sweet potato slips

Yesterday I received sweet potato slips in the mail from Steele; they were shipped 5/28.  I brought them home and put them in water, but they look pretty sad. 

I got four each of Beauregard, Centennial, and Murasaki.  The second two seem more robust, but I'm not sure the Beauregard was ready to be shipped - quite small, not hardly any roots. 

Well, I'll put them all in the ground and hope for the best.  I prepared soil by digging a trench about 8" deep and 12" wide, and then I mounded the soil up at least another 4".  They don't get direct sun all day because of a neighbor's tree, but I think they'll still get a fair amount - especially once the leaves spread. 

A big part of why I'm growing them is that when in Liberia my favorite food is sweet potato greens.  While I can't duplicate that same dish, I can probably make some nice stir fries and such with the leaves.

If this goes well, I want to save my own slips for next year - these slips are not inexpensive and it's been a bit of a hassle to get them (I thought I'd get them a week ago, and now they won't be hardened before I have to travel).  In general I want to save seeds as much as possible, which today means I need to collect the cilantro seeds from the plant out front that is long expired. 

We'll see.  Going slowly, slowly.  Giving the watermelon and squash and sweet potatoes room to spread so it will seem like I'm gardening my whole yard, but lots aren't very big in New Orleans - if I really want to maximize productivity, there would need to be some vertical elements.  But not this year, except for okra leaning against a chain link fence, and I'll construct a bean teepee.  The lot where I'm growing now is not going to be my permanent garden - I only plan to be in this house a few more years, and I put in fruit trees that will soon hopefully grow and eventually shade everything.  For now I'm learning, and it's not going to hurt anything that I'm improving the quality of the soil with organic matter. 

zucchini and watermelon - sprouted 5/30

Those little plants popping up so robustly.  Five days.  Not bad at all. 

okra sprouting!

We have had very heavy rain since I planted the okra - very, very heavy storms.  I thought maybe it would wash and blow the seeds all away, but tonight I was out front showing a friend something and looked back and all the seeds had sprouted.  What a great germination rate, really.  It's always hard for me to thin - I shouldn't have planted as densely as instructed. 

row covers

I was thinking about blowing off row covers and not worrying about it, and then I went out to the yard and there were thrips galore, and several young grasshoppers, and dozens of snails, and ...

I just ordered this summerweight garden fabric and hope it helps!

more seeds, for late summer planting

This is what I'm ordering right now from Botanical Interests.

Yes, I'm already obsessed about winter harvests.  Most of these go in the ground in August, so I'm not *that* premature in ordering.

Some of these are super exciting - like the delicata.  I could only find some here once for a minute.  It's an amazing winter squash, so easy to deal with, and such a pity it's not more widely grown and sold.

If you've never had mizuna, I pity you.  While it makes a great salad, soup, or stirfry, my absolute favorite way is to boil new potatoes, put in some olive oil (or a little bacon with grease), freshly ground pepper, and then coarsely chopped mizuna.  Putting it in with the hot potatoes makes it wilt a bit.  It is SO GOOD.  I ate so much of that last year.

Note that I'm not trying crops that are more challenging to me or I've never tried.  I want some successes first.

The thing about growing my own food is that there are MILLIONS of seeds to choose from. But in a typical American grocery store, only a few of those things are on offer.  It makes me sad.

So here's to the future, and the hope that seeds bring. 

planted

Today i planted okra.  I used a grub hoe to clear grass from an area along a chainlink fence, then I laid down newspaper and put a vegetable soil mix on top. Then I mounded it a bit, wet it, and planted the seeds 1/2" deep, about 2-3" apart.  I plan to thin to about 6-8". 

Tomorrow I plan to plant squash (zucchini) and watermelon.  For these, I am buildiing hills - I'm digging holes more than a foot wide and maybe 8" deep, filling it with the soil mix and making a mound.  For the watermelon, I'll put horse manure in the bottom half of the hole.  Squash seeds about 1" down, watermelon 1/2"; I'll plant about 5-6 seeds per mound and thin to about 3-4 plants. 

Mirlitons are vining up the chain link nicely.  They aren't growing vigorously, but they are growing. 

The last of the pomegranate tree's blossoms are falling, but don't see any fruit.  Yet?

The citrus seem fine except the blood orange has some spots I need to investigate.  The loquat tree had some bad aphid infestation - I hosed it harshly with water a few times and it seems better.

I am pulling up clear plastic I'd put down to solarize.  In some places, it seemed to work pretty well, and in other places not so much.  My biggest issues were with holding it down and with the weeds all growing out from the edges.

Yesterday a friend went with me to get some horse manure - now I have a good source.  "Please, take all you want!  Our horses make 100 pounds per day!"  It's in a big mound in the front of my house, where I plan to leave it for a few months, hoping it just breaks down on its own without much work on my behalf.  I may go get another load in the next few weeks, to have a good amount ready for fall planting. 

I'm wondering if I need to get floating row covers.  I have struggled with insects a lot when gardening in New Orleans.  I guess that answers my question.  Just need to pay close attention to pollination needs.  (Which makes me want honeybees sooner than later.) 

starting again

Different house though same neighborhood, I just got the lot next door and am looking at gardening the heck out of it. 

My soil quality is low - it's compacted clay with a layer of sand and then weeds on top.  So I went to Wood Materials and got so far two cubic yards of vegetable garden soil mix (May 14 and May 16; about $40/cu yard).  It looks to have wood chunks in it which isn't thrilling, and other vegetative non-composted matter, but I know to let it sit a bit. Even after just a week of sitting, what I shoveled into the beds looks more hummussy. 

I have one free 4' x 4' x 6" bed from a local nonprofit, and I built two more which are 2' x 6' x 10".  I remove the weeds underneath with a grub hoe, then put a layer of brown paper bags, then put in the purchased vegetable mix.  I'm also clearing along the chainlink fence with a similar method though without the beds - along there I want to plant okra.  On the chainlink on the other side of the house, I have some mirliton plants which seem ok now (I planted some late last year and they died in the winter). 

I recently ordered seeds from Seed Savers exchange: okra (Clemson spineless), watermelon (Black Beauty), zucchini (Blacktail Mountain).  Last night I ordered sweet potato slips from Steele: a mix of (Beauregard, Centennial, and Murasaki).  And then on NPR I saw an interesting story about Bradford watermelons so I went and ordered a package of their seeds, too.  They're expensive, but I can save the seeds to plant next year if I want, and I like the whole Bradford family thing - saving a species from extinction, using money for help in poverty-stricken areas, etc. 

The last time I grew okra it went like gangbusters and I was able to cook a lot with it and pickle it, and the pickled okra was wildly popular.  I eat a lot of zucchini, and I would like a reason to get a spiralizer.  For the sweet potatoes, I eat a lot each year and there's a learning curve for me so I'll go step by step - I want to see what works best for me here, see about saving the and making my own slips next year, etc.  And for watermelons, I eat A LOT of watermelon each year, and I want to make some juice and syrup for cocktails (which I'll freeze), and pickle the rind.  i hear the Bradford are great for that.  Also, just seeing what works here.  I've never had good luck with melons and squash because of powdery mildew and such, so I want to see what I can figure out. 

I want to get some good tomatoes to plant in the next month or so with the idea of canning a lot - I use a tremendous amount of canned, diced tomatoes in winter.  It's a lot of work but maybe I'll find a friend who wants to join.  I've also struggled with growing tomatoes in New Orleans - with the fungus and the tomato hornworms and all that.  So, I want to take it slow and see what I can do. 

I will need to put down some bird netting until the plants are set - I get a lot of birds in my yard every day, probably eating weed seeds.  They will obliterate the planted seeds and seedlings, given a chance. 

I may need to set up an irrigation system, but I'm kind of avoiding that if I can. 

Then I need to start thinking about winter crops, and that's where I go hogwild.  I'll have to think about if I want to build more beds or if I just want to clear space and mound new soil mix and that be good enough.  I'll see how it works with the okra.  Maybe I'll use beds for root crops, to be sure it's deep enough. 

It's all learning right now. I read a lot and reflect a lot, but so much is just dependent on fluke - the microclimate of my yard, the bugs, etc. 

I do have fruit trees in: a calamondin I put in last September has been producing constantly, providing me with lovely gin & tonics.  The meyer's lemon died, probably from overwatering.  Then I put others in two months ago and the avocado mostly died (probably from the wind and overwatering - there were heavy rains for weeks and that turned out to be a particularly swampy part of the yard).  The pomegranate is good, the lime and feijoa and loquat and satsuma and peach and persimmon trees seem fine.  The blood orange tree's leaves have some brown spots that I need to look into.  When I planted them I dug large holes and put in soil amendments and covered with crushed pine straw, but the weeds are so invasive so I need to clear again and put down newspaper and more mulch.