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A fall bouquet

There are still so many colourful flowers in the fall

Trying to grow sweet potatoes

The leaves looked nice, but there was no crop to harvest

We love to make sweet potato fries, so it is obvious we would like to try and grow the sweet potatoes our selves, although we do not have the ideal location for that.

So first things first, I bought a few sweet potatoes in the store and put them in a container with some soil to start them of in our greenhouse. After a few stems with some leaves appeared I transferred them to a nice protected spot in our garden 4 (the oval bed behind the patch with the willow trees).

Above the ground the sweet potatoes (only 3 pieces) looked good, a small patch with beautiful green leaves.

The only thing is that this garden is a bit off from our central point and if we would want to water, we would have to bring the water there every time. Well, we did not bring water there much and as I have read later, sweet potatoes need a lot of water, so that will explain why we did not harvest any sweet potatoes, but we found only thin roots.

Dough up sweet potatoes that did not develop

I am thinking of setting up some rain barrels in our different gardens with garden hoses with holes on set distances as an “automated” watering system. I would just have to go around and open the taps for a certain amount of time. The rain barrels would just need filling every few days. If we really get to setting this “automated” watering system up, I am tempted to try growing sweet potatoes again, other wise it would be no use, since I do not get to watering enough.

Harvesting and preserving Chili’s

Dehydrating Chili’s

We went on a trip beginning of September, bad timing of course, and the first chili’s where just ripening. By the time we would come back a part of the chili’s would probably be bad, so a harvest and preserving is necessary before we leave.

So a quick round trough the greenhouse and the chili patch outside gave a mountain of, mainly green, chili’s. I do prefer to wait until chili’s turn red, but with bad timing we will have to do with a lot of green once this time.

Cutting them took some time and then I put them in the dehydrator. I dehydrated them for about 15 hours at 70°C, which turned out to be a bit too long (I forgot to check on them in between) and the chili’s came out roasted. I hope they will not have a burned taste; we have not tried them yet.