Some Harvest

Baby carrots

Basil and parsley in the bowl. Peppers and cucumbers.

1 banana pepper, some jalapeno peppers and italian pepperoncini

I haz sweet potatoes! And corn and more zucchinis and cucumbers

Still picking zukes and cukes

Some new potatoes

Had to pick the corn while they are still small-ish. Birds kept eating them. I do not know that birds will actually peel away the husk to get to the corn!!! I know they have to eat too but sheesh, eat the zucchinis(which I have plenty) and not my corn, damnit!

Pea'd out

I am all pea'd out. I've been picking and eating a lot of peas lately. I have been picking peas almost every other day and thank goodness I think they are almost done. You see, in the previous years I almost never planted enough peas, not even enough to make it out of the garden. So this year I went crazy and planted the entire package of seeds. Now, I have

endless peas. I've given some away and I've freeze some.

This are garlic scapes. Scapes are immature flower stalks from garlics. They should be removed in order to focus all the garlic's energy into bulb growth, that way you get bigger bulbs. But don't throw the scapes away! The scapes are delicious when cooked(or you can eat it raw). They taste just like garlic. You can stir-fry them, steam them, or saute them.

Below are pictures of my garden.

In the far end are peas, some NG Impatiens, 3 types of peppers(Jalapenos, Sweet Banana & Italian Pepperoncini), Marigold and Eggplants. In the front are various tomatoes(Opalka, Yellow Pear, Black Cherry, Betterboy, Beefmaster, Cherokee Purple) with basil and marigold in between.

My Three-Sisters planting: Corn(Sugar Buns), Beans(Chinese Red Noodle) and Squash(Pumpkin & Sweet Dumpling)

Three-sisters planting in the back left. Front left: cukes, zukes and sweet potatoes.

On the right: 4 varieties of Garlics and next to them are my row of herbs and onions.

Another look at the garlics. Behind the garlics are carrots, which you can't see from the picture.

My potatoes: Yukon Gold, Dark Red Norland, Laratte fingerlings and All Blue. In the far right end are some strawberries.

How To Grow Sweet Potatoes

I first posted about my sweet potato "experiment" here. Here is how it looks like now!

Do you know that sweet potatoes are not grown from tuber(the potato itself)? Unlike a potato, which you grow from the "eyes" of a potato tuber, sweet potatoes are grown from slips. Slips are those green vines that grow right out of the sweet potato. My next step(which I think I am a little late in doing) is to cut those slips at the base of the mother sweet potato and transplant them. Sweet potatoes need warm climates, so for me, I would have to tranplant the slips into different pots(to get a jump start) for now until there is no danger of frost, then they can be planted outside. If you live in the southern states of the US, you can cut the slips from the mother sweet potato and transplant them outside when the soil is at least 70 degrees. For detail "How tos", please go here.

Do you also know that sweet potato plant is actually a vine?

Sweet Potato Plant

Back in late January or early February I put this sweet potato in water hoping to grow it. My plan was to start it indoor and if it grows, I will try to plant some sweet potatoes this year. I'm not sure if sweet potatoes will grow here in upstate NY but I sure can try. If it grows, hoo-ray! If not, then "oh well, I tried".


About 3 weeks went by and I started to noticed roots coming out of the bottom of the sweet potato. I got a little excited to see that!

Then while we were away, it really took off growing! This is how it looks like now!