The January Garden

One of the best things I learned when gardening in Tucson is to plant in spring for the hottest days of the summer and to plant in the fall for the coldest days of the winter. As the temperature here rarely goes below 20°F then it is pretty safe to plant brassicas, lettuce and many other greens, onions, peas and some other kinds of beans, beets, chard and cilantro.

A view of my children's winter garden

Digging a trench for composting in my summer garden.



Growing year-round with two separate gardens always presents the problem of competition for space and light. My summer garden often comes into my winter garden, though I have never had the opposite concern.

 

 

With the summer garden put to rest, the winter garden has light

 

 

Jerico Lettuce (which I begrudgingly share with the caterpillars)

 

 

Monstrux De Viroflay Spinach

 

I tend to plant my winter garden very intensively and pull plants as they need the space. Though all plants need light, many of my greens can survive on minimal light until I recognize that they need to be thinned. Conversely, I tend to space my summer plants much wider as each plant requires much more space and any plant that gets crowded out will likely end up being a disease and pest liability, as well as a waste of time and effort to plant.

 

 

Small Black/Purple Carrots



Tavor Artichokes

 

Some of the plants I am growing this winter include Jerico Lettuce (which I plan to save seed from the plants that bolt last), purple/black Turkish carrots, Kyoto red carrots, Spanish black radishes, some small Texas multiplying onions, Viroflay spinach, snap peas, Tavor Artichokes, a lone Celebrity tomato plant and McGregor’s Favorite beets.

 

McGregor's Favorite Beets

 

If you want a minimal maintenance garden in the Southwest then Winter is the prime season to do it. When the weather consistently goes above 75°F then I have to water more than once a week. But if not, then I can usually get away with watering once every 10-12 days. With many of the pests and disease vectors wiped out by the first light frost there is little maintenance required for the winter garden. Truly, the Tucson winter garden is a delightful way to grow and enjoy winter salads, greens, and roots to well into the spring.

 

 

Some tasty Snap Peas

 

Amici Dell'ortodue

Amicidellortodue is a wonderful Italian blog staffed by a group of friends who love to garden and cultivate heirloom vegetable varieties. In Italian, Amici dell'orto  literally translates to “friends of the garden”. Gardening blogs that consist of multiple members are most likely the future of sustainable gardening blogs. Blogs with multiple authors incorporate both many perspectives and consistent posts to enable the blog to remain both legitimate and interesting.

Amicidellortodue's title page does a good job showing the variety of vegetables and fruits their bloggers grow.

The blog was started by Paulo Basso, an Italian gardener with a vision for the blog. Besides sharing information with other gardeners, the members work to provide access to old Italian seed varieties. 

They even enjoy purple colored tubers in Italy.

Although the climate of Southern Italy may differ somewhat from Tucson, the majority of the vegetable varieties that I have seen posted about in the Amicidellortodue blog are very similar to those that do well here in Tucson. 

A beautiful snake gourd flower

The gardeners who staff Amicidellortodue are very kind and willing to answer questions about any variety of vegetables that they have grown. That being said, some of the members of the blog are very busy with their lives and pursuing their gardening niches. Before posting a response, make sure that your thoughts or questions are well organized.

A few of the many tomato varieties grown by the Amicidellortodue group

I would highly encourage all gardeners to learn as much as they can from the Gardening gurus at Amicidellortodue. Near the top of the page there is a drop-down menu for choosing your specific language. For all those who live in a warm dry climate or just want to learn more about growing vegetables, take a moment to visit the gardeners at Amicidellortodue!

Some Armenian type cucumbers and beans

Some Carosello Cucumbers grown by Paulo of Amicidellortodue

Purple Sweet Potato Descriptions and Summary of 2013 Harvest

After growing 3 different purple sweet potato varieties this year, plus an experimental stint with a Stokes Purple sweet potato, I am happy to give a description of each of the purple sweet potato varieties I have grown, along with their growing characteristics.
 

My son finding an orange sweet potato

Taste Testing to inform descriptions - My children exhibit a lot of potential in taking pictures

All Purple: Long roots are often produced in locations of excess water with tubers often developing deep in the ground. Good yields of mildly sweet potatoes with a consistently purple flesh.

Alabama Purple or Purple Delight: Mostly top setting tubers of variable shape and size. Heavy yields of smooth textured savory tubers with purple flesh.

Dingess Purple: Top setting tubers of very marketable shape and size. Moderate yields of tubers with a rich, complex flavor and dark purple flesh.

Currently, if you live in Tucson and would like to buy any of these sweet potatoes you can contact me through this Craig'slist post. All proceeds go to my garden.

I grew a Stokes Purple Sweet Potato (starting in August or September)

In summary – I would have to say that the Purple Dingess are my all-time favorite, despite the meager 15 pound yield. Harvesting and working with the Dingess Purple Potatoes was much easier than working with the All-Purple or Purple Delight tubers. It would be well worth it to try to cross Dingess purple with another purple variety, such as Alabama, to seek to increase yield.

My Sweet Potato vines in November

Sweet Potato Vines have problems staying on my property

The final results of my 2013 harvest are 165 pounds of mostly purple sweet potatoes from my 7’ by 15’ summer garden bed, meaning the garden produced more than 1 pound of sweet potatoes per square foot, in addition to everything else produced this last summer. That being said, in the long term I am really seeking for quality over quantity. I would much rather have a tasty Delicata squash over a big poor-tasting squash. I am very grateful for such a good harvest, though I will definitely be changing some things this next year. Two of the things I will be changing for next year include planting my slips later in May and applying more EM-1 throughout the season to see how it affects my sweet potato vines.

Purple Sweet Potatoes make great pie.

EM-1: My experience with EM-1 was that it did nothing for any of my garden plants – including the legumes. The exception to this was with my sweet potatoes. EM-1 greatly increased my sweet potato yields. I highly recommend using EM-1 as an inoculant for sweet potato slips to increase yields. It is worth every penny if you are really into growing sweet potatoes. I diluted my EM-1 in purified non-chlorinated water and sprayed it on my young plants until the ground was soaked. The results in both vine and root growth were impressive. In fact, I would warn gardeners that the growth of EM-inoculated sweet potato vines is so vigorous that, in crowded conditions they will grow several feet off the ground.

EM-1 dramatically improves sweet potato growth

I am currently doing some research on culturing my own shelf-stable EM with the same characteristics as the EM-1 that I currently use. I will gladly share any success I experience from my own experience brewing activated EM - as I have time to do so. Another interesting thing is that, from some of the research I found, the Anthocyanins contained in Purple sweet potatoes can better retain their health benefits and color in storage with the presence of lactic acid (7%), which happens to be one of the ingredients in EM-1.

2013 All Purple Harvest

In early April, when Tucson’s average high temperature rose above 80 degrees, I put out my All Purple Sweet Potatoes to start growing slips.

 

A few All Purple Slips I transplanted though I will probably not transplant next year.

 

With some EM-1 my slips really took off by mid-may

 

 

Slips can take a long time to start – especially if being grown indoors. That is why I have been working on a new way to start my slips outdoors. Though I have greatly improved my method for growing sweet potato slips, I believe that my sweet potatoes do much better when I wait until May 1^st to start growing out slips.



 

My second harvest of sweet potatoes required a flashlight to procure

 

When the time finally came to harvest my All Purple sweet potatoes from the garden, I had to do so a little at a time. It is difficult to harvest a sweet potato that can mature over a foot below the ground, and doing so requires loose soil and some dedicated time to feel through the soil by hand.

 

 

Some of my first harvest of All-Purple Sweet Potatoes

 

 

Some of my second All-Purple Sweet Potato Harvest

 

 

One of my larger All-Purple Sweet Potatoes

 

 

Another large All-Purple Sweet Potato.

 

 

By the end of my harvest I felt both good and bad. It seems that the quality of this variety of sweet potatoes decreased from going into the ground so early. A few of the larger sweet potatoes did not exhibit the color or texture I would have expected from this variety. On the other hand the harvest of 95 pounds was a nice way to finish my summer garden harvest.



Some of my second All Purple Sweet Potato Harvest. Can you find the nickle?

Gardening When it Counts by Steve Solomon

Should you want to be a self sufficient gardener and you have some time on your hands, I would highly recommend picking up a copy of Gardening When it Counts by Steve Solomon. This book does a good job overviewing many of the techniques required to be able to live off the land, as long as your climate produces a moderate amount of rainfall. Though I do not agree with everything Steve Solomon says, I feel that he has very helpful thoughts on various subjects of gardening and the general ideas in his book are good.

A Definite Good Read, but filled with opinions

The general premise of Solomon’s book is that there may be a time in the future in which Gardeners are faced with an inadequate source of irrigated water and/or fertilizer but will most likely have access to seed and land. One of the chapters that covers this subject, entitled “Watering… and Not” includes a very helpful table with plant spacing (based on average rainfall) and plenty of helpful ideas when planning out growing vegetables with minimal water.

Along the same lines, another chapter entitled “What to Grow and How to Grow It” contains pictures of roots on a 1 foot grid from Weaver’s Root Development of Vegetable Crops. These root pictures are very helpful to gardeners because they show how to grow crops based on how their roots grow and the amount of space each root system requires. The “What to Grow” chapter also included some very helpful hints on growing, including what to expect from specific vegetable varieties and some information on inbreeding depression.

To refute a point Solomon makes about seed companies - my lettuce (lower right) is very strong viable
 seed from SESE while my beets (top right and barely visable) seem to be growing poorly from seed sold
by Territorial. Both packets were planted the first season after receiving seed packets and the beets received
 more sun. The germination of the beets was poor and I will have to work on this beet variety to keep it going.
Territorial has sold me some high quality seed in the past. I use this illustration only to make my point.

There is a chapter that highlights making a good balance of nutrients in the soil and another chapter that highlights the use of raised beds based on berms rather than on borders. There is a chapter about seeds and growing seed as well as a chapter about composting.

Overall, if you have read and enjoyed any of Carol Deppe’s books or are interested in some basic fundamentals of sound gardening – then this is the book for you. Even though I did not agree with a few of the things Solomon wrote (raised rather than lowered gardens for dry climates and his negative views on Southern Exposure Seed Exchange) I would have to say that the book had some good ideas that were based on years of experience in a couple climates.

Update: I just found you can access an ebook edition that has some of the pages - if you would like to preview it before you dedicate any finances to this text.