The Final Sweet Potato Harvest

I harvested the last bed of sweet potatoes today.  This bed was the first one I planted back in early May.  It was one of a few new ones installed in late spring and I didn't realize that it only got partial sun in the afternoon.  Sweet potatoes like it hot and these slips got a slow start.  Ironically, the bed produced almost as many as the others (in full sun) and the size and shape were much better than the crazy twisted, giant ones I harvested yesterday.

I harvested 12lbs which brought my total to 45lbs!  Not bad for my first time.  We definitely have enough for our family to eat all winter and spring until the regular potatoes are harvested.  I will also get to bring a big dish of them to the family Thanksgiving dinner!

I upgraded my phone and I now have a cool panoramic feature so I played around a little with it this evening.  I need to perfect my technique.  Evidently I cannot follow a straight line so it looks a little wonky but I like being able to see so much at once.

The mini pumpkins, spaghetti squash and Christmas Lima beans are to the right of center and I just planted broccoli, cabbage and Brussels sprouts in the beds in the middle.  The empty bed near the flag may become a perennial onion/leek bed.  All the way to the right are the four new beds I added a few weeks ago.  They still need soil and at least one will be for garlic/shallots.  I think the others will hold sugar snap peas (climbing up the trellis) and shelling peas.  I'm training the spaghetti squash to climb the other side of the trellis.

The Tabasco peppers (on the left) are, officially, over six feet tall!  My butternuts were coaxed up the trellis on the right of the bed this morning and a few vines reached the top.  My fall planting of Kentucky Blue pole beans are too shaded behind the peppers so they aren't filling in the back trellis much but they are starting to flower and may give me a few pods.  If they aren't producing much, I'll pull them and plant peas in their place.  I'm still debating on overwintering the Tabasco peppers.  There are two plants and I may leave the front one (the biggest and more prolific) and prune and pot the back one to take in on cold nights and see how it does in the spring.

I finally got a chance to turn the compost from one bin to the other.  I also sprayed everything down with a generous dose of neem.  I have some aphids and, just today, found the start of powdery mildew on every single squash and pumpkin plant, ugh!  All the humidity really takes a toll on the fall garden.  Hopefully, I can harvest a good crop before I have to pull everything. 

Have a great night!

Thanks for reading,

Jen