Suburban Gardening
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Items used:
Earthbox - Get $10 off your first purchase over $40
Garden Hose Filter - acid-washed catalytic carbon filter is especially effective at adsorbing chlorine, ammonia, disinfection by-products, TCE, PCE, MTBE and other trace level organics.
I absolutely LOVE sweet potatoes, yams, and purple petite potatoes! So for the past few years, I've been experimenting with growing my own in pots in my backyard.
The first few years weren't complete failures, but I didn't have nearly enough sand mixed in with my soil, so the resulting potatoes were small and they were difficult to harvest. Now I use about a 50/50 mix of soil & sand and the sizes have been much better! But I'm getting ahead of myself!
I start from sprouting the eyes of a previous year's potato.
I start my new crop of sweet potatoes, yams, and purple petite potatoes with the eyes that grew naturally from store-bought potatoes initially and then from previous season's crops. I poke them with toothpicks to suspend them partially submerged in water, which prompts them to grow roots.
I sprout them in little laundry detergent measuring cups or shot glasses on my kitchen counter, beginning in February & March.
In early June here in Michigan, I plant the well-rooted sprouts outside in pots, once the risk of frost has passed. I sprinkle the soil of all new plants with cayenne pepper to discourage curious squirrels from digging them up again! Without this, they both will & do!
Each pot contains about a 50/50 mix of play sand and potting soil, which allows the soil to drain properly (there are holes in the bottoms), allows the potatoes to grow larger, and allows for easier harvesting.
I have a very small yard, so I make use of planter pots and planter boxes as much as possible.
This is what my sweet potato, yam, and purple petite potato plants will typically look like in mid-June.
This is what my sweet potato, yam, and purple petite potato plants will typically look like in mid-August.
I harvest the crop in late October and enjoy throughout Winter.
They grow in all kinds of weird shapes and sizes!
As for the rest of my garden, I utilize the entire south side of my house, since that's almost always entirely in full sun.
As a kid, I always hated having to tend to our garden. Don't get me wrong, I appreciated the delicious fresh vegetables and the pride of being able to enjoy the fruits of my labor. I just didn't appreciate all of the labor. I always imagined that there had to be a better way. Smarter, easier.
I hated having to wrestle with a rototiller every Spring, to prepare the soil for planting, in the far back of our yard. I hated having to weed and water the garden. It was no fun having to crawl through the dirt & mud to pluck out everything else that wasn't supposed to be there -- and there was always something new that wasn't supposed to be there! The weeding was endless!
And all the while I was crawling through them, the plants showed their appreciation by constantly sticking me in the eye or face with a branch, and sticking to my body due to the heat and humidity. I'd end up with bugs crawling all over me, in my ears and in my hair, and flying into my nose and mouth. Yeck!! A shower was always necessary after weeding every night.
But that's the way my dad said it had to be done, so that's the way I had to do it.
Fast forward another 10 years, before I headed off to college, when I was finally able to convince my dad to allow me to set him up with a way that was much smarter and much easier, and that would eliminate all of the back-breaking work that I wasn't going to be around anymore to do. A way that would allow him to do everything for himself.
I set him up with a garden that utilized Earthboxes - a product that I originally conceived of and sketched-out when I was 10 years old, that my dad told me was "stupid" because "people could just plant things in the ground." Well, eventually someone else thought it was a great idea too, and created a very successful company around it.
My garden as it appears today.
So I originally all set this up for him, so that he could continue gardening without having to stoop or bend down -- things he was already having trouble with. He built the original stands out of pressure treated 4x4s that he painted green, but they needed repainting every year and the wood still rotted, so every year they need repair. But he enjoyed always having to fix them, as this gave him something to do. I however, had no patience for that.
After he passed away in 2019, I implemented an automatic watering system, bought a bunch more Earthboxes, cut up & threw away all of the rotting lumber, and replaced everything with metal & plastic saw horses and expandable metal ramps for the shelves.
So far, it appears like these will last forever, but we'll see....
You'll notice that I still have all of my plants in Earthboxes, and that I still keep them off the ground, even though I have no issues with bending or crouching.
There are great reasons for this:
Even though I live in the city, we still have lots of critters, including rabbits, skunks, opossum, field mice, and rats. They love eating my neighbor's crops because they are planted on the ground and readily accessible, but they don't seem to realize that mine are even here, so mine get left alone!
Keeping the plants raised keeps them always in full sun, otherwise they would be partially shaded by my 6' privacy fence.
Each box has a little platform inside with holes in it that allow for drainage into a water reservoir and a slot or hole on the side a few inches from the bottom to allow excess water to drain out. There's never a concern of over-flowing. This also allows the plant to grow it's roots through the platform and drink as much as it wants to, or not, without concern of ever over-watering. The soil also draws up water from the reservoir, preventing the soil from ever completely drying out.
Each box has a watering tube that accepts a garden hose to allow filling the reservoir, thus watering only the roots, not the leaves or stalk. I'm told that overall this is healthier for the plant, as it is less likely to mold.
Each box is covered by something very much like a shower cap. This prevents weeds from growing and overtaking the plants, so this means NO WEEDING for me. The covers also limit evaporation of water from the soil, and they help to capture and funnel rainwater into the base of the plant.
Having this water-conserving reservoir for each plant means I don't have to set out a sprinkler and waste water, like I would if the plants were planted in the ground. That groundwater gradually evaporates and/or seeps away deep into the soil, out of reach of the plant, but this reservoir takes relatively little water and keeps it all available only to the plant, and not to everything else around the plant that I don't want to grow.
This allowed me to employ my own automatic watering system, where each group of eight boxes are controlled by a single Hose Faucet Timer. I have each timer set to come on only once per day for only one minute each day, which is more than long enough to refill each reservoir to the point where some water will exit from the overflow slot.
Like everything that I do, I don't mind going through the expense, the time, and the effort of setting up a system that completely runs itself forever thereafter without me.
I'm all about "set it and forget it". I never have to weed my garden and I never have to water it. I can go away for days, weeks, or even a month and not have to worry about my garden. There's nothing to tend! I plant the plants and then I can forget about them, except to harvest and occasionally prune them.
I actually enjoy wandering out to snip off some leaves of Swiss chard to add to my salads, or a fresh tomato or green pepper, or clip a few leaves basil or rosemary, . . .
Years ago, I started a compost pile behind my garage for food waste, leaves, and grass clippings. Unfortunately, I ended up having to fence it off to keep from attracting and feeding the vermin.
One year by accident, some discarded acorn squash seeds sprouted and flourished, and provided me with a surprise crop of fresh acorn squash!
Since then, I've intentionally tossed saved acorn squash seeds there and have even extended my automatic watering system to include this area as well. To me, there's nothing better than free, delicious, and healthy food, with zero work, other than picking them off their vine when it's time!
Seeds from my previous year's Acorn Squash, simply tossed onto the compost pile behind my garage, "volunteer" to provide a bountiful new yield each year.
It doesn't get any easier than this!