Garden Cutbacks

With all the cutbacks going on in the government and within companies, it is nice to know that I can control when I want to cut back my summer garden. Having two gardens can be nice in how much food I can produce, but the drawback comes when the older garden encroaches on the newer one and insects migrate from one garden bed to the other.

A few buckets of marketable (top) and unmarketable (bottom) purple sweet potatoes
Note - the lighting in my waterheater closet makes them look red.

 

Because I can garden year-round the frost turns out to be a welcome relief from insects and the problems they cause. Leaf-hoppers, spider mites and cucumber beetles – all of which can cause disaster in my garden - tend to die off after the first frost.

 

I had to cut these sweet potatoes back to make room for my winter garden

 

It is time for cutbacks - to my summer garden!

 

 

Even though frost can create a burden in harvesting my summer crop, the harvest allows me to take an inventory of what worked and what didn’t. For example, much of my All-Purple sweet potato variety did not produce as much as I had anticipated – though some others produced very well. I am still harvesting so I will be sure to post updates.

 

What could be under the carpeting in the walkway between my gardens?

 

Surprise!

 

As stated in my post about the All-Purple sweet potato, the juice of purple sweet potatoes can be used to determine pH of a substance. In this case, the water in the cup is from some purple sweet potatoes that I steamed. Notice the dark green color. Tucson water is definitely full of minerals and alkaline.

 

Cooked All-Purple Sweet Potatoes with Tucson water on the left