You Say Potato, I Say YUM On Friday we dug the first, of ten beds of sweet potatoes.  I am very pleased with how they are looking this year.  They have shaped up nicely, not too many long snaky noodle potatoes.   This bed was free…

It’s only Tuesday and already the week has been full of excitement.  Yesterday evening Randy was mowing on Old Blue, the older of our two LS tractors.  The newer tractor, the 357, is awaiting repairs for a bad crankshaft sensor.  Well, one of the power…

Welcome to the first week of the Fall CSA!  Yes, we know its not really fall for a couple of weeks yet.  But already the days are getting dramatically shorter.  I still get up and hurry out the door at 5:30 AM only to find…

I first learned about eating sweet potato greens many years ago when I worked for GrowMemphis.   One of the community gardens I worked with grew sweet potatoes.  Several of the gardeners were originally from West Africa.  The potatoes themselves were less important, what the community…

It rained today.  And it rained yesterday.  And it rained the day before yesterday.  It’s been one soggy August.   Cloudy, rainy and damp weather is good for transplanting seedlings.  Today Skylar and I finished tucking in the first succession of cabbage and are nearly halfway…

The Late Summer Squeeze One of the most difficult aspects of CSA farming is keeping a consistent level of production throughout the CSA season.  Late August and early September is always the leanest portion of our growing season.  We plan hard for this time of…

It’s melon time! I started picking cantaloupes today.  The cantaloupe we grow is Athena.  It’s a reliable producer with a strong rind and great flavor.  I haven’t found a smaller melon that I like as much.  And some of the Athena are real whoppers! But…

Ready to get nerdy with me?  Let’s talk about vegetative vs. generative growth.  Far from abstract, these principals are playing out in the garden right now and impacting our harvests. During vegetative growth, plants grow big and bushy.  They are busily conducting photosynthesis, growing leaves,…