But underneath all these vines, the sweet potatoes were growing.
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| Sweet potato vines |
And yes, the sweet potato vines were blooming! I had begun to wonder if these weren't wild morning glories invading my bed, but upon closer inspection, I realized that yes, these blooms were from the sweet potatoes.
It was fun digging under the soil to see what was there. Some of the sweet potatoes were small, while some were huge!
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| Sweet potatoes! |
It doesn't look like it, but I got four grocery store bags full of sweet potatoes. I'm in the process of curing them now, then I will have to find a cool spot to store them. It's not easy in Texas to find a place cool enough to store them for the winter, as I don't have a root cellar or basement, so I may end up canning them. I am definitely going to give growing sweet potatoes a try next year! It was like digging for buried treasure. :)
But that's not all that I harvested from the vegetable garden in October. I also harvested jalapeno peppers. Over 400 jalapeno peppers! Yes, four hundred!!! No one needs four hundred jalapenos!
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| 400 jalapenos from two plants! |
I had been ignoring these two jalapeno pepper plants all summer. I just wanted a few, and I gave some away, but for most of the summer I've been ignoring them. I thought if I was patient enough, they would just quit producing. Instead, all summer they have been making jalapenos, drying up, dropping off, then making more. They became the plants that wouldn't quit!
Finally, I decided to pull up these plants so I could plant something different in their place. I did feel a little guilty about pulling them up while they were doing so well. I couldn't believe that so many jalapeno peppers were on two bushes that had been ignored all summer! I decided to roast and freeze the 400 jalapeno peppers I got off the plants, instead of canning them, thanks to a post from The Blonde Gardener.
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| Baby Brussels sprouts! |
The fall garden is now planted. Mostly lettuces, but I'm also trying out Brussels sprouts (I love those!), and some green peas. We'll see how successful I'll be in a few months!
I'm joining The Gardening Blog for Garden Bloggers Harvest Day.
Planted a package of green bean seeds in late July hoping I might have something for Thanksgiving. The plants struggled but took off after the 100 degree days broke. Have been getting handfuls daily to save up for a potful. Boy, are they wonderful. We may be tired of them by Thanksgiving.
ReplyDeletehaha - Isn't that the way it is in gardening? It either makes it big, or fails miserably! :) That gives you one more thing to be thankful for on Thanksgiving, even if you are tired of them!
DeleteDespite the 'neglect' looks like you had a bountiful harvest. Well done! :)
ReplyDeleteIt was amazing to finally see what was underneath the soil! It was an exciting surprise!
DeleteHow exciting!!! I love sweet potatoes! The Jalapeños in small does, though Michael eats them like popcorn. What a haul!!!!
ReplyDeleteYes, these jalapenos will probably last me several years! :O
DeleteI am so jealous of your sweet potatoes!! I have tried so many times to grow them, but with no success! I will not give up - seeing your great harvest!! How did you start them growing?
ReplyDeleteOh, I was lucky - a friend gave me the slips, which I think is the hard part! I just planted them and waited. Although, I had tried growing them before, with no success - the slips I had bought that year were puny compared to the ones given me.
DeleteAll too COOL, especially the sweet potatoes! I`ve never tried, school us !
ReplyDeleteThe easiest way is to purchase the slips (a friend gave me these), then plant them, and wait 100 days. Be sure to harvest them before a freeze kills the tops. Curing them requires putting them in warm temperatures (80 degrees or so) for a couple of weeks, then they need to be kept cool (around 50 degrees). I have not tried growing the slips myself, but I may give that a try next year. It would be a fun experiment to find out if I could start them "from scratch"!
Deleteare you kidding me? I thought it was just the vine!!! Have you read the Sweet Potato Queens Book of Love?
ReplyDeleteNo, but it sounds like a fun book! I'll look it up! :)
DeleteAwesome, all those sweet potatoes, just in time for the holidays!! lol Brussels sprouts straight from the garden, roasted in butter until they're brown - YUM! My plants were a success and are still growing sprouts.
ReplyDeleteMy father grew Brussels sprouts many, many years ago, but neither of us could remember much about the plant. We did remember how good they tasted! I'm really looking forward to seeing these grow. And I can't wait to harvest them! I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a great sprout harvest!
DeleteVery nice. I am totally envious of those sweet potatoes. Wish I could grow them but just no space.
ReplyDeleteCher Sunray Gardens
They do take up a lot of space - and they seem to spread out all over!
DeleteWhat a harvest! And you still have energy to continue planting! You have a very long season!
ReplyDeleteYes, if I were a good vegetable gardener, I could have something growing all year round here. I'm trying to get there, but I think it will take me several years to accomplish that!
DeleteLove all those sweet potatoes! I've never tried to grow them due to lack of space in my garden, but I noticed your raised bed and may make a special bed just for that. Thanks for the shout out on your blog, also. And if you need a great jalapeno jelly recipe, let me know.
ReplyDeleteBrenda
I love my raised beds. I have a bed just for asparagus, so I think a bed just for sweet potatoes would be fun. Make it a fairly large bed - they love to spread out, at least mine did! I roasted the jalapenos and froze them. I'll use them next spring/summer to make picante sauce! Yum!
DeleteYou've inspired me to get my vegie garden going.
ReplyDeleteGreat blog btw. Nice to find another rose lover!
I am finally learning to love growing vegetables - actually I just love eating them! ;) They are a lot different than growing a rose, which as a bush, seems much easier than growing something from seed!
DeleteI had to laugh. You nailed two things that I notice when vegetable gardening. There is great joy hunting through the soil for potatoes. I loved doing that. And hot peppers,they are like breeding rabbits, they never stop producing. I only had two plants and did those plants produce.
ReplyDeleteI'll have to remember that peppers are like breeding rabbits! Great analogy!
DeleteYum, sweet potatoes, sweet potato pie ...
ReplyDeleteYes, I'm looking forward to it this Thanksgiving! :)
Delete400 jalapenos--wow! And all those Sweet Potatoes...my son would be in heaven because he loves them. Congrats!
ReplyDeleteWe love them, too. The sweet potatoes, that is - the jalapenos not as much! ;)
DeleteI am having such a time posting comments tonight...I'll try again, lol. I love those sweet potatoes, mine did the same thing this year, produced a bumper crop. (I gave most of them away; I can never figure out how to cure them. And I'm lazy.) Love those peppers, wow, what a crop!
ReplyDeleteI feel lucky that to cure them here, we just set them outside. It's usually 80 degrees or so out there, and the problem we have is storing them at a cooler temperature. I can see, though, that you would have the opposite problem - easy to store them at your cooler temperatures, but hard to cure!
DeleteHolley - I am so impressed with your haul on both the sweet potatoes and the Jalapena peppers. I have ONE Jalapena pepper bush that never did much more than a few peppers so 400 just blows me away.
ReplyDeleteI wish these pepper bushes would have made just a few peppers - but I've heard that peppers are like that. You either have a ton, or hardly none, with seemingly no rhyme or reason for the difference. Better luck next year!
DeleteJust wish we had a longer growing season for sweet potatoes. Not worth growing them I have found even after this year...only a few small potatoes...wish I could grow more all year long...maybe a cold frame next year to help keep the veggies going.
ReplyDeleteSweet potatoes do like it hot, and it does take a long time for them to grow to maturity. They do wonderfully here, but I can understand that you would have too short a time period for them to really be happy. I need to take advantage of our long growing season more than I do!
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