First frost is the decisive end of the summer garden. We had two light ones back-to-back at the beginning of the month, and although they weren’t killing frosts, they did enough damage to set fall harvest in motion.
The first thing on my list was sweet potatoes. I waited as long as I could, since the bed in the garden never seemed to grow well. Of my two plantings of slips, these were planted first (April 5th and 6th). But that particular bed is at the top of the garden and has never held soil moisture well, so the plants never grew well, even with
my inverted bottle waterer experiment.
The sweet potatoes in the African Keyhole Garden, on the other hand, did fantastic.
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| The slips in the keyhole garden were planted June 9th. |
The difference in the harvest is just as amazing.
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On the left are the largest from the keyhole garden.
On the right are the largest from the garden bed. |
It wasn’t a huge harvest because my slips were late to grow, but I’ll take whatever I get and be thankful for it.
Another surprise was my rice. We
planted a small plot of it last June, and I admit I was doubtful about the seed, which I saved from the previous summer. I’m pretty sure I harvested it too early, so I doubted it was mature enough to be viable. Amongst the (unwanted) volunteer grasses, I assumed it was a no-show. Dan even mowed the patch, and I never watered it, even during our hot dry spell. What a surprise to finally realize I had scatterings of mature rice plant growing there!
I hand harvested these by cutting off the heads. The yield was a bowlful.
There are still a few unripe rice plants, but even so, I won’t get much of a harvest. But at least it’s a seed crop for next year.
Lastly, my peanuts. They’re supposed to be harvested when the leaves start to turn yellow and about 70% of the nuts are mature. Well, the plants never yellowed, but they did suffer some frost damage. I checked on them the other day and discovered that between soggy soil and a return to summer-like temperatures last week, they were starting to sprout! So I pulled them.
One thing I observed is that where the vines laid on the ground, more peanuts grew.
That gives me information about how to increase production next year.
The last step is to dry them, and I hope that stops them from sprouting so I can have seed to plant next year!
Of the summer garden, my Matt’s Wild Cherry Tomatoes and Cornfield pole beans are still producing.
Neither got much frost damage. Looking at the weather forecast, however, I suspect that will come to a frozen end soon.
Source:
https://www.5acresandadream.com/2020/11/sweet-potatoes-rice-and-peanuts.html
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