I Yam What I Yam; I Yam a Sweet Potato!

One of the things I included on my 2007 Garden To Do List that I compiled in late February was to grow some "new vegetables and fruits that I haven't grown before." I have accomplished this by planting Blueberries, Horseradish and Sweet Potatoes.

I didn't start my own Sweet Potato slips, but I was able to find some "Beauregard" plants at the garden center.

Beauregard is the common orange flesh variety that we find at the grocery store. Some people call it the Louisiana Sweet Potato.

In researching how to plant sweet potatoes, I kept reading that you should plant them in high ridges 12 inches apart and in rows 3 feet apart. I plant in raised beds instead of rows. Mel Bartholomew's Square Foot Gardening doesn't mention sweet potatoes, but his principle would suggest that I could plant them 12 inches apart in all directions, so that is what I did.

I planted them in one of my 4 X 4 beds. I don't really know what their growth habit is so maybe this isn't enough space. I added sand to the bed when I planted them so the roots could have loose soil to grow in, and I think I should mulch this bed as well.

This is a new vegetable for me, so we'll see how it goes. Have you grown sweet potatoes before? I would love any advice that you are willing to share.

Oh yeah, one more thing brought on by my trying to be clever with the title - Is a Sweet Potato different from a Yam? When I research that question I get very conflicting answers. Some say they are distinctly different and some say they are the same but the term "yam" should be reserved for the orange fleshed sweet potatoes. What do you think? If you have a strong opinion either way, I'd love to hear from you. Maybe by harvest time, we can get this straightened out.

Grow Light Stand... on Steroids!

Since my last post showing my attempt at extra early ripe tomatoes, I re-potted those young tomato pioneers once more.

When I put them back under the grow lights, I remembered that I haven't showed you the light stand that I built new for 2007! Finishing this was one of the things on my 2007 Garden to do list post. I have always hung a few shop lights from the ceiling and had enough space for about four flats of seedlings. This year however, I've quadrupled my capacity!

It's big and heavy and a bit ugly, but oh how many plants we can grow now!

It is really just an old kitchen table extended with plywood and built up with scrap wood to sport a second level. With two levels, I can hang 4 shop lights under the top level and 4 shop lights from the ceiling. Under those lights I have room for 12 flats. Using cell packs that fit 72 seedlings per flat, that's a possible 864 plants at a time! That's not a real number because of transplanting to bigger pots. Regardless of the number, I think I finally have enough indoor grow space. I like to start almost everything on my garden list from seed. Last year it was pretty crowded under the lights. I found myself kicking plants out into the garden earlier than I wanted to just to make room for other plants. This is what my light table looked like last year:

Here is what each level of the new and improved light table looks like:

Bottom Level

Top Level (not being used much yet)

I didn't spend anything on the wood and I just use regular 40 watt florescent bulbs in the light fixtures instead of spending lots of money on "growlight" bulbs. To me the key is having a lot of light. Remember, with florescent lights we are trying to mimick the Sun. The Sun is so powerful and puts off so much light that even though we are 93 million miles away, we can't even directly look at it! With that in mind, I have added an extra light fixture per level. I have four fixtures over three rows of flats instead of the normal one fixture per row of flats. It is also important to keep the lights only a few inches above the tops of the plants. By suspending the lights with chains, I can easily adjust the distance as the plants grow, or as I use bigger pots.

I keep the lights on about 16 hour per day. I don't believe in using an automatic timer either. If I have to turn the lights on and off manually, that is a guaranteed two times daily that I will look at the plants. That way I will always notice when they need watering or any other attention.

This post was really only supposed to be about the new light stand. I will write more about the art of growing from seed later. After all, I still have about 1000 seeds left to start!

Raccoons will torment me No More!

The Raccoons that visit my garden tend to talk to me.

As you can see, this one informed me that he was getting tired of his diet of cat food and is longing for another summertime feast of my sweet corn! To that I say NOT THIS YEAR MR. RACCOON!

Every year I attempt to grow a small patch of corn, and every year I get to watch the stalks grow healthy and strong. I also get to watch many wonderful ears develop, but when its just about time to pick those succulent sweet ears ... the local raccoons have a night corn eating garden party! They take every last ear and scatter the cobs all around the yard!

This year the only corn they will get is the few kernels left on the cobs that they find on top of the compost pile! The corn I plan to grow is Bicolor Mirai 301BC which I wrote about in a previous post. The coons won't get any Mirai corn from the garden because number three on my 2007 to do list is to build a raccoon proof fence around that corn! I can't afford to fence in the entire garden, so I am just fencing in the center of the garden and I will grow the corn inside the fence.

"But raccoons can climb a fence" you might be thinking. I'm going to do three things to combat this. First I will make the pumpkin patch but up against one side of the fence (the one furthest from the house and closest to the woods). Raccoons hate trying to get through and over pumpkin vines. Second, I will grow cucumbers ON the fence. According to Carrots Love Tomatoes, raccoons detest cucumbers, so they probably won't try to climb over them. If they remember how much fun they've had at their annual corn eating party and are determined to not let this companion planting bother them, I think my third trick will stop them.

I found a raccoon remedy in another one of my favorite books called Jeff Cox's 100 Greatest Garden Ideas: Tips, Techniques, and Projects for a Bountiful Garden and a Beautiful Backyard. One of the 100 great ideas shows how to securely attach the bottom of a roll of chicken wire to the top of the fence and leave the top of the chicken wire unsupported. You also bend the chicken wire out a little and leave it floppy. If a raccoon reaches the top of the fence and begins climbing on the chicken wire, his weight will cause the chicken wire to fold down on him and dump him off.

Brilliant!

I will post plenty of pictures after I get the fence built. I will also report what my raccoon friends have to say about it! Of course they may take their revenge by convincing their deer friends to jump over the fence, but that is material for another post!

So there you have it - number three on my 2007 Garden to do list!

Garden 2007 To Do List

In my earlier post about what I should be blogging about in February, I came up with a list of "new" things that I plan to do this year in the vegetable garden to hopefully make the harvest better. I wanted to post the list again since I will be referring back to it in the coming weeks.

The original list:

• I will use companion planting strategies.
• I will grow Horseradish to keep Blister Beetles Away.
• I will build a tall fence around my corn to keep critters out.
• I will use vertical gardening techniques to grow crops on the fence.
• I will use raised beds and square foot garden beds.
• I will use the Florida Stake and Weave for most of my tomatoes.
• I will try to have early tomatoes ripe by July 1st!
• I will grow many new heirloom tomatoes!
• I will use more composting techniques including "worm composting".
• I will try for giant pumpkins.
• I will try some new vegetables and fruits that I haven't grown before.

Now for a few more items that need to be addressed BEFORE the outdoor season:

• I need to write a comprehensive list of the vegetable and flower varieties I will grow this year.
• I need to map out the placement in the garden of each plant on graph paper.
• I need to write out the calendar schedule of when I will start each vegetable indoors, and when I will plant each outside.
• I need to finish building my double-decker grow light stand.
• I need to manage all of the seed starting under the lights.
• I need to create the NEW outside beds.
• I need to build all trellises and plant supports in advance.
• I hope to make a working cold frame for hardening off the plants.

I realize that my list is pretty big. I will try to write posts addressing each thing on the list to either report that I accomplished an item, or explain my ideas. Later in the season I will report back on each item to see how I did. As I write a new post, I will update this post by making each item on the list a link to the corresponding post.

This post will become "home base" for monitoring and reporting my "to do list" progress.

Doing all of this may be more for me than for you the reader. Possibly we will learn some things together.

Happy Gardening 2007!