2026 Garden

[Steiny77]

Our garden is done. We harvested a big basket of the last of the tomatoes this week and made a bunch of homemade Marinara sauce. That smelled so good while cooking that I went ahead and made a big batch of homemade meatballs to go with them. Had spaghetti and meatballs for supper and enough leftover to freeze quite a few containers of sauce and meatballs.

Hard to be at that homemade sauce with fresh tomatoes !

 

[Pucky Freak]

Pucky Freak, what does it take to grow sweet potatoes? How long of a growing season do they need?

All those sweet potatoes were from a single plant, which spread ground vines in all directions, creating essentially a solid 4’ x 6’ mass of leaves overlaying wood chips. The vines root and suck up more water. They thrive on lots of it. Iowa had a very wet growing season this year contributing to the high yield - my regular potatoes next to them rotted. They’re a tropical plant and do not tolerate cold. I use raised beds to get spring soil temp up sooner in the spring (55 deg). I bought the gallon plant for $13 on May 15th, and harvested almost exactly 5 months later. Another year I was late getting the plants in and harvested after 4 months. That year was drier year and my yield was about 1/4 compared to 2026.

If you have a minimum of 4 months at 35 degrees air temp or higher you can get a yield with generous watering. Temps 35-40 they need a blanket overnight.

 

[Straight Arrow]

October beginning of winter nap.