2020 Backyard Sweet Potatoes

Given that sweet potatoes don’t last long and that they generally don’t build up a lot of disease problems from one year to another, I planted my sweet potatoes in the exact same place as last year. Not in my main garden, but off to the side – next to where I plant my tomatoes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Like the previous year, I started my sweet potatoes by growing them out in the greenhouse, then planting the slips out in the garden. I shared as many of the slips as I could with others – so as to not waste any. 

 

 

 

 

By late November, it was time to harvest the sweet potatoes. I usually come through with scissors to cut off all of the vines first and to reduce the possibility of getting a lot of the milky sap on my clothing. After cutting them back on the top, then I dig around the bottom to expose the actual sweet potatoes. This is best done by using some kind of fork to loosen the soil, then going back to gently feel out each sweet potato by hand.

Sweet Potato is in the Morning Glory Family

Plant Collars

For those living in places with critters that will either plow down plants by biting the stem or eating all the leaves, or will choose to dig a plant up just because – plant collars can be really helpful. A plant collar is basically a small circular wall around a plant that acts as a barrier between the plant and the rest of the garden – so that critters outside of the barrier will not get in to eat your plant.

 

A plastic collar around one of my cucumbers

 

 

In order for them to be effective, they are usually pushed at least half an inch into the soil. Pushing the collar slightly into the soil keeps it firmly in place and ensures that it will not be pulled elsewhere by the wind or passing animals.

 

 

 

Note – when putting collars around a plant, make sure to examine the soil around the plant, looking for critters that may possibly cause damage. Keeping problem slugs or insects stuck in with the plant will likely result in more plant loss.

 

 

Once the seedling or transplant has become large enough to establish itself, the collar can be gently pulled off of the plant. This is done gently, making sure not to pull at the plant roots. After the plants grow large enough to not need the collars, I take them off. At the end of the season, when I no longer have any need to use the collars, I generally wash them off and store them for the next growing season.

 

 

The plastic collars I use for my seedlings.

Backyard Compost

Prior to 2020, I had gathered over 50 bags of leaves. In my opinion, leaves are one of the best materials to use for gardening. They are usually free of a lot of the pesticides and herbicides that occur in a lawn or in field crop management. So, with all those leaves, I had a huge pile of plant material from which I could add “green” material to throughout the season to ensure healthy compost. Though I would have loved to have had something to mulch the leaves, I did not – so I just composted the whole leaves with everything else.

 

 

 

 

 

Similar to hot composting, when doing a “cool” compost, moisture makes all the difference. It enables bacteria, fungus, worms and other critters to thrive in an otherwise dry unhospitable environment. My compost over this time had both the nitrogen-loving composters (red wigglers) along with worms that mainly focused on breaking down the leaves and other carbon-rich material. Pillbugs, centipedes, earwigs along with fungus and bacteria played big roles in breaking down the material.

 

 

The process of composting took about a year for the more moist material, while the more dry leaves took well over a year to begin composting. I utilized the dry leaves to ensure that the surrounding area would not be effected by the decomposition of the leaves. Overall I would have to say that the technique worked out fairly well.

Growing Oats as a Cover Crop

Although growing unprotected crops over the winter is not much of an option for those living in colder climates, for those living in more mild climates - winter gardening is can provide many opportunities. Growing over the winter can provide the opportunity to incorporate additional fertility or to grow additional crops. Fertility can be added through compost and amendments or through growing a “green manure” cover crop.

 

 

 

Cool wet conditions in the maritime northwest can make interesting challenges for growing over the winter. Especially if slugs persist and squirrels dig everything up. Slugs mow lots of lower leaves down while squirrels love to bury and dig up all manner of things in my garden on a daily basis. Because of these factors, some of the best things I can grow are larger cover crops. However, in my 2019-2020 winter garden, I chose to grow some oats. Because I had previously grown fava beans, I felt changing to another, shorter crop would be good.

 

 

 

At first this was true. The oats were relatively small to begin with. However, given time, the oats grew to be at least as tall as the Robin Hood fava beans. At the end of the season, I cut down all of the oats in the garden except those which were the most shaded. I left those to grow a seed crop for the next time I want to grow oats as a cover crop.

 

Looking back on the experience, I’m glad that I decided to use oats as a green manure this last year. They were relatively easy to cut down and enabled me to keep my garden weed free. In moderate climates, it can often be a situation of “seed it or weed it” meaning that if the gardener does not cover the ground, weeds will quickly spring up.

 

 

Cool wet conditions in the maritime northwest can make interesting challenges for growing over the winter. Especially if slugs persist and squirrels dig everything up. Slugs mow lots of lower leaves down while squirrels love to bury and dig up all manner of things in my garden on a daily basis. Because of these factors, some of the best things I can grow are larger cover crops. However, in my 2019-2020 winter garden, I chose to grow some oats. Because I had previously grown fava beans, I felt changing to another, shorter crop would be good.

2020 in the Backyard Garden

What a year 2020 was - even for my backyard garden. Prior to winter setting in, I stocked up on leaves. When I say stocked up, I really mean it. 2019 was the year of leaves. I probably gathered at least 50 bags of leaves. I had so many leaves that I had leaves stored at the side of the house, waiting to be put into the compost. This year I decided to grow oats as a cover crop. 

The backyard garden later in the summer

 

My compost in the side yard

Robin Hood Fava and Oats

 

 

 

 

The oats take over

 

Meanwhile, the squirrels kept either digging up or eating my lettuce plants, no matter what I did – so I eventually decided to grow my lettuce on our upstairs balcony with aluminum foil around it. I’ll discuss the joys of this experiment later. As the weather warmed, I brought out some banana trees, which I nurtured in my greenhouse along with some trial cucumber varieties. While growing out these varieties I also started my spring transplants in 2 inch soil blocks in the greenhouse.

  

 

Squirrel damage to lettuce. Only stumps remain.

 

 

Doing what I can to grow lettuce.

 

Clearing the garden for the summer crop

 

 

 Over time, the lettuce bolted and the summer cucumbers were put out. I grew a round Carosello variety this year called Carosello Tondo Massafra. I transplanted the bananas off to the side yard where I had previously grown sweet potatoes and tomatoes. Unfortunately, due to further squirrel damage (a child chose not to heed my request to not give the squirrels nuts), I had to set out another round of Carosello Massafra transplants. This really ate up my light hours and made my Massafra harvest last through late July to early August.

 

 

Growing the Carosello Massafra

 

 

As our new neighbors were growing very tall corn, my August garden was really shaded my garden in the afternoon. Unfortunately, powdery mildew was already starting to kick in near the end of the season when I decided to transplant the long dark Armenian cucumber - so it was only a matter of time before the plants succumbed to its effects.

 

Powdery Mildew on my Dark Armenian Cucumber

 

Growing out Taxi Tomatoes and banana trees in early spring

The corner plot later in the summer

Meanwhile, in the small corner garden, I grew out my little banana trees and Taxi tomatoes. Both the banana trees and the tomatoes suffered until I applied some biologically-based bacterial fungicide on the plants. Then they went from dying to thriving.

 

This whole time, I was also trying out cucamelons. Not that I am a huge fan, but since a lot of people seem to like them, I decided to try growing them out.

 

 

My cucamelon vines

 

 

A cucamelon

 

Around June, I put out sweet potato sets out of my Dingess purple sweet potatoes which I later harvested after Thanksgiving. In the autumn of 2020, I was unable to harvest as many leaves, due to the fact that they all comedown at once. We had a combination of high winds and cold nights that brought all the leaves down. The neighborhood in which the leaves fell called up the city and they were quickly removed before I could gather very much, so I am glad that I had plenty of leaves to compost from my 2019 leaf harvest.

 

Harvesting some Purple Dingess sweet potatoes

 

Another look at the harvest

 As for my winter garden, I decided it was finally time for a rest. I had tried planting out some Bolero carrots, but the pressure from squirrels was too great. Instead, I would compost my garden and focus on finishing the cucamelon harvest and seed processing.

 

trying out new things as I begin fallowing the garden

Processing Cucamelon Seed