The Garlic is in!

The day after I pulled the sweet potatoes up, I got to work and prepped the bed for the garlic.  I was surprised when I pulled up the potatoes, although I shouldn't have been, that the dirt was very packed (clay) in a lot of places.  I say I shouldn't have been, because aside from adding a few bags of dirt in the new bed when I created it last year, it was mostly unmodified soil.  Initially working it added volume and air pockets temporarily, but over time the clay based soil eventually packed down pretty tight.  

So this year, I added the following:

Bed #3 = The longer bed, second from the right
1 bag leaf-gro (a University of Maryland commercial leaf compost product)
1 bag's worth of homemade leaf compost

Bed #4 = The small bed all the way to the right

2 bags leaf-gro (a University of Maryland commercial leaf compost product)
2 bag's worth of homemade leaf compost

Bed #4, which is the newest, definitely needed more help, which is why I added more good stuff to that bed.  Between my own leaves and the leaf-gro, I was able to raise the bed about 2 inches off the ground.  Not perfect, but it is a start.

 

I gave bed #3 a few days to relax after adding the new material, and then it was finally time to plant the garlic.  Last year I planted the garlic on October 23rd, and this year the plant date was October 26th.

Once the beds were ready, I laid out the garlic (about 65 cloves) and then pushed them all in.   I planted roughly:

• 25 cloves of last years crop, called Loiacono, an Artichoke Type softneck garlic.   
• 30 cloves of Appalachian Red, a new variety I bought, which is a Rocambole (Hardneck) Garlic
• 12 cloves of some mystery hard neck garlic that Emily's parents brought us last time they came to DC.  They got it from a friend, so hopefully I can get the varietal name.  

Here are some shots of me in the garden, courtesy of my temporary garden helper/photographer, my mom:

Writing the labels, so I can remember which rows are which. 

Spacing the cloves out evenly

Pushing them into the ground, about two inches deep (and covering the cloves and patting it down moderately). 

I couldn't remember if I watered the bed after I put them in last year, but I figured it was more likely that I did.   Next year I won't have to worry about these things, because I will have this blog to look back at.  

Another whole batch of peppers

I was unsure if after the last harvest, the little peppers that I left on the plants would have enough time to get big.   The answer is a resounding yes.  I probably have just as many as I did last time, maybe more.   The few large ones that I did not pick last time actually are starting to get red, but almost everything else is green.  

Now the question is just "what do I do with all of them?".  Chili is definitely on the menu.  Stuffed peppers (with cheese) is also definite yes, especially considering the fact that we have blue cheese, Monterrey jack, and even ricotta in the fridge right now.  Anyone have any other good ideas?  

Sweet potato harvest

The long wait is over.  I read in multiple places that you can leave the sweet potatoes in until the first frost kills the leaves.  They all make a point in saying "but if you do that, you need to take them out of the ground within a day of the frost.  As the leaves die, the bacteria will follow the vine into the sweet potato".   

But after watching the leaves on a daily basis, I noticed that even though we have not had a frost, some of them started to turn yellow, and the yellow was even moving down some of the stems.  

So that was it. It was time to pull up the sweet potatoes!   While the overall harvest was not as large as I had hoped, I guess it is still OK for a first try.  A few of those tubers are 2 or three times the size of my fist!

Here they are getting ready for the curing process (under our bed):

So the whole process goes something like this:

1. Dig up sweet potatoes when the leaves start to yellow and die back.
2. Leave them out in the sun for an hour or so (if you can) to dry the dirt so it is easier to scrape off.  
3. Gently rub off as much dirt as you can, but be very careful not to strip any skin off the tuber. Each blemish makes it so that the potato will not last as long in storage
4. Store the tubers in a dark 70-85 degree room, with as close to 85% humidity as you can get for 5-10 days.  
1. Our bedroom is around 72 degrees right now, but nowhere near 85% humidity
5. After the curing, store them at around 55 degrees, again in a dark place 
1. We have nowhere that is this temperature, so we might need to cook, cube, and freeze the potatoes at some point in the next month or so.   

Lessons learned:  I think that next year I will try putting down black plastic, or weed blocker fabric over the bed before I plant the sweet potato slips.   You make little slits only where the slips will go into the ground.  The benefit of this is that the vines will not be able to reach back into the ground and zap energy away from the main plants.   When I pulled up the vines this year, there were lots of places where the vines had fused to the ground, and a lot of energy was wasted on tiny little sweet potato vines that never plumped up.

Bed #4

The garlic needs to go in within the next two weeks.   Should I pull the sweet potatoes now in order to make room for the garlic?  Or should I hold out on the garlic as longer so that I can give the sweet potatoes more time to fatten up?  

These are questions I don't have to answer anymore :).  This weekend I removed the tomato cage and decided to turn the area into bed #4.    

I'm actually still not 100% sure I will put the garlic in the new bed, but at least I have that option.  I also have some collard greens in those seed starter trays near the bottom left of the picture.   I am going to put those in whatever bed I don't put the garlic in.

It has been a while since I posted this table on the main blog, but here is what is currently still in the garden:

In the main garden:	Asparagus, Marigolds, Sweet potatoes, Radishes, Spinach, Swiss Chard Peppers: Jalapeno, Picante Chili, Poblano, Anaheim  Ground covers: Hairy Vetch, Winter Rye, Snap Peas
In containers:	Strawberries
In the Herb garden	Rosemary, Thyme, Sage, Parsley, Oregano, Mint, Basil, Lavender,
In the front	Celosia, Tithonia, Dahlias

Fall greens...

A round up of the fall greens

The spinach that was directly sown a few weeks ago

The swiss chard that was just transplanted from the starter try to the garden.  

A Brussels sprout that once again, I started too late.  

The collard greens that have not been transplanted yet.

Hot pepper harvest

I finally made time to harvest all of the larger hot peppers.  There are still plenty of thumb sized peppers out there, so it will be interesting to see if they continue to grow with the weather getting colder.    I froze almost all of the peppers whole.

I also got around to eating my first sweet potato.  I made panang curry with chicken, sweet potato leaves, the sweet potato (cubed).  Tasted like a sweet potato.  I can't wait to dig them all up!

I'm experimenting with washing them right away, vs leaving them with the dirt on them.   I cooked the one with the dirt, and after scrubbing it in the sink, I didn't notice any negative effects from the caked dirt. 

Now that looks more like a sweet potato

I pulled a sweet potato from the other side of the bed this week, and this one looks more promising.  They have about 2-3 weeks left before I pull them all.  

The Swiss chard is looking good, and I plan to transplant it next week.   I pulled up most of the old bush bean plants, and I added some compost and leaf mold into the back section of that bed earlier this week.  The leaf composting went really, really well, and I am going to take some pictures and write another entry about it in the next few weeks. It really exceeded my expectations, and I can't wait to do it again this year with twice as many leaves.      

After I pull out the sweet potatoes and plant the garlic, I am going to use what room I have left for the collard transplants.

The jalapeno plant stayed much smaller this year than in the past.  I'm guessing this is because the other plants blocked a lot of sunlight.  That one red guy is definitely ready to eat, and I bet it is blazing hot.    

In the foreground you can just barely make out some of the spinach that has sprouted.   The rest of the row is covered in winter rye, hairy vetch, and peas, which are all about 6-8 inches tall at this point.  I read this week that the winter rye could grow to be 3-5 feet tall.  That would be pretty funny.

I think this is going to be the last tomato that will get ripe enough to eat.  As you can see, the plant itself looks pretty sad.

I wanted to record an "after" picture of the area where tried to grow some winter squash and cantaloupe this year.

Spinach seeds in a paper towel

I read about this trick in one of my Zade's garden books (Author: Dick Raymond).  I have generally had bad luck germinating spinach in the ground and in seed starter packs, however this method has worked twice now.

Here is the process:

1. Get a paper towel wet
2. Wing it out almost completely and then spread out the seeds.
3. Fold up the paper towel (I do kind of a 2 inch roll/fold), and press against the towel so that the seeds make good contact.  
4. Put the paper towel into a zip lock bag, and let it sit out at room temp, or whatever the correct germination temperature is for the seed you are trying to germinate.  

For the spinach seeds, I sowed about 40 seeds on the 19th.  Four days later about 15 had germinated and I sowed them into the garden (about 1/2 inch deep).  Three days after that another 10 seeds were ready to go into the ground.   About 15 seeds never germinated, even after a few more days.

Just a note: When sown 1/2 inch down, I noticed the spinach break the ground about 2-3 days after it was sown.  This is much quicker than if I sowed it directly in the ground.

Sweet Potato

I couldn't wait any longer.  Last week I gently lifted the vines on one end of the sweet potato bed, and used my hand to dig into the ground at the base of where one of the sweet potato slips was planted.  I pushed and dug away the soil until I saw a sweet potato, and then I pulled it away from the cluster.  It looks like a fingerling potato in size, no more than 4 inches long.   I wanted to dig farther to see if any where bigger, but I held back the urge.   

I also turned off the sprinklers for the while sweet potato bed last week (On the 24th).   I read that it is generally good to not water them the last month or so, so that they don't split.  

The summer squash plant in the front of the house finally produced it's first squash.   This plant was pretty shaded, but has been growing low and slow for months now.   So that makes two summer squash from two plants this year.  Not the best yield :).