First Fall Crops Are In the Ground

The cole crops (broccoli, cauliflower, brussel sprouts, and cabbage) are all sprouted in the seed pots.  I'll have to show you pics in a couple of days.  However, there are a couple of crops that I can plant directly in the ground - right now.  On Saturday, I fired up the weed eater and cleaned up the weeds that were knee-high.  I weed-eated (or weed-ate?) them right down to the bare ground.  I allowed the hot August sun to beat down on the barren ground for a day to dry things out.

On Sunday afternoon after church, we ate a satisfying meal and had coffee and planned out the week.  Then I talked myself into getting the shovel out of the garden and sharpening it with the grinder.  Hot sparks were flying.  I walked out to the garden and in about an hour, I had the side garden soil all turned over.  Sweet corn and green beans grew here this spring.  Turning over the dirt was labor intensive for sure.  Whew!  Good exercise, but hard work.  I slept good Sunday night.

Monday afternoon, I rushed back from work as fast as the traffic would allow me.  It was time to plant a couple of fall crops right in the ground.  The first item was Purple Hull peas.  We've already been harvesting some of these and have eaten several meals of peas and rice.  We are planting a fall crop so that we can put some up in the freezer and eat some fresh.

I also planted another variety of cowpeas - Ozark Razorback Peas.  These are saved seeds.  I like the way they look as they are speckled - either red & white or black & white.  These are seeds I saved from back in 2012 so the germination may be a little off.  To compensate, I planted them extra thick.

All in all we have four rows of cowpeas that are 22 feet long. 

The miracle of a seed in the ground

The peas were all in the ground, but we still had half of the side garden left to plant - totaling 23 feet.  I was going to plant more peas, but decided to put in a fall crop of potatoes.  The LSU Vegetable Planting guide lists the fall window of planting to be between August 15 - September 10th.  Last year I planted too late.  I gambled and lost and the frost killed my potato plants deader than a door nail.  I try to learn from my mistakes and planted early this year.

We have some small potatoes in our bin left over from our spring potato harvest.  We'll use those for seed potatoes.  I enjoy using our own seed as much as possible.

Seed Potatoes from our potato harvest back in May

I dug holes four inches deep and a foot apart.  My potato planting helper, Benjamin, helped me by placing the potatoes with the biggest eye sprouts into the holes.  It was nice having him help me.

Some of the sprouts on the potatoes were pretty good.  One nice rain and it will be popping up out of the ground.

I used a hoe to cover the peas and potatoes.  Planting, in my opinion, is an optimistic and hopeful exercise.  It is a leap of faith to put the peas and potatoes in the ground.  We could have just as easily eaten them, but with risk comes reward.  In a leap of faith we planted them.  Hopefully we'll have a healthy crop with a bountiful yield.  We'll keep you posted with the progress of the peas and potatoes in the side yard garden.