The Yellow Farmhouse Garden

March 11, 2014

Starting sweet potato slips

Filed under: Transplants,Vegetables — bob @ 9:39 am

I’ve already started growing some sweet potato vines that I will use to take cuttings, more commonly know as slips. It’s not always easy to find sweet potato slips to plant when you need them. In years past I’ve had to visit several garden centers before finally tracking them down. Calling ahead doesn’t always seem to help either.

The best way to be sure you have sweet potatoes to plant is to grow your own. It’s really a very simple process.

I’ve seen all kinds of contraptions that people have come up with to grow sweet potato slips, most of them involve suspending a sweet potato root over water. All you really need to do is to place a sweet potato root into a container of damp potting mix about two inches deep. Keep the container in a warm spot — 75 degrees F and be sure it stays moist. An electric heat mat may help if you don’t have a warm spot.

For the next step, I’ll cover the sweet potato with soil.

After a couple of weeks, the sweet potato will begin to root and produce sprouts. Pull the new sprouts off of the sweet potato once they reach eight inches or so in length. They should have a developing root system at that stage and are ready for planting.

Using this method you can grow your own slips year after year.

Bob

Comments (0)

February 4, 2014

Genetic engineering vs home grown tomatoes

Filed under: Seeds,Vegetables — bob @ 9:35 pm

The last tomato I had in storage finally started to spoil last week. That was a very long time for a tomato to keep without using any kind of special equipment. It was one from my own heirloom strain that I have been keeping for several years now.

This was a great opportunity for me to select for another trait in my tomato line: long term storage.

The fruit looked fine on the outside but, by the time I finally opened it, it was starting to break down inside. The slippery capsules surrounding the seeds had dissolved due to fermentation setting in. A small amount of fermentation is OK when it comes to saving tomato seeds. The alcohol produced helps to preserve the seeds to some extent.

I took my time separating the seeds from the pulp. After all, it was one gardening related project I could do even though it was snowing outside. I ended up with quite a few sound seeds.

Picking through tomato pulp doesn’t require a lot of concentration. I found my mind wandering a bit and starting thinking about an article about genetic engineering I read in the trade publication Inside Grower. Part of the article talked about the very first genetically engineered tomato variety to reach the market, Flavr Savr.

One thought I had was that I was selecting for genes inside my tomato to get a specific characteristic. The method I used is one that farmers have used for thousands of years. The Flavr Savr biologist’s method was so brand new that it was patented. In their laboratory, they took a short cut by moving pieces of DNA from one tomato variety to another — if you call taking 8 years and twenty million dollars a short cut. I wish I had the budget they had.

The Flavr Savr tomato and it’s technology was eventually sold. The tomato itself has been off the market for many years.

We have several more weeks before tomato seed-starting time arrives. In the meantime, my seeds are safely in storage waiting to be planted. I’m interested in finding out my seed germination percentage this spring. Next winter I’ll find out how well the storage trait gets passed along to this year’s generation of tomatoes.

The website Retro Report has a video about the Favr Savr. It’s interesting to watch whichever side of the GMO debate you’re on.

Hmm, I wonder if any gardener ever thought to save any seeds from that variety.

Bob

Comments (0)

January 14, 2014

Hoop house lettuce survives the Arctic Vortex

Filed under: Greenhouse,Vegetables — bob @ 12:11 pm

People have been asking me how the lettuce in my hoop house looks after last week’s Arctic Vortex.

Out here in the countryside we had one night of -20 degrees F then, three nights in a row of -13 degrees F. I was sure all of my lettuce would be dead after exposure to that kind of temperature. So, I waited a few days to dig out the snow away from the door so I could get in to take a look at my crop.

As it turns out, most of the lettuce survived. The plants that I planted early in the season and had a chance to become established, came through nicely.

The second crop — the ones I planted later in the season — did not make it. Those plants never had enough time to grow into strong plants before the extreme cold arrived.

I should mention that a single layer of plastic greenhouse covering wasn’t the only thing sheltering the lettuce. I also added an extra layer of plastic sheeting over the plants in a kind of hoop tunnel within a hoop house arrangement.

Here I am picking some lettuce. The blue material is plastic bubble wrap.

Then just before the Vortex really got cranking, I covered the inner tunnel with a layer of over-sized sheet of bubble wrap. I believe that is what made the difference between life and death for those plants.

Now I’m back to harvesting fresh lettuce again and will probably run out of lettuce before winter is over.

Bob

Comments (0)

December 31, 2013

Lettuce growing in the hoop house in December

Filed under: Greenhouse,Vegetables — bob @ 6:24 pm

In my last blog posting I wrote about building a hoop house out of reclaimed shade canopy parts. After covering the structure I amended the soil with composted chicken manure.

Once the soil was improved, I planted a few short rows of lettuce seedlings. And they’re doing great.

The lettuce is not making much growth but it still looks great.

This crop of lettuce not only survived the single digit overnight temperatures we had out here they’re actually thriving under the plastic. So, we’re still eating home grown organic salads from the garden in December.

The success I’ve had so far in this little home-made greenhouse encouraged me enough to plant a second crop of lettuce a couple of weeks ago.

Because the days are so much shorter now, the lettuce is not growing like a spring crop would outside in the garden. That’s because there is not as much sunlight energy for photosynthesis right now — and the days are still getting shorter.

My goal is to harvest lettuce for Christmas dinner, has been met! Now, anything more I’ll consider a bonus.

I’ll keep you updated on how things go in the hoop house.

Bob

Comments (0)

November 19, 2013

Hoop house construction details

Filed under: Greenhouse — bob @ 2:30 pm

Electrical conduit is the same diameter as the shade canopy parts. Here an electrical connector joins the two parts.

The wood framing is cedar strips I salvaged from someone else's construction project.

Plastic sheeting creates a lot of sail area. So, I tied down the frame to the foundation.

Look for more construction details here at this site. I’ll post more photos later.

Bob

Comments (0)

« Newer Posts — Older Posts »