#home farm

[sugdensdingle]

[tomorrowsgardennc]

🍠 harvesting sweet potatoes 🍠

this was my second year growing potatoes, but my first year growing sweet potatoes specifically. when i grew normie potatoes, i ended up with less than what i put in the ground... that's how bad it turned out. while researching why i did so badly, i learned sweet potatoes grow totes differently so i decided i would try those this year.

i am very happy i did.

i started off by bringing my teeny tiny harvest basket assuming i did horribly, but after half of the first plant i had to go grab my big boi harvest crate my dad made me. i also found 4 baby carrots that i grew last year during my harvest. ignore those.

prior to harvesting, i turned to the internet out of habit to see what needed to be done. sadly, the internet had varying degrees of how to handle both harvesting and curing potatoes. then i remembered farmer mama used to grow these so i hit her up for the true knowledge. i shall put it here for y'all.

there's no need to wait until first frost, and actually it's prolly not ideal if you wait. it's going to be first frost pretty soonTM so right now is just fine. it's easier to diggie dig if you trim back all the vines first. i did prune back the vines and leaves the deer left for me, and i tossed them in as my first layer of compost for the garlic bed (garlic post soon, i'm running behind on planting them...)

now i can grab on to the neck of the plant and rip it up. totally not morbid to phrase it that way. to say i squeed with joy when i saw large and bountiful potatoes this time is an understatement. hubs was prepping the perennial flower area to plant those plants and he thought i was getting attacked by yellowjackets again. my yipee and my panic screams are the same so i don't blame him.

for digging, since this was in my tall raised bed i just used my arms and hands and dug around. i had my shovel handy, but my acoustic self prefers to use hands for everything, and also because the shovel could pierce the skin of the potatoes. which isn't horrible, but an annoyance and an extra worry when curing so just not worth imo. the potatoes didn't go further than 8 inches below the soil, so no reason to keep digging. you can also tell when the roots get smaller and smaller. i also learned that for sweet potatoes like 90% of the taters are right under that neck, so also no real reason to dig around too much except if you want to find those baby outliers.

so incredibly happy with this harvest 😍❤️🍠

the purpose of me growing these was because, well, why not, but also because i want to offer sweet potato slips at the farmers market next april. i offered only a few this year because i just didn't know what would happen and if i wanted someone else to grow it and see how theirs turned out to compare. why purple? well, why normie???? purple is so much prettier and i'm actually going to focus on a lot of purple produce in 2025 lmao. but i digress.

ok so i hit the tumblr photo limit just from talking about harvesting these gorgeous purple divas therefore i shall do a 2nd post about the curing stage. spoiler alert: i am curing the baby tubers because market slips next year and i washed the big chonkas in my outdoor sink and boiled them immediately.

boiling was a mistake. good news is i learned the kitchen would look pretty with purple floors 🫠 and that if you clean up purple potato water on kitchen floor with clorox bleach that it turns the purple color blue 🫠 i love science.

since i got too overexcited i boiled too much. i saved enough in the fridge to make a sweet potato pie later this week, ate some for dinner, and then froze the rest in ziploc bags. i have a feeling i'll be making multiple purple sweet potato pies this season because why the hell not.

don't worry i'll have photos of the pie when i make it. hehe.

ok chores real quick then on to the next post about curing the potatoes, very important.

[gardening-guy]

a lovely friend was over today and i showed them how to sow seeds and we set up a new raised garden bed together for fall/winter crop planting! we sowed seeds for broccoli de cicco (thank you @toadleeah), walking egyptian onions & cilantro (thank you @tomorrowsgardennc), and dill! i also plan on transplanting in more cabbage & kale once my current batch of seedlings grows up more!

i'll share a small garden update soon with photos! 🥰

[sugdendingle]

[home--farm]

Daydreaming of sunnier days

[bobbie-robron]

[trexalicious]

My chickens need these...🤣

[everlastinghistory]

The feminine urge to run away to France with the love of your life and spend the rest of your life being a housewife in a cute cottage frolicking around fields of flowers like a Disney princess.

[home--farm]

I have been raking leaves for all the neighbours again this year. They get dumped in the back yard, insulating the garden, hosting bugs for the birds, and breaking down into gorgeous soil. And the neighbours are just delighted to have their leaves removed for free.

I wasn't planning a vegetable garden next year but the outcome of the American election makes a vegetable garden a prudent and sensible thing to do this year.

[kitsuneq]

[tomorrowsgardennc]

market update // september 28th 2024

before market 👉 after market

another slow day. this time was because a lot of regular customers did come by to say hi, but that they were out of power after 2r hours from the hurricane so they were honest and said they just were there to get out of the house and not buying. when 3 different customers say that... then you know that's probably multiplied by at least 3. a lot of window shoppers overall at the market, not just me. about half the farmers didn't show up either because of storm damage. me myself and my hubs kitties and house are completely fine, but it was significantly worse south and west of us. and guess where most of the farmers are located 🫠

if there is ever any severe damage of any natural causes, they need your support then more than ever. they always need your support... but only the cash crop farmers are eligible for compensation loss from the USDA. the farmers at your local market are not eligible. support them.

look at me, right at the very end. all my neighbors still setting up. the main market is right around the corner to the right. this is considered the back entrance so there is still traffic, but nowhere near as much as the main entrance.

my sun tarp that kept attacking me when it was windy the other week didn't make it through the storm, so i spent about half the market taking refuge in the shade. i hung out with another plant vendor for a bit. i was telling her about my perennial flower garden, and i did already get spanish lavender from her. going to get more next time she's at market. she said spanish lavender is the easiest to grow - especially in these parts - but the flower heads don't look like the stereotypical lavender flower so a lot of people don't want it. i don't care, i want the bees to care! but she's wonderful, sells only herb transplants. she recommended a few more flower perennials for me... i forgot ehat they were but she said she got them so that's why i didn't bother remembering because i said SOLD and i'll get them from her later 😅 i'll tell y'all what they are when i get them.

my sun tarp didn't make it, but my seed banner only got slightly frayed! easily fixable, fix it later.

question of the day!! this applies to everyone, but this farmers market offers a special deal. if you have SNAPs, or food stamps...

seeds are covered by SNAPs!!

now, home depot or other large hardware stores won't accept SNAP cards because they don't sell food as their main source of income (well, customers aren't their main source of income but that's another post for another day). Those stores won't invest in accepting SNAPs to a "small" customer base. BUT!! Walmart, Target... other stores where they have groceries and a few seeds in the spring will accept SNAPs for vegetable and herb seeds. if it turns into something edible, it is covered by SNAPs:

✨️ the more you know ✨️ a couple of customers were surprised and got a lot of seeds after they learned that. me, personally, my goal is to eventually accept SNAPs on my website for selling seeds. it costs a lot of money to do so....... but it is still a high priority. for now, I can accept farmers' market tokens for the seeds.

close up of seeds. seeds. seed seed seed seeds. appreciate the seeds.

kid wave back count: 1 out of 1. not too many kids today, surprisingly, but the one i waved at waved back. 100% wave back rate, let's gooooo.

[gardening-guy]

oli's homemade fertilizer tea recipe

@tomorrowsgardennc mentioned in their holy grail garlic post my homemade banana peel soup fertilizer, and i wanted to elaborate more on it!

the original idea comes from my art mentor, who practices home witchcraft and is a beautiful artist & photographer (check her out here). she taught me to soak banana peels in water in a sunny spot for a day and then to compost the banana peels (or let the critters get them) and use the liquid afterwards to water my plants. it gives them a great boost of potassium!

but!!! i took it a step further! i won't show pictures bc it gets kinda gross looking, but i have this big jug (used to make alcoholic drink mix in it for parties but now it's for gardening) that i fill with banana peels, crushed eggshells, used coffee grounds, old tea bags, and little houseplant clippings (mostly extra basil tbh) and water most importantly. i let it steep as a fertilizer tea for at least a day, shaking occasionally. when a plant needs fertilizing, i strain out a bit of the liquid, adding the strained bits back in, and mix it with a bit of water (or just this fertilizer tea itself).

up above is a photo of a cup of the strained fertilizer tea that i was using to fertilize a pothos houseplant today :) this fertilizer is my ride or die, it has yet to fail me!!! and it helps incorporate a bunch of my most used kitchen scraps (being coffee ground, tea bags, eggs, and lil fresh herb bits) into something for my plants! the coffee grounds provide nitrogen, eggs provide calcium, banana peels provide potassium, and there are other benefits.

i use this for my houseplants, my outdoor plants, my crops, literally everything :)

lmk if you try out my homemade fertilizer tea!!!

[sugdendingle]

[home--farm]

Pouring outside but I got the favas, spinach, lettuce and peas in.

[vintagehomecollection]

Country Kitchens, 1991