September 28, 2017

Good morning,  I intentionally grow my sweet potatoes close together. I have found that there is little market value to huge vegetables.  

My sweet beds are 4.5 feet wide and 45  feet long. The sweet potato sets are planted on a 1 foot by 1 foot spacing. This yields mostly 1 pound sweet potatoes. Not all of the sets planted out survive and so where the mortalities occur, this is where the "lunkers" (2 + pounders) grow. There is a market for some of these around the Holidays when folks have guests. By and large there usually is little to no market for them.

This year I have used a new"potion" in the garden to combat root knot nematodes. It has worked very well for the most part and has made available harvests that otherwise may not exist. This "potion" has also eliminated a fungus in the sweet beds that would form a russet on the tubers. This fungus would not only discolor the sweets but would also severely effect the storage capabilities of the sweets. There have only been  a handful, most of the sweets are nice and pink. This potion has also minimized the nematode effects on the sweets. There are fewer bumps on the side of the sweets where the female nematodes reside and also it has minimized the cracking due to the nematodes.

Most all of my sweet beds have had nematodes in them this year. In years past this has caused a smaller harvest this is not the case  this year. Before starting to harvest my last bed not only having a bounty of sweets to sell at market I presently have several hundred pounds in storage. All of these have nice pink skins so they should keep very well

Getting back to my last bed of sweets. This bed has not shown any real sign of Root knot nematodes and the plants have been much larger than in any of the other beds. Hind sight tells me this should have been my first bed to harvest when I started the harvest back in July.

Usually I expect the end plants to be where the biggest are harvested since there is no competition on one side. Being only five feet into this last bed and the average sized sweet has been 2 + pounds although there are a fair number of smaller sweets. This could get dicey for storage  room. Such a problem to have.

So far in this bed there have been no mortalities. There has been a full 1 X 1 spacing. Surely as the harvest continues there will be some spaces to be found. I am curious to find how big these sweets will be. So far the biggest sweet so is a little over 3 pounds. Not a favorable market size.

I have noted on my garden plan board the locations of most of my RKN infections. The Potion will be used again next year, it has been well worth its cost. Maybe in beds where RKN infections are minimal, I might try an even closer spacing. This might cause me to plant fewer beds but have the same harvest quantities

These are some interesting observations. 

The summer veggies have really slowed this week.

This week I harvested chard, kale, green onions, carrots,lettuce and beans, In storage are sweet potatoes, butternuts and red onions. Please email as to availability.