Actually it has been over for a couple of weeks, the time being measured by when I planted the three tomato plants and two peppers. Not that there was nothing going on in the garden during the break. The sweet potatoes are glorious again this year.
Let me just extoll the virtues of sweet potatoes for a moment before I start talking about the other, needier plants. Sweet potato plants are the honey badgers of the plant kingdom. They don't need anything from you once you have planted them and they just don't care. Mega-Summer temperatures cooking other plants as they stand? Sweet potato don't care. No rain for weeks on end and the resident gardener is too fed up with it all to turn the hose on you? Sweet potato don't care. Humidity hovering between 50 - 90% (despite the lack of rain)? Ho-hum says the sweet potato. They also like poor soil - so if you don't feel like amending the soil again after your prolific spring/summer harvests - that's right - sweet potato don't care.
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| Just look at them, all self reliant and happy. |
They really are a remarkable plant with lush, abundant heart shaped leaves growing from thick spreading vines. They fill up all the space left over from the other, weaker plants. They make it look like your garden has something going on instead of the deserted wasteland you deserve from your weeks of neglect. I am all about the sweet potato with only one exception. I do not like to eat them (sweet potato don't care). Actually neither do I because my husband and both dogs love them, so no waste there.
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| Just about a six foot by twelve foot patch of sweet potato plants. And yes, you are seeing holes left by something munching on the sweet potato leaves, but... sweet potato don't care. |
So where was I before getting all up in the sweet potato business - ah yes, the fall garden starting. I did not have much of a choice when it came to the tomatoes. I had to settle for a Better Boy, an Early Girl and a Rutgers? or something else rather mundane. I really wanted to find a Creole, but maybe those are better as a spring garden candidate. Most likely they are just scarce since fall is not considered to be when you plant 'those' kinds of plants. I got my starts from the local feed store. The Home Depot and Lowe's garden centers are oblivious to fall vegetable gardening. Maybe I will find more options later, but I wanted to get some plants in the ground because I fear with this milder than normal summer we are due for an early and colder... well I was about to say winter, but most places don't consider temperatures barely below 50 to be 'winter'... let's just say non-summer.
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| Better boy, Early Girl and the Rutgers. |
My pepper choices were a sweet banana and a mild tam jalapeno. I also planted some sort of cucumber (again poor selection) and just this weekend planted some red and yellow onion starts. I am on the lookout for butternut squash but I think I am going to have to plant seeds since it doesn't look like I will find any starts. Once again if I were a little more patient I am sure there will be some to be found. I just have a hunch that getting things in earlier will be better this fall. Hey, no problem if I am wrong because that just means more growing season.
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| The Mild Tam Jalapeno, unless it has been mislabeled and this is a full strength, hot Jalapeno. |
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| The ?? cucumber plants. Now I know I swore that my only true love in the cucumber kingdom was the burpless hybrid. When your options are limited you take what you can get. These will probably do incredibly well and I will be kicking myself for losing the tag that defined what kind these are. |
But at least it's a start.
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