Good Morning SNH’ers, it is spring garden time. I just pulled up my first Namé yam from the garden. I plan to propagate it a bit since access to true yams is fairly limited before I start eating them.
Last year I made a purchase at publix in one their non-standard site bins of vegetables after a recommendation from DTG for sourcing. I buried it in late February as a small potato sized root after I started to see it pushing up some leaves inside the pantry. It is fundamental to get them into the ground when breaking dormancy.
I put a long trimmed piece of wood from our “money tree” that I trim every year as a support along with a standard metal stake I had laying around and connected the two with some twine. The twine support was not enough as the growth over-weighed the twine and eventually broke near the end of the season during dieback in November. This next year, I will support each vine with metal t posts and a stronger runner line between them.
The total growth size is about 4x from the original yam and yielded 2 full sized tubers. I’ll use the ash method to propagate this year cutting several pieces and burying at the base of each post, hopefully yielding enough to be worth eating next year.
Additionally, I weeded out the carrot bed, it they are starting to get to a noticeable size. We planted black, white and orange varieties this year. I am usually harvesting in march/april and convert that bed to a new crop afterwards.
Peppers (Jalapenos, Cubanelle and Calibelle) were planted along with 16′ of our naturalized snow peas. I am hoping to get more than a few stir fry’s worth since I like them so much. I also replanted our peanuts that were planted by a random squirrel 2 years ago. We had probably 30 pods this year, so the growth is really taking off. I think it is a Virginia variety, but it doesn’t matter, they are a fun experiment.
The winter crops (red and green cabbage) and pak choi are doing well. In fact, the pak choi is starting to go to see, so we will need to harvest this week or I’ll just be saving seed.
My onions have stalled in their growth, I am hoping the spring weather will kick them into high gear, otherwise, I may have to do an order with dixondale’s or another group.
2 yams and a random turnip
Time to get busy out there. Please grow as much food as you can for your own pesticide free produce!
Oh, and one of the little SNH’ers placed in the county science fair. Couldn’t be more proud!