Monday, September 16, 2013

Harvest Monday, September 16, 2013

Harvested this morning: a mix of hot peppers, sweet peppers and sweet potatoes.


The sweet potatoes are small but were started from clippings about a month after I planted the main crop.  Had to dig up this part of the bed to make room for some early plantings of kohlrabi, brussels sprouts and broccoli.  I did dig up quite a few baby roots that went into the compost so, it's possible, I'll have a second harvest from the compost bin in the spring!
 
Every Monday, Daphne's Dandelions hosts Harvest Monday, a way for you to see what others in the blogosphere are harvesting.  It's amazing to see how the different areas of the country harvest completely different crops.

It's another hot morning in Florida.  The temps are already into the 80's and it's very humid with thunderstorms forecast for the afternoon.  

Got the new beds assembled.  I was lazy and bought the kits rather than build them myself.  They look nice but won't last as long since they are built with wimpy boards, not the 2" rough cedar that I love.  Here is the before and afters.  These beds are for potatoes and garlic that won't be delivered for another month or two so I'll line them with cardboard to kill the sod then flip the sod upside down and fill the beds with soil.



I moved the recently potted blueberries to their temporary home along the western boundary of the garden.  The pool enclosure will start a few feet to the right and, once built, I will move the blueberries over as a privacy hedge along the screen.  That will give me a decent pathway to the right of the new beds.

Here are the other new beds put in yesterday.



The top shows the potted blueberries where I dug them up and now the new beds have taken their place.  The far beds were built around the existing blackberry bushes that I'll move in the winter when they are semi dormant.  The garlic planned for those beds will go in after being chilled in the fridge for a month or so.  It's a mini experiment to see if the pre chilled ones grow bigger bulbs than the ones planted without chilling.

After looking at these pictures I realize how badly I need to mulch the walkways.  Here is a shot I took in the spring after the mulch was put down.  It really pulls the whole garden together and makes it so much cleaner looking.



Well, that's it for today.  I need to get out and start pruning trees before we hit the 90's, again.

Thanks for reading!
Jen




4 comments:

  1. Your peppers look great! And the sweet potatoes too. I would love to try growing them sometime.

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  2. My first comment-thanks so much! I've always had good luck with hot peppers but, this year, the sweet ones are doing great (as long as I can keep the snails off them). This is my first time growing sweet potatoes and I will grow them again. They take up a lot of room but they love our hot sun over the summer. My husband grew up in CT and I love to visit up there, it's so beautiful. Love your blog, btw.

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  3. Jen, I'm so happy you stopped by to comment on my blog today! Now I've found yours :-)

    Your gardens look lovely, and it's always exciting to build and plant new beds. I'm in the process of tearing down and rebuilding a couple of mine, and keep changing my mind about what will be planted in them. I'm afraid mine will lean more toward practical than beautiful. Good job on the sweet potatoes. I tried them last year....and failed.

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    1. Thanks so much! There is so little that grows here from mid June through August. I usually take that time to solarize the beds and decided on a whim to toss in the sweet potatoes. Glad I did. I usually prefer a more frugal approach to gardening, but I have no soil save for an inch under my sod. After that, it's sand and shell and, eight inches or so down, water. I have no choice but to do raised beds and a strict HOA that is not garden friendly combined with the fact that the garden is directly outside the largest windows in my house keep me from letting it get too messy.

      I am a mind changer, too. Last year, I dug up and moved so many plants, I'm surprised I actually got a harvest!

      I can't tell you how many times I've been exhausted after working in the garden for hours pulling sod by hand and building and hauling things and then read about all the work you did that day and went right back out to finish. I've actually said to myself "I'm 42 and a runner and she is putting me to shame!". Thanks for the inspiration!

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