Weather Related

johnp 11/12/2014, 4:47 pm

I guess I should not complain but I didn't realize that like Dorthy I've been relocated to Fargo ND.or upper Minn.. Where else could I be; the temp. has shot up to a rousing 11 deg., the snow is blowing everywhere, about 8 inches and the wind chill must be a kazillion Degrees below 0. I just went out to feed the birds, quail and doves, for the second time today and wondered if I was going to make it back. Shocked

We even had to play pickleball inside this morning.

Dunkinjean 11/12/2014, 7:50 pm

John,

So sorry the weather has turned to winter for you so quickly!
Here in Central NJ the past week it has been nice weather, but--
tomorrow and thru the weekend....brrrrr for us.

**donnainzone5** 11/12/2014, 8:10 pm

Winter storm warning here in Central Oregon, with 7-10" of snow expected. I snipped off my remaining broccoli florettes tonight. This seems to be a bit early.....

brainchasm 11/12/2014, 8:42 pm

70s here through Saturday, then BAM! 59 Sunday, 60 Monday, 61 Tuesday...

It just isn't fair! Razz

audrey.jeanne.roberts 11/13/2014, 12:08 am

brainchasm wrote:70s here through Saturday, then BAM! 59 Sunday, 60 Monday, 61 Tuesday...

It just isn't fair!

Dude, you're brutal to these poor, freezing folks, LOL!

Marc Iverson 11/13/2014, 2:59 am

donnainzone10 wrote:Winter storm warning here in Central Oregon, with 7-10" of snow expected. I snipped off my remaining broccoli florettes tonight. This seems to be a bit early.....

Wow, that is a lot of snow, at least in southern Oregon terms. Last year was bad, but usually we just get a light dusting that quickly thaws. Now you've got me curious about what's coming over here ...

Goosegirl 11/13/2014, 7:06 am

audrey.jeanne.roberts wrote:
brainchasm wrote:70s here through Saturday, then BAM! 59 Sunday, 60 Monday, 61 Tuesday...

It just isn't fair!
Dude, you're brutal to these poor, freezing folks, LOL!

That's OK

, we will just laugh right back in July when it is 120 (in the shade) out there and he has to run the boiling water out of the hose before he can water his boxes, while we sit at a balmy 85-90 with the glorious natural T-storm irrigation cloudy-bummer

keeping everything green for us! tongue

johnp 11/13/2014, 8:41 am

I guess I complained to early about going from 8 degrees to a balmy 11 yesterday. This morning it's -8, with a wind chill somewhere in the -20's. Ugly! My greenhouse temp. right now is +6.

**donnainzone5** 11/13/2014, 11:27 am

Marc,

I don't follow the forecast for your area, but you might want to check one or more weather websites for alerts.

So far, it hit 17F early this morning, with about 4" - 5" of snow on the ground. It's still snowing. My SFG is buried. A Winter Storm Warning for this area remains in effect.

**sanderson** 11/13/2014, 1:14 pm

It's raining here! cloudy-bummer

Somewhere out there are large pruning sheets and a pruning hand saw as I didn't know we were getting rain. Also, my compost is on a blue tarp drying out some before storing. sobbing

audrey.jeanne.roberts 11/13/2014, 3:29 pm

I can sooooo identify, Sanderson. I harvested about 50 lbs. of sweet potatoes yesterday with the plan to let them sit in the wheelbarrow to dry for a week or so until we were SUPPOSED to get rain. They are now wet and sitting on a rug on the floor in the garage to dry out so they can start to cure.

What's amazing with the sweet potatoes is they grew from a single potato that was spoiling in my pantry late last spring so I threw it into a little spot in my garden that's only 5 squares. That's 10 lbs a square!!!! The greens spread about a 8-10 foot diameter circle around the planter and were so pretty that I'm going to use SPs as landscaping and just harvest all summer long. The largest one was 5 lbs. It's the biggest thing I've ever seen Shocked

grownsunshine 11/13/2014, 4:39 pm

Whooaa!! 5lbs!! Nice!! I know you work hard, but you also seem to have a green thumb too. I love that you have so many SPs for the holidays.

Marc Iverson 11/13/2014, 7:35 pm

Wow, that's great. Sweet potatoes are so delicious. I'm crazy about 'em.

We're getting down to 38 on Saturday, but the next ten days have lows in the low 40's. The nights aren't getting much colder. But the days are, coming in at around the mid-50's. That's definitely new.

I like it, though. This is my favorite season by far. I love all the beautiful fall leaves, almost as much when they're on the ground as on the trees. I love it when the trees still have plenty of leaves up top but are also wearing a spectacular apron of bright yellow or red leaves. And oh how I love the cool after enduring our hot summers.

**sanderson** 11/13/2014, 10:04 pm

Audrey, I remember when you had to quickly plant the slips as you were leaving town. That is a great haul of delicious SP. Congrats!

audrey.jeanne.roberts 11/14/2014, 1:06 am

sanderson wrote:Audrey, I remember when you had to quickly plant the slips as you were leaving town. That is a great haul of delicious SP. Congrats!

Yeah, that was a crazy, crazy time with my dad's emergency quad bypass, but in the end we had quite a productive season. I never did figure out one of my squash that got thrown in the ground without a label and no one can identify it, LOL!

CapeCoddess 11/14/2014, 1:30 pm

audrey.jeanne.roberts wrote:I can sooooo identify, Sanderson. I harvested about 50 lbs. of sweet potatoes yesterday with the plan to let them sit in the wheelbarrow to dry for a week or so until we were SUPPOSED to get rain. They are now wet and sitting on a rug on the floor in the garage to dry out so they can start to cure.

What's amazing with the sweet potatoes is they grew from a single potato that was spoiling in my pantry late last spring so I threw it into a little spot in my garden that's only 5 squares. That's 10 lbs a square!!!! The greens spread about a 8-10 foot diameter circle around the planter and were so pretty that I'm going to use SPs as landscaping and just harvest all summer long. The largest one was 5 lbs. It's the biggest thing I've ever seen

Audrey, can you post a photo of them please? Did you take any photos of them while they were growing? My sweet potatoes up and died and I was thinking that I can't grow them here. Sad

audrey.jeanne.roberts 11/14/2014, 2:14 pm

I don't remember if I took any pictures of them growing, but here's the harvest:
This guy is 13" long, 6" diameter at it's broadest and a hair under 5 lbs. He's sitting across my largest soup pan and the tile are 6" squares for perspective.
Weather Related 20141114_105709_resized_zpsb9dac53b

Weather Related 20141114_105709_resized_zpsb9dac53b

We ate a 3 lb. when we harvested them.

This is the rest of them:

Weather Related 20141114_110353_resized_zps50413f14

I'm revising my estimate to about 35-40 lbs. After doing a quick guestimate.

They LOVE our hot sunny summers. Next year I'm going to harvest as we go along as i don't really need 5 lb sized potatoes! I immediately replanted 5 or 6 of the smallest tubers to let them get a head start on next year. That worked really well on my regular potatoes last winter, so we'll see if it works on these. They were too small to eat anyway so nothing ventured, nothing gained.

CapeCoddess 11/14/2014, 3:54 pm

audrey.jeanne.roberts wrote:I don't remember if I took any pictures of them growing, but here's the harvest:
This guy is 13" long, 6" diameter at it's broadest and a hair under 5 lbs. He's sitting across my largest soup pan and the tile are 6" squares for perspective.

We ate a 3 lb. when we harvested them.

This is the rest of them:

I'm revising my estimate to about 35-40 lbs. After doing a quick guestimate.

They LOVE our hot sunny summers. Next year I'm going to harvest as we go along as i don't really need 5 lb sized potatoes! I immediately replanted 5 or 6 of the smallest tubers to let them get a head start on next year. That worked really well on my regular potatoes last winter, so we'll see if it works on these. They were too small to eat anyway so nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Holy mackeral!!! *lol* That spud is amazing!

I tried planting white taters in fall in woodchips but they just rotted. Nothing ever came up. How cold do your winters get?

CC

audrey.jeanne.roberts 11/14/2014, 7:41 pm

The lowest we get in the low to mid-20s, so our ground never freezes. I would imagine in a colder climate you couldn't do what we can.

I have started just planting the next round when I harvest the first. I've had absolutely no problems with disease in any of the areas I've done this (so far). I have huge potato plants growing right now. I have no idea what's going to happen when the freezes come. Perhaps the plants will just die back and they'll pick up again next spring.

The potatoes I planted last fall grew underground during the winter and came up early in the spring. They were ahead of the ones I planted at the normal time and actually missed any pests. The later planted potatoes were hit hard by grasshoppers.

I figure that's what would happen in nature and what happens with every other bulb or rhizome plant in my garden, so I'm just experimenting.

**sanderson** 11/15/2014, 2:22 am

audrey.jeanne.roberts wrote:
The potatoes I planted last fall grew underground during the winter and came up early in the spring. They were ahead of the ones I planted at the normal time and actually missed any pests. The later planted potatoes were hit hard by grasshoppers.

They like my beans!

**walshevak** 11/15/2014, 2:28 am

audrey.jeanne.roberts wrote:I can sooooo identify, Sanderson. I harvested about 50 lbs. of sweet potatoes yesterday with the plan to let them sit in the wheelbarrow to dry for a week or so until we were SUPPOSED to get rain. They are now wet and sitting on a rug on the floor in the garage to dry out so they can start to cure.

What's amazing with the sweet potatoes is they grew from a single potato that was spoiling in my pantry late last spring so I threw it into a little spot in my garden that's only 5 squares. That's 10 lbs a square!!!! The greens spread about a 8-10 foot diameter circle around the planter and were so pretty that I'm going to use SPs as landscaping and just harvest all summer long. The largest one was 5 lbs. It's the biggest thing I've ever seen

Don't forget that the tips of sweet potato plants are used in Asian cooking. Works great is a stir fry. So ornamental and greens for summer and fall potatoes. Hmmm, wonder if a marigold would interfere too much with the roots so you could have some color in the greenery. Or just set some flower pots among the vines.

Here is a 2013 picture of sweet potato vines covering the pallets which held bucketx of peppers and basil. The potatoes were planted in 2 cement mixing tubs.

Weather Related Dscn1610

Kay

audrey.jeanne.roberts 11/15/2014, 1:19 pm

We have two cottonwood trees at our property gate. I think we're going to plant them under those trees. It will add a bit of green and they should work as a green mulch to keep the moisture from evaporating so quickly. I'm going to work on building the soil around one of the trees and doing a deep layer of wood chips. Then I'll plant SPs there next spring.

Sanderson, grasshoppers were HORRIBLE for us this year. I imagine it's drought related. I'm thinking of buying some praying mantis as they're mortal enemies. I bought ladybugs this summer and they have very happily settled in and I'm on my 2nd or 3rd generation of babies in my greenhouse.

Sponsored content

Weather Related

Weather Related

Re: Weather Related

Re: Weather Related

Re: Weather Related

Re: Weather Related

Re: Weather Related

Re: Weather Related

Re: Weather Related

Re: Weather Related

Re: Weather Related

Re: Weather Related

Re: Weather Related

Re: Weather Related

Re: Weather Related

Re: Weather Related

Re: Weather Related

Re: Weather Related

Re: Weather Related

Re: Weather Related

Re: Weather Related

Re: Weather Related

Re: Weather Related

Re: Weather Related


	Hello Guest! Welcome to the official Square Foot Gardening Forum. There's lots to learn here by reading as a guest. However, if you become a member (it's free, ad free and spam-free) you'll have access to our large vermiculite databases, our seed exchange spreadsheets, Mel's Mix calculator, and many more members' pictures in the Gallery. Enjoy.