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Post by macmex on Jun 26, 2023 18:40:44 GMT
It's been a challenging season so far for a number of reasons. For one thing, I've struggled to keep up with work on the farm, in part, on account of health issues. Another factor has been that of other commitments which hit right when I needed to be working on the garden. The rototiller bit the dust too, and due to some of my other struggles I wasn't handling the plow and disk system of cultivation very well.
I started making a hill (ridge) for planting sweet potatoes by the beginning of June and on June 11, I managed to finish planting that row on the 18th. That was roughly 1/3 of what I hoped to plant this year. It was arduous, as the row was nearly 90' long, and the only time I found to work on it was during the hottest part of each day, after work, but I got'r done and then, within a day or two, I threw out my back, making me fall even farther behind.
For over a week I had to avoid any lifting and most bending or twisting. Slowly my back improved and then, a few days ago, I had an epiphany, and idea for how to hitch up and use my one bottom plow to make hills for planting sweet potatoes. I figured a way to use the front end loader and hay spike to lift the plow and set it upright, in position to hitch it up to the three point connections on the tractor.
It worked! I used an iron bar, driven into the ground to stabilize it while I turned the tractor around and finished the connections. That was the fastest I have ever managed on getting the plow on the tractor and by far the smoothest using it. It only took minutes, after that, to make two roughly 90' rows, using the plow. This saved me days of work with a shovel.
That very day I finished planting one of those rows, which now placed me at 2/3 of the way to finished.
I decided to water, using a 50' soaker hose, laid right down the middle of the row. I watered for about 2 hours and then slid the hose down the row, to catch the part I had yet to water. This really seemed to do a great job. The slips barely wilted, perking right back up by the following morning. Meanwhile, the first row was looking great. The little plants began to grow. The pictures don't do it justice, as that row is hard to discern, but it is looking good. I need to stay up on weeding, since I'm not using plastic mulch.
I called the two rows I did with the tractor "raw rows" because though the job was "done," there were still clumps of weeds that needed to be removed from the hill, as or before I planted. This took a bit of work but it was still way faster than doing it all by hand.
One June 26, before noon, I finished planting my last row of sweet potatoes.
If I can keep the weeds under control and stay up on the watering, we can hope for a really good crop. I even ordered, received and planted slips of Old Yellow, which I had lost due to a chill this spring.
I had the same problem with Okinawa as Old Yellow. None sprouted for me but I did find one root in the pantry (today) which a sprout on it. I planted the whole root, leaving space in the row to pull slips and make two more plants, if the root sprouts as quickly as I hope and anticipate.
Finally, my wife and I have been experimenting with straw bale gardening in ICB containers. This technology has pluses and minus. Two pluses, however, are that one can plant rather intensively and also it cuts down on bending for the gardener. So, we're experimenting with this now, as we anticipate aging.
I put 12 slips into this one container. That's equivalent to 15' of row. We'll see how this works. I know I'll have to tend this more intensively than in ground. We have friends who have done this and had good results.
Perhaps tomorrow I can give a breakdown on what varieties I planted. How is your season going?
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Post by macmex on Oct 4, 2023 12:04:42 GMT
I need to take a picture of the sweet potato patch now (October 4, 2023). The vines have grown all over the place and it is time to harvest. All summer I watered with a soaker hose, as I didn't have time to set up plastic mulch and drip irrigation. This meant that I had a lot more weeding to do. Well, the weeds did get out of hand. Still, I have hopes of a decent harvest.
Last week I did dig the 9 plants of Grand Asia which were in the first section of the first row I put out. They were adjacent to our grapes and a very thick weed patch. Apparently the rodents liked that. I barely got enough harvested to start again with seed in 2024.
Yesterday I was out there with my granddaughter. It struck me how beautiful the patch was. Some varieties were in full bloom. I mean, really, there were flowers everywhere! Sweet potato flowers are a lot like cowpea flowers. They are gorgeous for the one who is standing in the garden actually looking at them. In a photo, at least with the camera I have, they don't seem so impressive.
I also noticed that there were honey bees working the flowers! Maybe I'll find some mature seed this year! That honey bees would work the flowers means that there would be really good cross pollination across the entire patch, between any variety in bloom.
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Post by nancygreenthumb on Oct 5, 2023 15:28:17 GMT
Mine are also in full bloom and they are gorgeous! Hopefully I will too will find seeds!
(Wish I could figure out how to get pictures uploaded. Never could figure it out, even with your instructions.)
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Post by dschreffler on Oct 15, 2023 1:23:29 GMT
George, I enjoyed reading your posts about the progression of your sweet potato patch. I'll read more at another time, when I get a chance.
For anyone reading this, my name is Debbie and I'm from Central Florida, between Tampa and Orlando. My growing season is long. I am a bit nervous about the potatoes this year. I picked a big one about 4 weeks ago just because I needed it for a recipe 2 weeks later. However, I've been poking around under the vines and they may be deeper than I'm digging but I'm not finding a lot of them. I'm watching two places that have smallish potatoes to see when I should harvest them. They don't seem to be growing any bigger. Perhaps the length of day has something to do with that??? I may harvest the first beds then wait a couple weeks before getting the rest harvested.
Mine bloomed for a few days starting about a week ago. I usually harvest around the first of November but I'm nervous because I'm seeing fellow YouTube gardeners talk about failed crops or long potato roots that didn't make potatoes. I don't see that when I dig a little but they aren't very big. I know they go through a growth spurt right before they are ready, so I'm trying to be patient.
My sweet potatoes were not all started at the same time. I used the first couple of beds to grow more slips to use so I cut them off the plants and started more beds with those. So the ones I planted later would naturally be later in their development. My plan was to harvest the first part of November but at this rate, I may watch and leave them a bit longer.
Thanks for the invite to be here and I'll try to keep you posted. If you are interested, my YouTube channel has a few videos on what I have done this year.
It's Myorganicgarden on YouTube. I can't figure out how to give you the link without it taking you to my dashboard:( Sorry, but feel free to visit it anyway!
Debbie
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Post by macmex on Oct 23, 2023 16:31:19 GMT
Debbie, I'm so glad you posted! Sorry I missed it until now!
My Organic Garden Sweet Potatoes
There's a link to your video on sweet potatoes. In the future, to avoid that problem, try opening a private window in your browser, going to Youtube and searching for "myorganicgarden." That's how I found it.
I don't believe you can go wrong letting them grow as long as it's warm at night. If they have roots they'll only continue to size up. You are blessed to be in a really warm place. Here in Oklahoma, I'm positive that my plants have stopped growing. Some varieties did flower a good deal and I am thrilled to have found quite a bit of true seed for future experiments.
However, my harvest is turning out to be pretty scant. The reason? Well, I think it's because I didn't use my customary plastic mulch and drip irrigation. Due to time constraints in the the spring I felt that I had run out of time. Then, the plants grew beautifully. I watered regularly, which is important here, but I could not keep up with the weeds. Now, sweet potatoes compete alright with weeds, but the problem was that the weeds provided cover for rodents and the rodents feasted on my sweet potatoes. As I have been harvesting, once I cut away the vines I'm finding craters where there had been sweet potato roots. The rodents ate them!
Here's a photo of my crop, so far, of Japanese White (Satsumaimo). Normally the roots of this variety would be large and fat. These are what the plants put on as a last ditch effort to make roots, after/during the assault by rodents.
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