Sweet Potato Update!

We love sweet potatoes around here so we were very excited to plant some sweet potatoes! I can not believe how well these are growing!! We planted them as small "plugs" that we bought at our local feed and seed store and they sure have taken off!! They are absolutely beautiful! The sweet potatoes grow similar to regular potatoes and grow in the ground so we can not see the veggies, but we sure do get to enjoy the amazing ground cover. I think I will plant some of these in the front yard next year just because they are so easy and aesthetic. We are not sure how many sweet potatoes we are going to get out of this bed, but we are eager to go "exploring for buried treasure"...and definitely make some sweet potato pie!

Here is a picture of Addie "hiding" behind the sweet potatoes in the next walk way. They have grown to a nice tall "bush" of leaves. I have to keep on the vines or they will trail out of their area and all the way into another bed of veggies. This helps with the height of the "bush" because we keep piling more and more vines on top of each other.

Garden Update...fall planting

Its been pretty busy around here...fun and busy! The garden has been extremely productive and some of the spring plants are harvested and gone and we are onto fall planting! In the first row you can see our watermelon hills that we just planted a few days ago that took the place of all the squash and zucchini from spring planting. Then the next bed up you can see the celery looking full and the empty spot is where we had some lettuce and radishes, but that has been worked in with some compost and we planted more lettuce and some spinach and chives. The third row up is where the beans and potatoes used to be and we have harvested all those (getting over 100 lbs of vegetables from that bed alone) and are working the soil with several wheelbarrows full of compost to get ready for more bush beans, bush peas and some arugula. The 4th row is where the sweet potatoes, tobacco, peppers and basil are residing. The 5th row (which you cant see in this picture past the tobacco) has carrots, peppers, eggplant, basil, and some newly planted radishes (planted today). The 6th row has all our tomato plants (we call it the wall of tomatoes) and a row of celery in front of that. The back bed is where the asparagus was planted, but it doesn't get much sunlight because of the wall of tomatoes so I hope it makes it.

 

 This is a close up of the sweet potatoes, they are vining out everywhere and looking really good!

The basil pretty much hides the rest of this bed...but its ok, I LOVE basil!!

Eggplant! I couldn't be happier with this heirloom variety of eggplant! This one plant alone has 4 beautiful eggplants hanging off of it waiting for harvest!

Close up of the celery and onions.

The shade is creeping in on this bed, but this is where we planted the next round of radishes.

Here is one angle of the "wall of tomatoes".

Another angle of the celery and carrots.

Sweet potatoes, with the peppers and tobacco in the back of this picture.

Eggplant.

Prepping the beds with rich compost to get ready for fall planting.

Addie was a big helper today with the compost.

Strike a pose!! Addie loves "petting" the basil, she thinks the flowers are pretty...she used to pick them and I didn't care because we had SO many, but now she has lost interest in picking the flowers she just loves to look at them and smell them.

The bees love the basil too!!

We are trying a new method of composting (well new to us anyway). Compost corral! We were having a hard time with the goats and chickens getting in the compost and moving all 3 of our organized piles together, so we thought we would give this a try with one of the piles just to see how it turned out...we'll keep you updated!!

Garden Update

The sun is creeping over the top of the garage this beautiful gardening morning...its so peaceful! I love sitting out at the garden watching the goats and chickens working and playing in the yard with the kids and seeing all the work we've done finally come to harvest!
The beans gave us quite a good crop but they are on their last leg and so is the broccoli so that will open up 2 more areas to get ready for fall planting. The radish bed is empty and getting ready for a new veggie...still not sure what though. I pulled up the rest of the potatoes a couple days ago and got about 20+ lbs which was pretty exciting! The sweet potatoes are taking off and looking good, as well as the tobacco! The squash is hanging in there, but we lost all the zucchini (along with the spinach!) :( We have several watermelons and pumpkins getting bigger and bigger! We have 2 beds of celery that we planted a couple weeks apart and the first bed is almost ready! All the onions and garlic are done...and yummy! Definately have to plant more onions and garlic next year!! The basil, mint and sage are very abundant! I even did a few herb bouquets for the house that turned out real good...the idea was from my Aunt Jill!! Jill was in town for a few days and was able to stop by the house to see our backyard chaos in person. I'll post more on the herb bouquets later...its such a great idea!! The sunflowers in the front yard are just starting to open up and they look fabulous!! I am SO excitted about those sunflowers!! Oh and the carrots! How could I forget about Henrys carrots!! They are getting closer and closer and I cant wait to see the look on Henrys face when all those carrots come out of the ground!
The tomatoes have taken over the little tomato cages and we had to build a 30 foot wall of twine around the whole row to help contain them! (We put 8 foot stakes every 4 feet and attached the twine with galvanized nails every 12 inches up the stake) They are producing quite well and taste absolutely magnificent! I have never tasted anything that can compare to eating a ripe heirloom cherry tomato right off the vine!!
Overall we have had some tremendous success so far (being our first year here and everything) and I look forward to seeing how much more this little area can produce!!
One things is for sure...working the soil with a good amount of compost will really help the garden be more productive. We added alot of compost to the back 4 rows of the garden and those 4 rows are fantastic!! But we didnt add as much to the front 2 rows because we added them later and had ran out of compost...it was a good experience for us to see how much less that area produced and how much slower the plants grew as well. We have quite a bit of compost that is getting ready to throw out there though so we will work the soil good this time!!