We march forward toward September and the gradual reduction in temperature and humidity that will be welcomed with rejoicing by yours truly. The okra continues to produce in abundant fashion. As I write this, Tricia is 'cooking some okra and onions down' that she'll freeze and we'll use in gumbos throughout the winter months. Cucumbers, believe it or not, have had a rebound and are producing once again.
Speaking of cucumbers, I've got to tip my hat to an elderly gentleman who dropped by the house this spring and gave me some cucumber seeds. They were of the Marketmore Heirloom variety, and I've got to report that they were the stars of the show, producing steadily throughout the hottest of months when my Boston Pickling and Suyo Long varieties faltered.
Anyhow, I planted a few seeds in some seed pots to get the fall garden underway. Here are some zucchini and yellow crookneck squash:
And here are some spaghetti squash.
In a little experiment, I planted 12 Boston Pickling Cucumber seeds from some seeds I had saved back in 2016. What do you know? All 12 sprouted. We achieved a 100% germination rate on some seeds we saved 6 years ago. Not too shabby.
Having that all planted, I got out my Vegetable Planting Guide to see what else I could get my hands dirty with. Well, it told me that it is time to plant Irish Potatoes. Right now.
Our feed store does not sell seed potatoes for fall crops. What we must do is save seed potatoes from our spring crop. I dug through the bin of potatoes and picked out a dozen small red potatoes (Lasoda variety). All of the potatoes from the spring are holding up good, stored in the dark in a well-ventilated hallway.
You can see that most of them have (at least one) nice eye growing on them. That gives me optimism that we'll have spuds this fall. It is always a risk, right? The choice is, I could eat these 12 potatoes and really enjoy them. Or, I could put them in the dirt and see if I could multiply a dozen potatoes four or fivefold?
I'm taking a chance. I won't put them in the cooking pot. I'll put them in the planting pot. I'm trying an experiment this year. Instead of putting them in the ground, we will try our hand at growing them in pots. The area where I normally plant them is already populated with purple hull peas and blackeyed peas that are about to put on pods. No room for potatoes out there.
I filled 12 nice sized landscape pots with the rich compost made from the rotted wood chips in our mulch pile. It's black and moist and teeming with earthworms - a good medium to grow potatoes in. Once the potatoes are up, I'll dose 'em up with some composted chicken litter. Another plus is that, if we get an early freeze like the one that killed my potatoes a couple years ago, I can pick up the pots and bring them in the garage and save the spuds.
Here are the potatoes planted before I put 3 1/2 to 4 inches fresh compost on top. I'll be watching over the next several days to see when they sprout.
We have rain for the next 5 or 6 days forecast, but once that is past, I'll look to what else I can put in the ground. I'm thinking it's time for a couple rows of snap beans. Happy Gardening Fall Gardeners!
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