23,594 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening

I just harvested most of my purple sweet potatoes a week ago and I am doing the same but with some vine cuttings. It seemed such a shame to throw out all those beautiful healthy vines. I heard you can eat the leaves so I tried that too, it was ok, but I am not much of a greens person anyway. I am going to keep a few vines going indoors to put out early next year. Sweet potatoes are so easy and pest free I am sure I won't have much issue.

Maryland's weather is too cold to start sweet potato slips in March.
We start rooting slips by end of May which will be ready by second week of June giving a shorter season to grow for taters before first warning of frost.
By saving few vines indoor during winter we can have slips in time for planting.

I have found that the peanuts survive fine in the soil over the winter, and that there are quite a few sprouts in the spring. You do want to thin the plants once they get going, because there may be quite a few more than you want. However, do wait until well after your last frost, because some of the peanuts may come up before damaging frosts are over, and will be killed. Other seeds will sprout later, still giving you a crop. For what it is worth, the shells rot over the winter, but the seeds seem to be just fine.
Renais

Thanks Renais.

Right now we're picking lettuce, collards, brocolli, cabbages, spinach, carrots, peas, turnips, and beets. It's been a good fall here in Va.

I am starting to eat spinach and lettuce i bought in 6packs and planted several weeks ago. Last week i planted one 6pack each of bok choi, toi choi, mizuna, collards, parsley, red kale, blue kale, some kind of lettuce..cannot remember...and italian dandelion.

Imeant to start marveille de quatres saisons lettuce seeds (pardon my french) but have not done so yet. I also have some chinese celery and japanese spinach seeds i might try. And of course peas...i can start them all winter here.

I am really looking forward to the miner's lettuce, aka claytonia, that grows as a wild native all over my yard in winter. I am trying for many different greens species and not just brassicas onky because the bugs love them too much.

Cooling weather brought another flush of peppers and cherry tomatoes, we will see what ripens.yelliw squadh and burgundy okra are still flowering tho the fruit is staying smsll, we are pretending they are pticey organic baby veggies we grew thst way on purpisr.

I like to leave them standing until late winter/early spring to catch snow. Then I cut them down and burn them on the spot w/a propane torch. This eliminates weed seeds and pests and doesn't hurt the asparagus at all.

lacey, I find that interesting cause I asked a question about A beetles living in the leaves and was told it was a fluke! Then last year I pulled the leaves off the asparagus before they started shooting and shot the area with sevin. No problems with A beetles. I don't normally use sevin, but was really bummed the year before when all my gus was squirly and eaten by the beetles!
I think I'll distribute some of the leaves to other beds and just keep an inch or so on the gus beds. Nancy

This summer was very wet and cool for us in Southeast Alaska, so I had very poor success with a number of vegetables which did very well the previous summer. This season I grew several varieties of chicories, just to see how they would grow, and if I would like eating them. They grew very well, with none of the problems I have with slugs and root maggots in my brassicas. I just harvested and cooked a head of Pan di Zucchero, using a recipe for sautéed chicory which I found on Epicurious.com. It was a bit bitter, so we added a bit of sugar to the chicory and that did the trick. I'll grow this again next year.

Purple skin purple-fleshed sweet potatoes, tastes may be not so good as white skin purple-fleshed ones( Okinawan sweet potatoes), will grow again 2015.

http://www.stokesfoods.com/nutrition.htm

Anthocyanin content in the Stokes Purple is 4 times greater than in Okinawan sweet potatoes.(Truong, 2009).(Truong, 2009)

Lot's of people overwinter carrots, there are many methods to doing so. The method that I use is a think layer of mulch comprised of grass clippings and shredded leaves. The mulch has worked for me over several winters in Pennsylvania.

Nope, no need. The tops of all these vegetables will tolerate freezes much lower than 29 degrees. The only concern with a container is that the soil and roots could freeze, but a container with moist soil has sufficient thermal mass to not freeze during a 29 degree event. If it was getting to the mid-20s, I'd be more concerned about it happening. How big are your containers?

Tripleione, you did well to collect tomato seed your first year. I still havenâÂÂt tried that, being a little more involved and messy.

I did the same thing , not a lot of effort, but I guess IâÂÂm going to try to make a little more effort.

Minnie, I didnâÂÂt think of saving cucumber seeds, does it work with hybrids? And how long do you leave them on the vine?

I'm not Minnie, obviously, but I'll answer the cucumber question. To save seeds from cucumbers you leave them on the vine until they are golden before picking them. If you save seeds from hybrids you won't know exactly what you'll get next year. It's also best if you only grow one variety to avoid cross pollination (although there are ways around this).

The above photos were taken last year and are a couple of Ellen's Family White cucumbers. The one on the left is a good size for eating/pickling (it could have gotten a little bit bigger). The one on the right is perfect for saving seeds, which is what I did with it.

Rodney

Here is a link that might be useful: Saving Cucumber Seed

1. Do you consider yourself at least moderately intelligent?
2. Do you read the instructions on pesticide containers?

If you answered Yes to both questions, don't hesitate to use Rotenone for SVBs. It works, and used properly, it is NOT harmful to the environment. Kind of like driving a car - assuming you don't drive drunk or deliberately drive up on the sidewalk to see people scatter, it's both useful and harmless.

Pyganic is another useful control for several garden pests. If you have problems with Japanese beetles on beans, try Pyganic. It is expensive, but very effective. If used on a 5 to 7 day spray schedule, it is fairly effective at controlling SVB.

I use cardboard with mulch/wood chips between some of my raised beds. It seems to work fairly well for me. The weeds that do come up are easy to pull out. I've also started experimenting with paver stepping stones surrounded by different groundcovers (creeping herbs, sweet potatoes, strawberries, etc). That is still an experiment in progress, though using sweet potatoes as groundcover does seem to choke out the weeds (as well as completely cover the stepping stones).

I put down 1X1 paving stones and allowed the grass to grow around them as shown in picture. Bad idea! I prefer something you don't have to cut and something that highlights the garden. I recommend a concrete walk. That will be my next improvement.

Oh, btw, unless you are planning to spend the big bucks for a stone-burr high volume mill, you cannot do better than the Diamant mill. I have had one for about 16 years, couldn't be happier with it. I noticed the price has come down quite bit lately.

Thank you for the responses. I'll look at some of these recommendations. I expect to grind only to coarse meal. I think Baker Seeds is fairly close, so I'll see what they have, too.

Your husband is dumb. Pardon me for saying so.

I'm pretty sure they will recover since they have energy stored in the seed piece and roots. It's still fairly early in the season for you.

You must be down under, so I suspect the plants had already done a majority of their vegetative growth. I suggest dig a couple up and see if they have formed any new potatoes yet, if so harvest them all. Either way they are unlikely to make much more progress - the little sprout the old tuber will put out after having put nearly everything into the first attempt will not amount to much. Better off using the ground for something else unless you have loads of garden space.

And a very typical view across a British Allotment in Autumn - Dahlias and Dustbins. (Not my allotment, my neighbour's.) All photos taken this morning - November 3rd.

FloralUK, Thanks so much for all the photos. Really cheerful and attractive. Love the Nasturtiums and that Chard really is very pretty. How low a temperature do Dahlias, survive? I don't have room for them in my Veggies bed, but maybe the Perennial bed.

Probably Chinese celery. CC grow tall wit a lot of leaf branches and a lanky stem. I like its flavor better than traditional celery. I have tried to grow it from store bought (by rooting) but did not get good results.

It could be lovage too, very similar looking to celery.
Grows tall.

agree. I always prefer the crop all at once, except perhaps for salad tomatoes. If the crop is extended, you have to go through the entire patch every second day. Much better to go through one row at a time.

I get three pickings from Royal Burgundy bush bean, and it's meaty. Contender holds up well, too. Still, I plant bush beans twice, once in late spring and again in early summer.