We have a lovely row of Japanese Dogwood trees across our front yard. Most of the year they are like other deciduous trees with leaves in the spring that grow, turn colors and fall off in the fall.
Along about June, these trees have beautiful white flowers that look gorgeous when they all blossom at the same time.
The blossoms last several weeks and the center of each blossom is the seed pod. They continue to grow all summer and by October they turn a bright orange! Looks like little pumpkins all over the tree!
Just to show you the size of the seed pods, I picked a few.
I first thought I could collect a few and use them as decorations around the house…NOPE! Within a day or two they turned an ugly brown.
Bert also discovered when they fall to the ground and he runs the mower around the trees…they become splattering projectiles. What a mess!
One surprising and delightful result from our 2023 garden season was our success with growing a sweet potato plant in a big pot. It all started with one lonely sweet potato that was forgotten and had started to sprout on the kitchen table last spring.
Bert planted it in a huge pot by the patio and it wasn’t long before the plant made an appearance.
It survived munching by the wandering bunnies and finally made blossoms.
A few days ago, Bert dumped the whole pot into the wheel barrow. What a surprise! The whole pot was packed with roots and small sweet potatoes. Unfortunately, I was so excited to check it out I forgot to take a picture of it! Impressive!
We worked at ripping the mass of roots apart…and it was a solid mass! Here is what I saved from the roots. There were another two-dozen small sweet potatoes hanging from the roots…they were cute not worth the trouble to save.
Basically, I had one large, ordinary-looking sweet potato (on the right) and about a dozen weird shaped potatoes that I think I can clean up, cut into chunks and boil or roast.
When sliced into rounds they roasted quickly. The skins were thin and helped to make them crunchy!
So, that was a fun addition to the garden this year. Maybe next year we should plant a sweet potato in the fenced garden by the patio so it could spread out! We’ll see!
While it’s nice to clean up the garden each fall, it’s also kind of sad. It forces us to think about what we chose to grow this year and contemplate changes for next year.
The Delicata squash plants are out. Bert discovered the ground under the plants was covered with bugs, munching on the roots and plant stems. Considering we ended up with two small squashes to eat, I suspect we won’t bother growing them again. The others rotted before we could eat them! I looked for them at the Boalsburg Farmer’s Market and several growers said they don’t do well. I was able to buy 2, but that grower only had 4 for sale.
The tomatoes are finished and Bert cleaned them out. We had a tray of not quite ripe tomatoes on the counter for a week or so. They finally ripened (and some just rotted!) so I cooked them up yesterday. By cooking batches of tomatoes as they ripened, I was able to freeze them; I then had enough to make my pizza sauce. That felt productive!
I finally pulled all the radishes. They will keep well in the fridge and add zing to my salads for a week or two.
The carrots still look good! We’ll leave them in the garden and dig them up as needed. I did pull one bunch just to see how they look and taste. The largest was about 6″ long. Delicious!!
The second planting of green beans are doing very well…lots of flowers and beans quite visible. I should have beans to eat in about a week!
The sweet potato plant in the pot finally has a few flowers. The leaves are starting to wilt. Soon we’ll dump out the pot to see if we actually got more sweet potatoes! (I can’t seem to import the photo…sorry!)
My last project of the gardening season is to make pickle relish. Luckily, I can buy a box of cucumbers at the Amish market. I need to do that soon!
By now, the third week of August, the garden is not only about the plants but also about the produce. The planters on the patio continue to look healthy as I harvest a crop of lettuce and plant a few more rows of radishes.
Baby Romaine lettuce and new radishes look good!
Black Seeded Simpson lettuce ready to pick:
Raised garden beds, just before harvesting stuff…squash and potato plants have died down; beet leaves had been chomped down by the deer a few weeks ago.
Beets before and after.
Delicata squash
Red potatoes that were growing on my kitchen table in the spring:
We dug up just a few:
Up in the garden on the hill, the Lavender is still making the bees happy.
I will let these stems dry for a while in the house:
Still quite a few green tomatoes. They should ripen over the next two weeks.
Although we still have a bunch in the house, ready to eat!
This is the second planting of green beans…no flowers yet!
Carrots are still growing. Should do better when the fall weather arrives.
With the Delicata squash plants gone, all we have left is a few weeds!
The Echinacea is not as pretty but the bees still love them!
We’ve managed to share a few tomatoes with the neighbors, and we’re blessed with some of their garden produce!
So far, we’ve kept the deer away from most of the garden, but they still like to clean up around the bird feeders…even in broad daylight! Enjoy!
Every year the garden is different. This year we started season in a drought so watering every day was necessary. Now, in July, we’ve had over 8 inches of rain! Basically, the lettuce and radishes in the raised planters did well. They were easy to water when it was dry and drained well when it was very wet. The Romaine lettuce is starting to make heads.
The sweet potato in a pot has survived having most of the leaves chomped off several weeks ago by the deer. It has recovered well and is now sending out runners…not sure if the roaming bunnies will find it yummy.
In the next week or so, we’ll dig up the beets. The tops were a nice snack for the deer a few weeks ago that slowed down their growth.
Forgot to take a picture of the potatoes to the left of the beets…you can sort of see a little piece of that bed in the picture above. They are starting to die off but that’s normal. Bert said he could see a few potatoes above ground so he added some potting soil to cover them up. When the plants are dead we’ll dig up the potatoes.
The garden up on the hill mostly survived a wandering deer…the footprints in the wet soil gave them away. Bert has started spraying the plants with a nasty-smelling concoction that is meant to keep deer away. We’ll see!
The lavender is filling out and the bees love it. I’ll wait a little while before I cut too much.
We have lots of green tomatoes, but they are ripening fast. I expect in the next week I’ll have trays on the kitchen table with almost ripe tomatoes.
The carrots are finally looking good. We’ll leave them in the ground until November or December and dig up just what we need.
This empty section had green and yellow beans. After the last picking, I pulled the plants and replanted green beans. The dry/wet contrast was pretty hard on the plants.
The Delicata squash seemed to spread out all over…but it looks like we might get a few squash.
Time to share the mid-July adventures in the garden! Last week, the view of the patio planters looked like this:
Radishes, lettuce and my sweet potato plant were doing well. I was pretty sure they were safe from roving bunnies and deer because they were so close to the house. Unfortunately, the deer saw the sweet potato plant as part of their salad bar! Sunday morning, the sweet potato plant looked like this:
Two days later, the plant is trying to recover:
Oh well, I tried!
Then we noticed the beet tops. They looked like this last week:
Sunday morning they looked chomped all along one side!
Very frustrating. Several beets had been yanked out of the ground so I cooked them. Yum…really sweet!
The potatoes and Delicata squash were not touched.
Up in the garden on the hill, amazingly, nothing was touched. When you look at the short but sturdy garden fence, we were surprised the deer didn’t just hop the fence for a snack! So far, that hasn’t happened. Maybe the hoses look like snakes.
The lavender continues to fill out:
The tomatoes are doing well:
The carrots have finally started to grow:
The beans are blossoming and making tiny beans!
The Delicata squash is getting huge, with little squashes starting:
And of course, my favorite…Echinacea!!
Bert has now sprayed the sweet potato plant and the beet tops with some deer repellent. We’ll hope it’s enough to deter the deer so the plants can continue to grow!
After struggling over a month with no rain, finally we are seeing abundant rainfall! The grass is slowly greening up and the garden doesn’t seem so parched. More cloudy days and rain really help. Time to show you some pictures!
In the patio planters, I’ve harvested radishes three times so far. The newest crop is pretty tiny but I have several bags in the refrigerator.
Another section has radishes a little smaller, but the lettuce in front has been donated to some bunny friends (or should I say…a friend with bunnies)!
The lettuce we have the most success with is Black Seeded Simpson, so I’ll fill in empty spaces with more of that.
Remember that single sweet potato that was growing on my kitchen counter? It is going to make a great plant. Not sure if we’ll actually get any sweet potatoes out of it!
The small potatoes that were sprouting in the kitchen are also doing well in the ground!
The beets are lush enough so the weeds don’t have a chance. I’ll thin them when they get bigger.
The last section of the raised beds was going to be several herbs…however, the seeds must have been too old…nothing came up! So, we put in the last few Delicata squash plants we had. A good choice since it’s quite handy to the bird feeder and the visiting deer won’t eat them. We’ll see!
Up in the garden on the hill, the lavender is doing well. I’ve cut the first flowers to encourage the plant to send up more.
The tomato plants have lots of blossoms so I’m encouraged that we’ll have lots of tomatoes this year!
Boo hoo! The poor carrots are having a hard time. I think the very dry hot weather was tough on them. You can hardly see them!
You can see how dry and cracked the ground is even though Bert watered every day!
The beans seemed to respond to watering over the last month so they look pretty healthy.
The Delicata squash plants finally look good. Bert had to replant them several times. Not sure why they didn’t sprout. They are a vining plant, so we’re not sure if we’ll have to add a climbing trellis.
And finally…the Echinacea!! I’m anticipating some beautiful flowers pretty soon!
This is about the time I’m glad that lots of people around here have gardens and sell produce at the Farmer’s Markets. We certainly couldn’t grow everything we need in our small garden, but it sure is rewarding when we eat our first home-grown tomato!
Hot and dry! That’s been our weather the last few weeks. We have had no measurable rain since May 2. It’s tough to see the brown spots in the grass and the cracks in the dirt in the garden. Thought I’d share some pictures. So far, Bert has been able to keep up with watering the garden plants directly but not the shrubs. I guess he won’t have to cut the grass for a while…it’s so brittle it breaks when you walk on it.
The only place the grass looks good is right under the bird feeders, since every day Bert dumps out and refills the birdbath right by the trees.
Targeted watering keeps the radishes and lettuce going.
My sweet potato plant is doing well. I’m hoping I get some pretty flowers from it.
The lavender is doing well.
Some of the tomato plants have blossoms already.
The carrots haven’t been able to push through the dry earth…even with watering every day.
Green beans have popped.
Bert had trouble getting the Delicata squash to even sprout this year. Hopefully the vines will take over this space.
The Echinacea is trying to make flowers already.
Another worry with no rain is how dry the woods are around here. Campers and hikers have to be careful. Maybe it’s time for a rain dance! I’ll get right on that!
It seems like gardening season, 2023, got underway almost a month ago. In the last week with the rain barrels getting set up and tomato plants in the ground it’s like we finally got serious! I was able to get my raised planters going early this year thanks to the nice weather. I’ve enjoyed the first picking of radishes and lettuce.
I was able to plant the bag of small red potatoes that were sprouting on the kitchen counter and they have begun to pop.
Potatoes
I had a sweet potato that was determined to grow before I could eat it. We put it in a big pot just for fun.
Sweet Potato
Yesterday, it actually felt like gardening season had begun because Bert transferred the small amount of rain water in the rain barrels into the larger tank in the garden on the hill. He then used the hose to fill the tank the rest of the way. We’ve had very little rain and not much is predicted, but now that we have plants in the garden, we’ll need to be able to water the new plants without having to haul water up the hill.
I’m determined to take the time to learn how to grow sprouts in my kitchen and use them in various…on sandwiches, in salads and in stir fry. They are one thing that I should be able to grow and not have to buy at the grocery store. While I’m waiting for my lettuce and spinach to produce decent-size plants, growing sprouts could give me the variety I want with the freshness I like.
I started by getting my jars and lids organized. I already had 4 1-quart wide mouth canning jars. I ordered new lids that had metal mesh in the ring and “feet” so I could stand the jars on end or lean them at 45 degrees. I ordered these from Amazon.
I started with alfalfa seeds and mung bean seeds because they were familiar. Unfortunately, both packets of seeds were several years old so about half of the seeds did not sprout. Save yourself the frustration and buy fresh seeds! They can be purchased at Amazon.
I used 1 Tablespoon of alfalfa seed in the first jar and 1 Tablespoon of mung bean seeds in the second jar. I filled the jar with water, swirled the seeds around and set them on the counter overnight.
In the morning I drained the water, added more water, swished them around and drained the water off. I stood the jars inside a small glass cake pan to let them continue draining.
During the next 2 days, I rinsed the seeds every few hours, drained them and laid the jars down in the glass pan…like the picture below.
(I missed taking a picture of the alfalfa and mung bean sprouts…this is the second batch with the bean mix and chickpeas.)
After two days, I dumped the sprouts into cool water in a bowl and used my hands to swish them around. This was to loosen the green shells on each seed. They floated to the top so I could skim them off.
I first tried my Salad Spinner, but ended up using a plain stainless-steel bowl. The mung bean sprouts got stuck in the holes and the alfalfa sprouts went right through the holes!
Once I had most of the shells removed from the seeds, I spread the sprouts out in a larger glass cake pan and covered them with plastic wrap. I set them on the counter in the sun for a few hours and let them “green up.”
They kept well in the refrigerator in this neat little container:
Then, I started the second round of sprouts that I can use in stir fry…bean mix and chickpeas.
The alfalfa and mung bean sprouts are great in my sandwiches and salads. I hope the bean mix and chickpea sprouts work well in stir fry…my next experiment! Stay tuned!
