re: The 2021 Garden Thread

I would eat those.

Ok mine are still looking good, only just bloomed, so probably another month i guess.

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Biggest thing is to not wash them. Digg them up, lay them out on tarp in the shade and let them dry, then put them somewhere with good draft. Some people put them in barn. Make boxes with hardware cloth so the air can get around the whole potato. If hung them in a crawfish sack before and they’ve lasted a while in the pantry hanging on a hook.

We’re gonna see. It rained again this morning. We dug up the last of them. I think we have 500 potatoes. The back of the can am is full in the garage with a fan blowing on them to harden the skin and dry the mud. Tomorrow we’ll softly brush any big hunks of dirt off and spread on the dining room table to dry in low humidity before giving a lot away and attempting to store the rest.

Didn’t spend too much time in the garden this weekend, but I was able to get out there and fertilize and spray some neem. Not seeing a whole lot of insect and disease pressure thank goodness. I did have some spots on the lower leaves of my tomatoes after all the rain, but I sprayed peroxide on Friday and pruned Saturday. Everything looks ok for now.

Still picking tons of Roma’s. Most of the beefmasters are taking forever to hit breaker. My first few eggplant had all split and I chunked them, but I have a bunch coming in now that all look really good.



I picked my first onion. It’s supposed to be a grannex33 yellow onion, but it doesn’t look yellow to me.
It wasn’t very big, but none of them are. The greens were dying back on it, so I pulled it.


I honestly don’t know much about growing onions, so maybe I’ll have to do some more learning and try again. But that one was chopped up and put into the ground meat that went into some of the California wonder bell peppers that we stuffed over the weekend. Came out great.



The yard long beans are doing well now and I didn’t know they made purple flowers. They’re kinda pretty.


So after all the rain last week (I think we got a total of 8 inches) I’d say the garden handled it pretty well. But we had enough rain to bring some wildlife into our backyard wetlands. Found this guy hanging out next to my bees.


Speaking of the bees, boy did I have a bit of a disaster with them this weekend. Maybe I’ll save that story for another post.

So I bought a seed potato, cut it up and planted it in buckets. I planted it somewhat low in the bucket with mounding it up as the summer goes in mind.

It has sprouted and is growing decently. No flowers yet.

When do I start mounding it up (adding soil to the bucket)?

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I didn’t know they made purple flowers. They’re kinda pretty.

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Mine are flowering now too and I've grown them for about 10 years now every spring/summer garden. I get so many during that time that I don't even think of planting an early fall crop.

My wife loves the flower they make and also the flowers on the okra I plant every year. I have 60 okra plants in my garden right now but they are still pretty small since all that rain we got for damn near 2 months played hell with sowing seeds.