Last Night
We got our first true killing frost, the castor bean plants my wife grows told the tale. For the most part the gardens were an unqualified success. My tomatoes did not produce the normal abundance, but around here nobody's did, rain at the wrong times. Cucumbers, beans, spaghetti squash, zukes, eggplants, salad crops, herbs, and peppers were up with the nicest yet. My corn went in the ground late and we had mixed results, although some of the ears were small, they were good eating.
Raspbeeries, black and red, blueberries, melons, and tree fruit all produced up to snuff. I still have cabbage growing covered in straw, also carrots the same way. we picked about 100 head of cabbage, red and green, lots of brocholli, and about 50 califlower.This years experiment was sweet potatoes developed for northern climates from Henry Field's. They needed 95 days to mature and I had my doubts. I doubt no more it was a bumper crop, average of 20 taters per plant. One monster was over five pounds and tastey to boot. My wife planted the little slimy sticks they sent in hills covered with black plastic and then tented with clear, sure seems like she knows the trick. Sweet potatoes are a true root crop and not a tuber like a potato so you get all sizes as the plant expands the roots into what you see at the store. We will be growing them again and more then the 20 plants this year.
All that is not what I want to talk about. We have a phenomina taking place at my flat farm. The green thumbed wife decided that it was time for new strawberries. So after much research on her part we purchased 100 plants each of three varieties. We picked a location to plant , I prepared the ground, did a soil test, added well rotted manure from my walking dog food herd, 12-12-12 fertilizer. Churned it all in and created rows. The wife did the planting and continually thinned out the runners all summer. With those she expended the patch to four or five times the original size. The whole shooting match is florishing, weed free and mulched with wheat staw for the winter. We will be in the berry business next year.
Now the phenomina I talked about; We have been picking strawberries from approximatly 25 or 30 of the original plants since the end of August, and they are still producing, large extremely sweet berries. This is unheard of in our neck of the woods. I have a commercial grower for a friend and he was amazed, I had to show him before he believed. Today I am going to the farm and pick maybe 25-30 berries, not many but any is so odd.
