Views of and from the Compost Piles

Between being tired after work, shorter days, and having grandsons on Saturdays, I have been having trouble getting much gardening done lately.  It was a very nice day today, and I got to spend lots of time gardening.  The main thing I was glad to get done was to spread most of the finished compost around the vegetable garden, and turning the unfinished part.  I decided to dig some of the sweet potatoes in order to get the compost away from the fence, because we need to put a different fence there to keep the bottom of the neighbors' fence from buckling into their yard.  Also, I need to make room for the next batch of leaves.

Look at all those roots!  If the season went on forever, would all of them turn into potatoes?

Here's the crop I got from 2 plants.  I wish I could remember what kind these are.  I'm thinking they were supposed to be a smaller growing plant, but these plants were larger than the ones in pots.

It hasn't been the best year for the vegetable garden.  Actually, the spring crops did well, but the summer brought lots of heat, and the insects devoured my bush bean plants.  I was very tickled when I discovered the pole beans growing on the twig fence in front of the compost pile were producing.  We have had 3 meals with them so far.  They seem to be slowing down, now that the temps are getting cooler.  It looks like a disease may be starting.
 

Earlier, when I was standing on the compost pile in order to reach the compost next to it, I looked over at the garden, and decided I should take some photos from there, 3 or 4 feet above the ground.

This was the second season for the asparagus.  It seems to be doing OK.  There are 3 roma tomato plants right next to the bean plants.  There are some kale plants on the right, with volunteer cherry and grape tomato plants.  There was a nice crop of peas in the same area as the tomatoes, which I think slowed down the tomato plants.  Normally, we have had our fill of cherry tomatoes by now.

There has been some blossom end rot this year, but I think the tomatoes are doing OK now.  I didn't plant many here, and the ones across the street are leggy and not producing well because they don't have enough sun.  The critters seem to be beating me to what does ripen.  I am disappointed, but feel I need to give up my garden across the street.  If there were better growing conditions, I would keep at it.

I used my zoom to head east.  I had some of the Tuscan and regular kale in my salad today.  I didn't get a fall crop of lettuce planted because it was too hot.  I have been buying lettuce, spinach, and cucumbers from the farmer's market.  I did get a few cucumbers here before the plants died.

I have one okra plant.  It looks like I may get some before it freezes.  Some neighbors have a whole bunch of okra that they freeze and use during the winter.  They have some people they share with, too.  I planted 2 kinds of marigolds that I got from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds.  I only found the red cherry packet.  I looked online, and couldn't tell if that's what these are.  I have quit deadheading so I can harvest some seeds.  I hope they reseed themselves, too.

The butterflies have been enjoying all the verbena bonariensis that survived the hoe.  As I was weeding, I kept saying, I'm letting the ones in the middle live, so I did hoe up quite a few.  There are two painted ladies in this photo.  On the right are a few leaves of a yellow summer squash plant that produced a few, but is now struggling.

Some of my pots of mint are along the north side of the garage.  I'm not sure what kind of goldenrod that is, and whether I planted it or some critter did.  The sweet pea planted itself, and I let it grow over an old plant stand.

We're back to the compost piles.  I will need to harvest the rest of the sweet potatoes soon, but for now, I'll let them grow.

 This section needs to have a little more taken out in order to be ready for leaves.  The neighbors to the north put their leaves over the fence.

I got into the first compost bin to take this photo.  Next year, I don't think I'll plant anything in a compost pile.  I didn't get the other two turned this summer, and I don't think they broke down as well as usual.  I was glad to get some green from the leaves to help the process along.

As I was going in, I took a few more photos.  I get volunteer dill, cilantro, and this, borage each summer.

I had to include the painted lady(ies).  I'm not sure if it's the same one, but I wanted to include each side of the wings.

Well, the weekend is over, and it was a good one.  I hope yours was, too.

Harvesting Sweet Potatoes, Tomatoes, and a Couple Peppers for Wordless Wednesday

I haven't participated in Wordless Wednesday for awhile, and even then, did not link in, because I wasn't sure who the host was, and even though I discovered it awhile back, don't remember now. Oops!  I just wrote some words!

Eating Ornamental Sweet Potatoes

Last October I did a post, called, "Yes, you can eat Potato Vine, Marguerite." Over the year, I've noticed on my stat counter that the search that leads the most people to my blog is whether ornamental sweet potatoes are edible. I've invited people who don't blog to leave anonymous comments to let me know whether they tried them, but no one has. The guy who emailed me letting me know he was going to eat his, never came back to say if he liked it.

This year, I was set to experiment with different varieties of ornamental sweet potatoes to compare how they taste. I had several problems that prevented me from using good scientific methods. First, some of the tags got misplaced. Then, the day I harvested them, our grandson was over. I don't remember why, but I ended up going inside with Grandson, and asking Larry to go around to take photos of the potatoes that I had dug up and left on the dirt in their pots. Instead, he put the potatoes in sacks and brought them in. It has taken the whole evening to do this post, but I think I have figured out which potatoes came from which plants.

The photos of the plants are from July 7, 2009. The first one shows the Georgia Jet and Beauregard sweet potatoes in the wash tubs, which I've already posted the harvest of, and the reddish ornamental one in the back is Ace of Spades.

These light colored potatoes in my hand came from the above Ace of Spades plant.

I'm not sure what kind of sweet potato this is. I couldn't find it when I tried looking it up. Its potatoes were reddish, so it's something different from Ace of Spades. I thought it might be Blackie, but the leaves are not shaped the same.

Here's the potato from the above plant. I would have gotten a better photo if Larry hadn't been so helpful in picking them up.

Here is this year's Marguerite.

I only got one potato from it, probably because of all the roots from the cosmos.

Because of my experience with sweet potatoes exploding in the microwave, even though I had poked them, I decided to convection bake these at 350 degrees. I poked them, and put them all on a pizza pan, taking the smaller ones off after about 20 minutes. The others took about 15 more minutes. I had a pork roast on the shelf above them, so that could have affected the time.

The small one on the left is from the plant by the shed that had lisianthus and ageratums in it. Next, going clockwise are, Marguerite, the 2 Ace of Spades, and the larger ones are Georgia Jet, and Beauregard on the bottom.

I sprayed the potatoes with margarine, and put a touch of salt and ground some pepper on them. The reddish potatoes are from the plant by the shed. The texture was not the best, but the flavor was pretty good. Next, the Marguerite, was the sweetest of the assortment. The texture was much better than the microwaved one last year. It was my favorite on the plate. The 2 non-ornamental sweet potatoes were good, but I don't remember there being much difference in taste between them. The Ace of Spades were mild, and had good texture.

So, if you find this doing a search to see if ornamental sweet potatoes are edible, don't just stop here. There are other articles where you may find some varietes that shouldn't be eaten, but if you have some of the ones I list here, try them, and see if you like them. I would love it if you would come back and leave a comment. If you don't have a blog, you can check the "anonymous" box, and then leave your comment. Lynda, from Rustyhoe recently posted a photo of her ornamental sweet potato, and said she was going to try eating it. If you are a blogger and have done a similar post or are going to, let me know, and I'll link to it.

Oh, and I've read about saving the roots for next year. I still have some that are too small to eat. I'll have to find out how to store them for the winter.

(I did not find any potatoes under this tricolor sweet potato vine. This photo is from July.)

An Early Sweet Potato Harvest

I have been growing sweet potatoes in wash tubs for a number of years. After seeing a friend's vines growing far and wide in her garden, I think next year, I'll plan to grow some across the street.

I have noticed a couple sweet potatoes poking out of the dirt, so I went out to dig one for supper this evening. When I saw how big it was, I went back for my camera. I stuck it back where it was before I snipped the stem with garden scissors for a "reenactment". The plant to the right is a Spooky dianthus.

Isn't it pretty?

Then, while trying to figure out which tag belonged to it, I noticed this whole plant had died, so I dug out the potatoes from it.

These had the tag right next to them identifying them as Georgia Jet sweet potatoes.

They are the same color as the larger one, so I think it's the same kind. The leaves on the right are from a plant in the next pot.

Here are some washed up. It looked like there may be some blemishes, but they didn't go through the skin after being cooked.

Last fall I did a post about eating my Marguerite sweet potatoes, and had the same mishap as I did with these. Again, I should have started the larger one first, and watched them more closely. They were still good, though. The mess cleaned up easily.

Do you ever look at your stat counter to see what kinds of internet searches lead people to your blog? I think the one that pops up the most for me is people looking to see if they can eat their ornamental sweet potatoes. I planted several varieties this spring to harvest and cook. Stay tuned for further posts when the frost is about to threaten.

Saturday's Sweet Potato Harvest

This photo was taken 8/4/08.  The sweet potato plant is on the right in the silver wash tub. 

I forgot to take a pic of the plant before starting to pull, so I tossed the plant back up and took one.  I gently pulled up the potatoes I could, then used a hand trowel to loosen the soil before pulling the others out by hand.

I had already taken two nice sized sweet potatoes out, but the harvest is smaller than last year. I had 3 vines in the tub this year.  I can't remember how many I put in last year, so maybe that was the difference.  I'll probably go ahead and plant more next year, though, because all you have to do is water them.  They don't require attention planted this way.