What's happening today 2016?

My Yakon plants (sweet potato relative) are the most sensitive, their tips got burned a few nights ago from around 30F. But I harvested several tomatoes today and the tomato plants are still looking good. The Yakon grew about 8’ tall this summer, I am hoping for a big harvest when I dig them up after the hard freezes.

Wow, you still have mater’s?? Ours were done with around the end of August. All the rain, plus heat made my patch a blight magnet. We got a lot of fruit, but we should have with 70 plants, but we could’ve done so much better if the disease wouldn’t have taken its toll.

I spent so much time out in the sweltering heat staking them up, that the weeding, fertilizing, and disease control got a bit neglected. Next year there’s no way I’m doing 70(!!?!?) plants, think we’ll pick maybe a half dozen or so each, and just do 2 or 3 of each. We’ve had two full on tomato seasons to evaluate what works and what doesn’t. I’m pretty sure we won’t be trying too many purple/black varieties. They just don’t do well here. I mentioned on my tomato/pepper thread that I’ll give a season end tomato variety evaluation.

Are those Yakon plants on a trellis? I was wondering how they could get 8ft tall. What kind of veg is a Yakon anyways?

We did real well with our Beauregard sweet potatoes, we only planted maybe 15 slips, and got about 50lb worth. We just got done curing the last of them here in the house, and took them down to our cellar for storage. My wife made some sweet potato casserole with them recently and it was very tasty.

Looks like some more mulch! Or are you still dealing with all those shavings when you used your mechanical stump gnawer?

I still have a large pile of chips from the stump grinding. Even after top dressing most of my trees and bush berries. So far I’ve given multiple garbage bags full of the wood turned shavings to a friend of mine who has a horse stable. He dumps it in their stalls and apparently the horses love to woller around in that stuff.

What I’ve been doing the last two years is loading up each tree with leaves that I’ve run through the leaf grinder. Then do it again in the spring and then cover with hardwood bark mulch.

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We hit the upper 30s but not enough for frost

I pulled the tomatoes because they were blighty, but I still have peppers producing - it was a great year for peppers

I got some yakon sprouts from @cousinfloyd in a trade, I never heard of them before. They are a sweet potato relative but taste like a cross of a carrot, celery, and asian pear… pretty funky. They are good raw in salads and just to munch on. I don’t think they are as good heated but they can be cellared a long time like carrots. Here is a good link: How to grow and cook yacon | Gardening advice | The Guardian I don’t have them on a trellis, they fall over but then start going up again. Still they are 6’ tall. Maybe they grew 9-10’ total. The thing I like about them is they are 100% bulletproof, they love the heat and grow like crazy with no pests.

My tomatoes are usually gone by now and I did lose most of them, but a few plants got a second wind and are producing lots of tomatoes now.

I don’t think yacons are related to sweet potatoes. You didn’t get that information from me, did you? I sometimes describe them as looking very much like a sweet potato from the outside (just the edible plant, not the plant), although completely different in terms of preparation (mostly eaten raw) and taste. They’re definitely a vegetable, but they do have that sweet Asian pear-like thing going on. They’re in the same family as sunflowers and Jerusalem artichokes. Mine don’t get quite as tall as yours, Scott, and they don’t fall over either. For me they get about 5-6’ tall and about 3’ around. It seems to me they grow best in the spring and fall and only tolerate the hottest months. They’ve done best for me in years with plenty of rain and relatively mild summer heat (for zone 7 NC.) They have a very good storage life, and I enjoy them best for a juicy, crunchy food in the winter and early spring, but if we still have extras left by early summer – my family and I grew about 70 plants last year, although we sold some – we’ll dehydrate them, and we enjoy them dehydrated, too.

I don’t know where I thought they were a sweet potato, maybe they just look like them. I have never grown actual sweet potatoes. I looked it up and apparently they are related to daisies!

Mine look great all through the summer, its slightly less hot here so maybe they are happier. Its a perfect plant for my region.

So far the only problem is I am the only person interested in eating them in my family.

It’s one of those kind of evenings

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Scary stories!

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My first attempt at Youtube. I placed it in this post because I will likely not keep it online.
No multiple takes, no script, and you can tell. LOL

https://youtu.be/TVVg25uLBY8

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Good job. There are many people on here with 5 years or less experience doing this, myself included. We have several of the same varieties although I don’t know that I’ve ever eaten a Cortland apple. I’ve seen them at the market but I always thought Cortland was related to Mac and I’m not a Mac fan. I do have Pristine, Zestar, and HC.

Nice to see you have the seedlings growing. You might want to take a scion from the seedling and graft it onto one of your established trees like the Red Delicious. It will fruit much faster than it would if you just let the seedling grow. I’d look for one that may have red leaves which could mean it could have red flesh.

I think you did a great job!!!

Great video

Daemon,
I also think you did a good job. I am envoius of the space you have.

When I started, I planted two William’s Pride because I like it a lot. Now I regret planting two of the same variety. There are so many wonderful apples that I want to plant but have no space.

I have start to graft and will continue to graft. I have a feeling that you are not done planting more apples any time soon.:slight_smile:

Nice job.

Deamon,

Nice job on the video (better than the ones I’ve tried ).

I might mention your trees might do better to clear the sod at least to the drip line.

Young trees especially benefit greatly from not having to compete with sod, but even established trees benefit some.

There are both organic and non organic methods to removing sod/weeds. Either method results in a good benefit and is well worth the effort, imo.

Anyway keep up the plantings/graftings. Looks like you have makings of an envious orchard.

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Mowing prunings. Here’s a before after pic. No lesson here, just what I’m doing today.

Hpwever, I will mention althouģh i mow here with a bush hog, I have noticed a rider mower at the house will chop up some fairly large stuff without dulling the blades much.

My wife hates that I run over prunings with the rider mowe at the house, but sheesh, it’s so much easier with the rider mower than hauling this stuff away.

Not sure if that posted.

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Fine looking orchard!

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Wow, Mark, your orchard looks VAST. What a space!

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