Wife is beginning to harvest her fall crop of broccoli from the hoop house. Got 17 pint packages out of the first cutting. Will get at least that much again. And then the chickens will enjoy the plants as she pulls them up. She's gotten a couple good sized pickings of green beans, probably one left to go. Will dig sweet potatoes in a few weeks...they've about taken over one end of the house. First time we've grown them inside, so curious to see how they compare to outside rows. And she will keep lettuce/spinach going all winter by simply throwing a frost blanket over it when really cold weather hits.
Wonderful!! I'm trying to get a hoop house built, life just seems to get in the way. My garden this year was less than stellar, but we at least got a few things canned and frozen.
Last of the green beans picked today. Sweet potatoes out of about 8' of bed. 5 gallon bucket of size we'll eat. Couple more gallons of size that will make starter slips next spring, and couple gallons of fingers the pigs get. On drying screens in other greenhouse to cure a few weeks, up the sweetness. Down to just broccoli plants that will go to the chickens, some lettuce and a few tomatoes. House gets put to bed over the next few weeks for next spring.
After the potatoes cure a few weeks in the heat of the greenhouse on the screens, we'll move them to the basement where it stays mid 50's, and store just like in the photo, on screens, including the smaller one wife will plant next spring for new slips. For anyone not familiar with growing from slips, they are shoots that will sprout from a sweet potato that will root to form a new plant. When they get 4-6" high from the planted potato and have some new tiny roots on them, you pull or break them off the mother potato, and plant in the soil for a new plant. Each of those will produce a cluster of new potatoes. You plant the slip producer about early March, cover with plastic over top to help heat the soil and encourage sprout growth, and by mid May, you'll have sprouts big enough to use. Sweet potatoes like warm soil, so we never plant them outside before about the middle to end of May. They will grow until you harvest right at first frost (outside). These in the hoop house were planted toward the end of June, so we're harvesting about a month after first outside frost.
