And Just Like That...

Summer is over. 

Yep, summer is over and the temps have plummeted into the 60s and 70s as is usual here in our part of Washington State. Not only that, we had an Atmospheric River/Bomb Cyclone come through this past week HERE. Fortunately the rain wasn't too bad, mostly at night and into the early morning hours. I suppose there was a day that we had constant showers throughout the day, but even so, it wasn't terrible.

This past week was quite busy for me. I like to have one day a week to do all my errands, maybe two days. Most of the time I like to spend my days doing stuff around the house. Whether it's in the kitchen or out with the critters...my happy place is being home. Mon-Thurs was going here there and everywhere. So today (Friday) I'm going to spend the majority of the day at home doing the things that I keep putting off. Later after Tom comes home from work we'll head out and run a couple of errands. At least I will have the majority of my day to do stuff around the house. 

Not a lot happening here at the farm, so this is a brief post. Here is a cute pic of the two itty-bitty pigs that we sold a few weeks ago...

Ya'll!!!

OH

EM

GEE

SWEET POTATOES BAY-BEE!

I have tried for the past couple of years to grow sweet potatoes - this was year three in my quest to grow these things and I finally got something that we can eat!!

My understanding is that sweet potatoes like warm weather to grow...we have warm weather, but I don't think it's warm enough, LONG enough to get a decent harvest. By decent I mean 4-6 good size tubers.

The first year I tried was in 2021. I may have started the process a bit on the late side. I think I thought about growing slips when spring hit so the slips weren't ready to plant until summer. That year I successfully grew vines with a few itty-bitty fingerling tuber. This gave me hope that if I started them earlier then I might get something more than just a bunch of vines and itty-bitty sweet potatoes. Last year I tried growing them in the hoop house. Slightly better, but not much. I started the process earlier in the year and probably got the slips into the hoop house before June. The plants thrived and I had plenty of vines, but still itty-bitty tubers. I think they may have been bigger, but not much. 

THEN...

This year I got my sweet potato into water way early (February I think)  and by early March I had a few slips growing and buy the time I decided to start getting my garden planted - in June I had so many slips! Before I planted I did get some of the slips off the tuber and into a pint jar of water to root. Some of the others that I was able to include roots from cutting were placed into pots immediately. 

My thinking for this year was to go ahead and grow them in the crop garden and do a kind of raised bed situation. Also, I thought hoops and some green house plastic would help the plants to grow better. The plastic would give the plants a perfect microclimate and it was easy enough to water from one side after lifting the plastic. Unfortunately, the winds can get a little crazy in the summer so the plastic eventually tore and I ended up taking it off of the hoops and just hoped for the best. The temperatures here in SW Washington state have been consistently in the 80s and low to mid 90s. So maybe the time the plants were under the plastic helped them to establish.

 Now I'm thinking about how to do even MORE next year :) So much to consider - how many plants to grow, should I create a special place for them for next year or ???? I do know that I'll be getting more green house plastic and figuring out a more permanent area to grow them. 

But first, it's time to cure them. We'll see how that works out. I don't have a very good place to cure them. So I hope that they will cure okay in the hoop house. I have them in a small storage bin with some water in a mason jar to keep the humidity up and covered with my plastic rain poncho.

More on that later!

Other than that, the week has been not as busy. Last week was totally spent in the kitchen processing peaches and tomatoes. There still is evidence in the kitchen and the dining room that I have been canning food. Since I'm planning to go to Long Beach to get more cranberries in a few weeks, I'm reluctant to store away my supplies.

It was also my week to take care of the Food Pantry Garden at our church. It's the end of the season and the plants are pretty much spent, so my goal will be to go and clean up all of the tomato plants and other plants that are languishing. The green bean plants have made a come back - some of them did at least, so those will stay just a little longer. Earlier this summer the team and I were talking about possibly doing to fall crops, but I haven't got my fall stuff in my garden yet, so I don't think that I'm going to get fall stuff in the pantry garden done. Overall, I think the garden was a success, just for a summer garden. Next season we'll start up again in the spring and plan to go into the fall. I also have another fun idea to get people involved in providing food for the pantry. More to come later.

There have been reports of an Atmospheric River coming to our area in the next few days...oh boy. It's going to get wet around here. I might have to get my garden work done sooner than later.