than the other. I'm probably not going to weigh one side versus the other as the middle ones have fungi so it would be uneven. In addition it is sometimes hard to tell where the roots came from at least with the Purples. But I think I'll get a feeling if one side is doing better or not.

I did this experiment with the early planted lettuce and with the peas. I found no difference in growth at all. I'm not too surprised as the fungi sometimes doesn't work as well in cold soils. But the soil will be quite warm with the sweet potatoes.

Garden in the early morning

In addition I did a few other chores. I watered the garden and new front perennial bed. I planted the beans which will be fed to my townhouse mates. The soil had been prepped earlier so it wasn't much work. Ditto for some coriander and some butternut squash. And in the broccoli bed the root maggots took down one of the plants. One is still fighting, but smaller. I left the one that might pull through, but the other I took out and put in some seed. I've never direct seeded broccoli before, but I figure it can't hurt. If it doesn't take then it will wait until I start a new batch later in the year.

Rain

Before yesterday the last time it had really rained was April 21st - almost a month ago. Not that we got a lot. We could use about 2" now to really soak the soil. Don't get me wrong. I'm really happy we got that quarter of an inch, but I noticed that even the weeds along the bike path were starting to wilt. And there is no more rain in the forecast. Nature really needs a good soaking right now. We aren't in any trouble or anything. The rivers are still running high from all the snow we got earlier in the year. But May is typically wet around here. I've been wondering if I should water my apple trees. The ones in the rock wall bed get plenty of water as they are on a soaker hose because the strawberries are there. Strawberries really need regular water thus the hose. But trees are more resilient. And their roots go down deeper. But the apples just set a lot of fruit and I'm thinking if I want to eat it and not have it drop, maybe the hose should come out.

Since it was raining I did some housework and got some buns made. Mine are gluten free. I used to love to make bread, but now that I can't eat any at all from the store (because they contain gluten or potato starch) it seems a bit more of a chore. I still need to make my mock rye. Maybe today. What I really ought to do is make two loaves and freeze a lot. But my mock rye is sandwich bread and I only have one pullman loaf pan. Hmm should I invest in another?

I did get a little gardening done. I saw that the long range forecast is for a warming trend. Usually I'd start rooting my slips about a week from June 1st, my planting date. But since it is getting warmer and not colder I figured a few days early would be nice. Their spot is already empty as it had the overwintered spinach there earlier.

In addition I killed yet another cutworm. The day before I got four. I go out every morning for this chore. Half my carrots are missing already. I know there is at least one cutworm left. I couldn't find him as he didn't drag his leaf down into his lair. He just chopped the leaf off and ate it on the surface. Every time I squish a cutworm I wish I had chickens to feed them to. I'm sure they would appreciate the cutworms more than I do.

I've also noticed that only two of the asparagus crowns are still alive - sort of. I planted ten two years ago. Last year half of them didn't come up. This year half of the remaining didn't come up. The two left are very weak and they aren't long for this world. Asparagus hates it here. So mine is destined to come from the store from now on. Does anyone remember Kate and Garden Bloggers' Death Day? That was a hilarious meme. I would have had so much great death material for this month if the meme was still around. But on the good side I have a 4'x 4' area that needs to be filled - the other half bed that died last year is filled with Brussels sprouts and spring onions. The empty area has volunteer dill all over it. I'm thinking of thinning it out on one side of the bed and sowing some cilantro on the other side. Last year I didn't have nearly enough green coriander. But I have space to fix that this year.

Sweet Potatoes

Purple

Every year I grow sweet potato slips from saved sweet potatoes that I grew in the garden. I started a few years ago. My first slips came from store bought sweet potatoes and from Norma. She sent several varieties, but most didn't grow well here. Purple however grew prolifically. In fact is is the most prolific sweet potato that I've grown. In addition it is my favorite for taste. When you get seeds (or slips) from other gardeners, you never know if it will end up being a favorite, or something you try once and never grow again. There are a few other seeds I've gotten that are like Purple - prolific and tasty and just wonderful. Cherokee Trail of Tears was like that (which sadly I can't eat anymore). As was Michihili cabbage. Everyone's garden is different. What grows well in my garden here isn't the same as what grew well in my last garden which is only 15 minutes away. When you find something so good you always treasure it.

There are lots of ways to grow slips. I've only used one so can't compare. I put three toothpicks into the middle of a medium small saved sweet potato (in my storage bin I mark them with tape so I won't eat them). Then I suspend them in some water to grow roots and those all important slips.

Garnet

Garnet is one that I got from the supermarket. Everyone says to get organic to start slips as they put growth inhibitors on them if they aren't. But these were originally conventionally grown and had no trouble sprouting. I've found over the years that Garnet takes about two months longer than Purple to break dormancy and start growing so I start them in January. However this year I tried starting them on a counter away form the window. The slightly warmer spot made them sprout very fast. Usually they are this size at the beginning of May. Hopefully I won't have trouble keeping them longer. Worse comes to worse and I can pot them up. But Garnet does grow stocky and slowly in the cold so I might just be fine.

Last year I also grew Beauregard. It was my least favorite of the sweet potatoes and sometimes doesn't grow well. Last year it was pretty pitiful since it couldn't handle the late cold spell we had. Many of the slips died. Garnet and Purple lived fine. The cold spell slowed them down, but didn't kill them. Where I live that is an important feature as late cold spells aren't all that uncommon. So this year I'm dropping Beauregard and I have just two varieties. Some year I might do another trial, but I'm pretty happy with the two varieties that I have.

Sweet Potatoes Out

I had decided that I wasn't going to pull my sweet potatoes yesterday. I knew with the weather report getting cooler and rainy that I should. But I went out gleaning carrots. After hours of pulling, the last thing I wanted to do was deal with digging up my sweet potatoes. But as it was getting later I got a second wind. Half way through I regretted my choice, but at least I got it done before the cold wet weather started.

If you remember, two weeks ago I pulled half of my sweet potatoes. I wanted to see if leaving them in for the extra time did anything for them. Some extension services says the sweet potato will continue to grow until the soil temperatures reach 50F some say 65F. That is a huge range. And my answer is, I'm not sure. But I don't think there was much of a difference. I got a lower yield out of the second half of the bed. But I did get the biggest of the sweet potatoes. I think if I want to in the future, I can just pull them in the middle of September. If they do grow once the soil drops below 60F I really doubt it is significant. So I'm going to go through the production numbers for the potatoes putting all the harvests together.

I did notice one difference between the two sides though. I had barely any damage on the early pulled potatoes and I had a few potatoes with significant damage on the late pulled ones. It is not enough to really be a significant difference I think. It might just be random location but then it might be how long they are left. Supposedly what eats them is wireworms. I do have a few wireworms in the beds. Nothing huge. I wonder if I got less damage this year because of the really cold winter. If so I hope we get another cold winter this year. I like having pristine sweet potatoes that don't need surgery before eating.

Garnet

I grew three types of sweet potatoes. Garnet is a misnomer in my book as its flesh is still orange, but the skin is at least more red. I harvested a total of 20.8 pounds. 3.9 pounds was in a pot by my front door, which turned out to be a great way to grow them. The rest, 16.9 pounds was produced by 9 plants for 1.9 pounds per plant. I had a good handful of annoyingly small potatoes and a nice amount of medium sized ones which are the most useful in the kitchen.

Purple and a few Beauregard

Beauregard is a traditional orange one and had a tiny yield of 1.5 pounds for six plants. Three died to a late cold snap and the other three never really produced much.

Purple is the biggest producer and is nice because it is purple all the way through. It is a great way to get your anthocyanins. In past year I've had long snaky sweet potatoes from this plant. This year they grew into huge tubers. Often there was just two per plant. But when I say huge I mean it.

The largest of them was over two and a half pounds. What in the world will I do with such huge potatoes? I can't bake them as it would take forever, and it would take a lot of nights to get through just one potato. I might end up mashing them and freezing some. Or cubing them for salads. I can imagine a nice kale and sweet potato salad for the winter. The few regular sized ones that were produced, I'm going to save for starting slips for next year. I always mark them with some tape so I don't accidentally eat them.

The Purples produced 20 pounds from 7 plants. Or 2.9 pounds per plant. Which was the best yield of all. Of course I can't really say they always produce better than the Garnets. The Purples had the best spot in the bed. The part right next to the brick, so they were hotter than the Garnets. And we don't get all that hot here, so added heat is a real bonus for the potatoes. I think next year I'll give Garnet the place of honor and see if they can out produce Purple that way. Not that it really matters. I want both an orange and a purple sweet potato, so they will both be grown even if one is 50% more productive.

Overall I harvested about 38 pounds from the bed, which is better than a pound per square foot. I usually shoot for a pound per square foot over all in the garden. Some crops do a better, some do worse, but it is nice to know that the sweet potatoes are finally pulling their own weight. Last year they didn't quite make it, but they were not in the nice brick (and hence warmer) circle garden. This year they put out 8 pounds more with the better location. I'm slowly learning how to get the best production from my new garden. Every time you start over with a new space it is a learning process. This is the fourth here year and I'm still learning. I think it never stops.

This and That

We have had some really nice fall days recently. Perfect for being in the garden. Not that there is a lot to do there. I'm half done with screening my compost and am now bored with it so I'm avoiding the rest. I should finish, but instead I took a bike ride. This morning though I did get a few things done in the garden.

When I planted up my front planter, I didn't use an ornamental sweet potato. I used a real one - Garnet. I had bought a chrysanthemum to replace it, so it was time for the potatoes to come out. One pretty Garnet plant gave me 3lbs 14oz. Not bad for an ornamental plant. It makes me think I should put sweet potatoes in more spots that need a trailing plant. Like the rock wall garden in front of the zinnias. Decorate and eat at the same time. Sadly the chrysanthemum is a bit small for that pot. And I knocked off a huge branch. Oh well.

The spinach germinated a bit patchily. Usually I just don't worry about it. But since I had some that were too thick I decided to transplant. Usually I won't do this as transplanted spinach doesn't do as well. But it won't hurt. If they die I didn't lose anything. Just spinach plants I would have thinned out anyway.

I had to take out some plants in the cabbage patch. The Napa cabbage is not doing well. It has NEVER done well here. Well one spring, but that is it. I will not grow it again and just grow the Michihili cabbage that does do well. This fall it seems infected with something. One seem fine, but the other two were pretty bad off so I had to take most of the leaves off. I decided I'd take what I could and blanch and freeze it. I'm not sure it would last in the fridge. The one good one I'll use fresh over the next week. I also had to take out two kohlrabi that were getting too big. I'm hoping they aren't woody. I'll find out when I eat them. They at least will last. I've weighed them and put them in the tally, but I may have to remove them later if they aren't edible, or only party edible.

One of my doctors thinks all my health issues (of which I have a ton) are because of a leaky gut. I'm inclined to agree. So now I'm not just nightshade, legume, and mushroom free. I also am not eating gluten and casein (though the trace amounts in butter I'm deeming acceptable however mostly I'll use ghee). And no sugar, just small bits of honey or maple syrup for things like salad dressings. Sigh. The quiche above is a gluten free, milk free, cheese free quiche. I made it with some homemade turkey sausage, kale, green onions, and zucchini. I thought I'd miss the cheese a lot, but I didn't. It was very tasty. But it was way too rich. I used coconut milk instead of regular milk and the fat content of even low fat coconut milk is too much for me - well at least with pie crust. Next time I'm going to use part coconut milk and part almond milk and see how that works.

Sweet Potatoes

Half dug up, half for later

Usually I dig up my sweet potatoes at the end of September, but with the temperatures getting cooler I wondered how much they were actually growing. You can't store sweet potatoes at temperatures under 55F. How could they grow when the air temperatures get down to the 40Fs every night? And tonight it is supposed to be in the 30Fs. I'm guessing the potatoes might be better if harvested earlier. So I dug up half of the sweet potatoes. I'll dig up the other half at the usual time. I'll find out if there is any appreciable difference between the two.

Beauregard

I have three types of sweet potatoes. The first contender is Beauregard. It is a typical sweet potato you find in American markets. I should have dug up three plants. I found one. The other two had died. The problem was this spring. I planted one week earlier than before and we got a cold snap (usually I plant on June 1st). It got down into the 30Fs. There wasn't a frost, but the Beauregard potatoes did not like it. I think it made them too weak to compete with their neighbors. The one plant that did survive produced very small tubers for a total of 8.9 oz. Pretty pitiful for the space of three plants.

Garnet

Garnet had five plants and they mostly produced. I have a range of decent, but not big tubers and tiny little ones. The tiny ones were made by vines that had rooted as they grew, so not the original plant. Typically in our climate these won't produce anything at all. Extension services in New England usually tell us to put down black plastic and plant them a foot apart. In the south you can plant them three feet apart and they will spread into the whole area. The vines will root and produce decent tubers from that. This year I placed them a bit farther apart than normal to see how they would grow. Well Garnet obviously used the extra space to root. They produced a total of 9.14lbs. For 1.8lbs per plant which is decent but not stellar.

Purple

Next on the contender list is Purple. I got these a few years ago from Norma and have kept growing them every year as they do so well here. In other years they have made long snaky tubers that are a little hard to use, but this year they made huge monstrous tubers.

The biggest was 1lb 7.4oz. Purple did not root like the Garnets did. They just produced a lot in the area they were planted. I pulled three Purple plants. They produced 9.76 lbs for 3.25 lbs per plant. Wow that is a lot of poundage.

I had 21 plants total in the bed if they were all this productive I would have a harvest of almost 70 pounds in a 32sqft area. Of course I don't want to plant all Purple sweet potatoes. I like about half purple and half orange.

In the past I've had extensive insect damage that makes the skins inedible. I had to peel to eat them. The flesh was fine, but it meant I couldn't just roast a sweet potato to eat it. The Beauregard are the worst affected with the Garnet being the least. This year there is very little damage. A couple will have to be peeled, but most can be eaten anyway I like them. Whoohoo! I wish I knew why it was so much better this year. I haven't a clue what eats them. Maybe the sow bugs? But I'm sure I'll have bad years again. I was thinking of dumping Beauregard anyway and now that I've found it can't handle cold snaps in the spring, it has sealed its fate. I'll probably split the bed between Garnet and Purple from now on. Though if I can get my hand on some Covington slips I would love to try that one as they are supposed to grow well here.

The total harvest from this half of the bed was 19lbs 7.2oz. Since half the bed is about 16sqft this was a pretty good harvest even with Beauregard not pulling its weight. Last year I grew them in the wooden raised beds. This year they are in the brick raised beds which are warmer. Last year half a bed produced 15 pounds, so I'm happy with the added production and will keep them rotating every other year in the two brick beds. I can't wait to see what the rest of the harvests brings. It might be more. It might be less.

After they were harvested I put them out on the brick path to dry out for a bit. Then turned them over and let the other side dry. After wiping the dirt off with a dry rag I packed them up into a clear plastic box. Farmers here use greenhouses to cure their sweet potatoes, and my clear plastic box is like a mini greenhouse. I spread the potatoes in multiple layers separated by a couple of grates.

The reason for the greenhouse is that sweet potatoes are supposed to be cured at 80F-85F and 90%-95% humidity for 4-7 days. I don't have those conditions. So I do it in a plastic box in the sun. I don't close the lid all the way though as that would get mold to form. And I'll cure them for a longer period than a week as they only get warm enough for a short time during the day. It isn't perfect, but it works. My sweet potatoes always last until basement starts warming up in the summer. If I have any leftover then I cook them up and freeze them.

Now the long wait before eating them begins. I hate waiting. But they won't develop their sugars until after they are cured and stored for a few weeks. I might break into them earlier as they are still good starchy and not sweet, but not quite as good.

Garden Chores

Black Swallowtail laying eggs. It's top wings wouldn't stop moving so they are blurred while the rest of butterfly was still.

Every morning I go out into the garden to do the chores. The first things I see are the melons and sweet potatoes. They are always trying to escape their beds, so I turn the ends of the plants inwards to keep them under control. Or at least relatively under control. Then it is on to the covered zucchini plants. I lift the covers and fertilize any female blossoms I find. Usually there is one. I haven't been very successful in getting them to set though. Maybe one in three. One more week and the cover comes off. Then the bees can do their work.

The cucumbers are just coming on strong now. I tie them up and make sure they stay on the trellis. They really want to escape. Today I saw the first signs of wilt in the patch. No! I cut that branch off way down. I'm hoping it doesn't spread. I'm very surprised to see it. I've only see one cucumber beetle so far this year. Usually wilt hits a bit later. I've gotten a few cukes in dribs and drabs over the last week, but yesterday the inundation started.

So I cut up the cukes and tossed them into the brine I made the other day. I picked yet more today so I'll make up a large cucumber salad for a BBQ that I'm going to tomorrow. I'll probably bring coleslaw too and a jar of the pickles.

The beans are right next to the cucumbers so I check those over and pick any that are big enough. I make sure the asparagus beans aren't being taken over by their more vigorous neighbors. They don't seem to want to branch very much. I do pinch all the beans out when they reach the top of the trellis to get them to branch. But those beans are such slow growers that they have just gotten there. I've also had some rust and some kind of spotting disease. So I ignore the beans when they are wet. And I've been cutting off any affected leaves to try to keep it from spreading. Last year I didn't do this and the rust spread very quickly.

Then it is on to the corn. I've been hand pollinating these every other day since I started to see silks. This just involves shaking each stalk early in the morning. With my last variety I would see the pollen fall down, but this variety doesn't seem to put out very much pollen. I hope they all get fertilized.

And there are a lot of ears to fertilize. In past years I would occasionally get more than one ear. But this variety (Honey Select) seems to put out two ears most of the time and I've even seen three. In other varieties the second ear really doesn't mean much. I would be tiny and not well filled out. It would often be tossed as useless. Will this one put out useful second ears? I hope so. In addition the tillers have male blooms. That is the first time I've seen that happen. This corn likes to flower.

My other patches of corn are getting huge too. And they weren't really protected from the wind. I find that corn falls over easily in my raised beds. So the windward sides of one patch was staked. I don't have enough stakes for all my corn, but if those stay upright, they will protect the other corn from falling. I have one other patch but it is partially protected from a nearby tall row cover so I'm hoping it will stay upright.

The squash runs below the corn. Not voluntarily though. So I have to keep it turned so it will cover that area. I need the squash to really take over under the corn as its prickly branches will keep the raccoons out of the corn. The first male flowers have bloomed. I've got a week or two before I'll see any females, but it won't be long. I hope I get a lot of squash this year. The only variety I'm growing is Waltham Butternut. I'm hoping to save seed. All the other years I've had germination problems and had to plant Early Butternut close by so I couldn't save seed.

I noticed that one of my fall bean plants was starting to run, so I got the trellis up finally. I always put the poles in when I plant, but the cross bars and the string went up today. I put up one string per plant.

And as always I weed when I see them. But occasionally things get out of control - especially under those row covers. Yesterday I decided I HAD to weed the onions. The crab grass was about to bloom and there was a nightshade plant that was huge. I got out the gloves for that one. Some of the crabgrass was close to the onions and was huge. Mostly I could pull it with only minimal disturbance, but one red onion was accidentally pulled. Like the Ailsa Craig onions, the red onions are a bit smaller this year I think. Maybe not though. I'll find out when they are all harvested and weighed as I grew the same amount of each variety this year and last.

Chores

And I do mean chores. I usually find the garden fun to work in, but some things aren't all that fun. Like being outside when it is so soupy out. Ick. But I'm working on whittling down my list.

I got the succession of turnips and beets in. I decided this time to put in the purple top turnips instead of my typical salad turnips. Maybe they will store better in the fall. I'll seed more salad turnips when the old ones come out on the left side of the bed.

The storage carrot seedlings were up. So I removed the remay that kept the seeds moist while germinating.

And put on a netting row cover. This is one of the earliest times that I've gotten my storage carrots in. I'm hoping that means a big yield. The last couple of years were mild disappointments as they really didn't have time to size up enough. These storage carrots can get really big if given enough time.

I also did a bit of indoor work as it was more comfortable than being outside. I potted up the kale seedlings. I need 16 seedlings and potted up 18 of them. A few are really small. I hope they catch up. I really don't like potting things up. I should have remembered where they were going to go and not planted them with all the other fall brassicas. They don't need the same amount of time anyway as they are mainly for overwintering. I will get some kale in the fall, but the aphids tend to take over at that time of year, so I quit harvesting anyway. Maybe I'll do a soap spray this year. But I haven't kept up with spraying the fruit trees, so probably not.

I've have been keeping up with turning my melon and sweet potato runners back into the beds. If I let them I wouldn't be able to walk.

Tomorrow it is supposed to rain and rain. So I doubt I'll get out to work. Hopefully we won't have any damaging winds like our last storm. My local town put out a weather advisory that supercells might form and we might get damaging wind, hail, and flash flooding. I might have to prop the corn up again. Now all of it is big enough that if it goes down, I'll run out of stakes. So I'm praying it misses us. Rain is really good, but the wind I can live without.

Planted

Isn't there such potential in an empty bed? It could be anything. But today it became the cucumber and zucchini bed. I prepped and planted a row of cucumbers along the back. I'll trellis them once they get big. And there will be three zucchini plants along the front. Costata Romanesca is a very hard one to control as they will try to run all over and escape the bed. I'm not a fan of its habit but I like the taste better than most zucchinis.

The next bed that I prepared was my sweet potato bed. As you can see it has a nice brick path that goes along two of its sides and the edges of the bed are also brick. This bed gets nice and hot in the summer. I'm never sure how many plants to put in. In the north it is better to space them closely as they don't have time to expand and root and set more potatoes. Typically I get sweet potatoes only from where the original plants were put. So they are a bit over a foot apart in all directions. I have three rows (and an extra plant at each of the points where the bed sticks out).

One row is Purple, an apt name for the potato that is purple inside and out. I put it near the path. The roots of Purple will spread all over everywhere. The tubers tend to be thin but very very long. And I didn't want to deconstruct the whole bed to try to find them when their roots break out and go into the path. But I think the brick path will contain them. That path has a pretty solid foundation.

In the middle of the bed is Beauregard. It attracts whatever pest I have. I don't know what it is - maybe the sow bugs - but whatever it is, it eats holes in the tubers. It seems to like this potato the best. So maybe the other two wills stay nice and I can bake them. The Beauregards will all be peeled to get rid of the damage. The last variety is Garnet. Whatever the pest is, it usually leaves this alone for the most part. I get some holes but not many. Because of that it is the best baker of the bunch.

I wanted to get them in today because their roots were getting long. As it is they got a bit too long for my tastes. But they will be fine.

There they are all planted out. You may wonder what the bamboo is for. Well the cats here have contests about who can leave me more presents in the soil and there are a lot of cats in the neighborhood. I'm not a fan of their behavior. The poles discourage them. I can't leave my soil uncovered even for a day. I've learned. I have bird netting cut to the size of the beds. But once the plants are in the netting really doesn't work. So I resort to other measures. The poles won't have to be there long as the sweet potatoes will be big enough in a month to remove. Then the foliage will discourage those cats.

Though I had prepped the bed and planted the corn of the first two sisters bed, I hadn't yet planted the squash. So today I did. I like two vines from each end to trail in between the corn. Hopefully the soil is warm enough for them to germinate.