Sweet Potatoes, Rice, and Peanuts

First frost is the decisive end of the summer garden. We had two light ones back-to-back at the beginning of the month, and although they weren't killing frosts, they did enough damage to set fall harvest in motion.

The first thing on my list was sweet potatoes. I waited as long as I could, since the bed in the garden never seemed to grow well. Of my two plantings of slips, these were planted first (April 5th and 6th). But that particular bed is at the top of the garden and has never held soil moisture well, so the plants never grew well, even with my inverted bottle waterer experiment.

Photo from last August.

The sweet potatoes in the African Keyhole Garden, on the other hand, did fantastic.

The slips in the keyhole garden were planted June 9th.

The difference in the harvest is just as amazing. 

On the left are the largest from the keyhole garden.
On the right are the largest from the garden bed.

It wasn't a huge harvest because my slips were late to grow, but I'll take whatever I get and be thankful for it. 

Another surprise was my rice. We planted a small plot of it last June, and I admit I was doubtful about the seed, which I saved from the previous summer. I'm pretty sure I harvested it too early, so I doubted it was mature enough to be viable. Amongst the (unwanted) volunteer grasses, I assumed it was a no-show. Dan even mowed the patch, and I never watered it, even during our hot dry spell. What a surprise to finally realize I had scatterings of mature rice plant growing there!

I hand harvested these by cutting off the heads. The yield was a bowlful.

Rice harvest so far.

There are still a few unripe rice plants, but even so, I won't get much of a harvest. But at least it's a seed crop for next year. 

Lastly, my peanuts. They're supposed to be harvested when the leaves start to turn yellow and about 70% of the nuts are mature. Well, the plants never yellowed, but they did suffer some frost damage. I checked on them the other day and discovered that between soggy soil and a return to summer-like temperatures last week, they were starting to sprout! So I pulled them.

One thing I observed is that where the vines laid on the ground, more peanuts grew.

That gives me information about how to increase production next year.

The last step is to dry them, and I hope that stops them from sprouting so I can have seed to plant next year!

Of the summer garden, my Matt's Wild Cherry Tomatoes and Cornfield pole beans are still producing. 

Neither got much frost damage. Looking at the weather forecast, however, I suspect that will come to a frozen end soon. 

Sweet Potatoes, Rice, and Peanuts © Nov 2020 

by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com

Summer Grain Growing: Rice (I Hope)

In my last blog post, I shared our winter wheat harvest with you, plus some about the cutting and threshing process. Wheat yields quite a bit of straw, and we have a plan for that too.

First load of wheat straw.

The plan is to follow the wheat with a rotation of rice. I got this idea from Masanobu Fukuoka's book on natural farming, The One Straw Revolution. He alternates a rice crop in summer with cool weather grains in winter. He adds clover to the seed and mulches it with the straw from the previous crop. With this method he has very few problems with weeds and has developed rich, fertile soil with no other additive than a scattering of chicken manure over the straw to help it decompose.

My rice seed came from last year's rice growing experiment which, unfortunately, I harvested too early (the same mistake I made the first time we grew wheat). So I have some doubt as to whether or not the seed is mature enough to grow (hence, the "I Hope" in the post title.) Doing nothing will produce nothing, however, so I decided to go ahead and give it a try anyway.

I broadcast the seed and then Dan cut the wheat residue (and weeds) with our mulching mower.

He's cutting the remaining stubble, weeds, and a patchy spot where I
removed the heads from the standing plants. Made a good mulch layer.

Ordinarily, I would let the goats into the patch after harvesting to eat down the weeds and glean any seed heads they could find.

The little patch of grass in the corner is spring planted wheat (another experiment).

Impending rain and shortage of temporary fencing nixed that.

The idea with the straw is to spread it as a covering mulch, not a smothering mulch. To do that it must be spread in a scattered fashion rather than aligned as a mat.

I started with the barest corner of the patch. As we continue threshing the wheat and making more straw, it will cover the rest of the field.

So there it is at present. It's an experiment, so I don't know what to expect. We'll learn something from it one way or another, that I know for sure.

Summer Grain Growing: Rice (I Hope) © June 2020

by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com

Upland Rice Threshed and Rough Yield

A couple weeks ago I told you about harvesting my upland rice.

My first ever rice harvest!

After harvesting, there are three steps to processing rice: threshing, dehulling, and winnowing. Having hulls makes it a bit more complicated than processing wheat, but I plan to take it one step at a time. Threshing was my first step. My question was, how?

The first thing that came to mine was our yard-mulcher-turned-grain-thresher.

Our first little mulcher was inadequate for that task, so Dan turned it
 into a feed processor (how-to here). We also use it for threshing wheat.

Made from an old Yard Machine brand chipper/mulcher, we've been using it to thresh our wheat for several years. The rice harvest was small enough that a simpler method seemed more in order.

Threshing screen on top of the wheelbarrow. 

My threshing screen is a frame with quarter-inch hardware cloth stapled to the bottom. The grain heads are rubbed on the screen and fall through into the wheelbarrow. It's a slow method, but good for smaller harvests. This worked fairly well, and also taught me something about harvesting rice. Even though I cut it when the heads were golden brown, I should have let it dry out more before cutting it. I say this because the grains were stubborn to be loosened from the stalk. Proper ripeness is the fine point between green and shattering (which is when the seed falls on it's own to the ground). I had to figure this out for wheat, so I'm not surprised I'd have to learn for the rice too.

The result.

I planted a quarter of an ounce (7 gram seed packet) and yielded just under four pounds before dehulling and winnowing. Not as much as I had hoped, but considering how hot and dry our summer has been, I'm still pleased. I will definitely grow upland rice again next year.

The next step will be learning how to dehull it. (Another learning curve new adventure!)

Upland Rice Threshed and Rough Yield © Sept 2019

by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com

My First Rice Harvest

I can't help but take a pause from my Solar Pantry Series for my very first rice harvest. I've never grown rice before so this small patch has been an experiment; an experiment on which I've pinned great hopes.

I planted two varieties of upland rice last May (blog post here). Upland rice is different from lowland or paddy rice because it doesn't have to be flooded. It can be grown without a rice paddy.

My bed of Cho Seun Zo Saeng, a short grain brown rice.

The Cho Seun variety is said to be ready to harvest somewhere around 125 days after transplanting or whenever the heads are golden brown.

Brown rice ready to harvest.

 I cut mine at day 123 with my hand sickle.

My hand sickle is a handy tool.

The patch was small so it didn't take long. It filled my wheelbarrow.

My first ever rice harvest!

My next step is to thresh it. This variety is supposed to be relatively easy to thresh because it is awnless. We'll see!

The second bed of rice, Loto, still has a lot of green seed heads.

My bed of Loto rice, a shorter variety.

So I'm still waiting on that one.

My seed packets contained 7 grams of rice seed each, so I'm curious about my yield. We'll try some of course, but I plan to save most of it as seed for next summer's crop. Hopefully, homegrown rice can become a regular part of our diet.

My First Rice Harvest © August 2019

by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com

Summer Garden: July 2019

Speaking of summer, here are some shots of my summer garden.

Cucumber plants using the hoop house as a trellis. If you recall, I had to
replant most of the row. It won't be a bumper crop, but it will be enough.

Cucumbers ready to eat.

Sweet potatoes. As you can see, I'm still mulching aisles.

Winter squash. These are North Georgia Candy Roaster

Young growing candy roaster squash.

In the hoop house.

A small bed of Tennessee red peanuts for a seed crop. They aren't
 really neon green! That's how my camera picked them up in full sun.

Peanut flowers. Leaf color is more true in this shot.

My survivor strawberries

Rooting strawberry runners for another bed. 

Upland rice beds with volunteer cushaw.

Rice flowers

The volunteer cushaw has spread into the tomato trellis

I had two gardening fails this summer. One is my corn.

Of four rows planted, I only got five corn plants.

This is the same bed I replanted because of poor germination the first planting. The second planting didn't do well either, so I tried to sprout the seed. I got nothing. All the seed came from the same ear, so at least one ear had very few viable seeds. I planned to use the corn for pole beans, but they never got planted because the corn didn't grow.

The other fail was okra. I had zero germination even with two plantings. Disappointing, because we love our oven fried okra.

But back to successes.

Peppers are coming along. Not sure which variety.

Tomatoes are doing well.

Black turtle beans with flowers and bean pods

Cowpeas are flowering too. 

Plus, I'm still harvesting last fall's sugar beets for
the goats.They eat both roots and greens (chopped).

So, there's my garden so far this year. Anybody else?

Summer Garden © July 2019 by Leigh

at http://www.5acresandadream.com

Upland Rice Growing Update

I gave you a little peek at my rice in my last post (Living in the Shadow of the Rain), but so many folks expressed an interest in this project that I thought I'd give you an update in pictures.

My two beds of rice: Loto in front & Cho Seun Zo Saeng behind.

This is upland rice, which doesn't require paddies to grow. You can read more about it in my "Grain Growing: Upland Rice" post.

Cho Seun Zo Saeng, a short grain brown rice.

Loto, an Italian risotto rice.

The plant in the middle of the bed is a volunteer cucumber.

With clover ground cover.

I left it because I rarely have the heart to pull volunteers. They always seem to be the hardiest of what grows in my garden.

I've been diligent to water and weed both beds. Of the two, the Cho Seun seems to be doing better.

Cho Seun Zo Saeng on the right, Loto on the left.

It is a taller growing variety, but it's greener and leafier than the Loto, which seems to be struggling more. That may be due to variety preferences, or because the soil in the Loto bed isn't as good. I'm not really sure.

I planted white Dutch clover as a ground cover in both beds, but it's been sporadic in growing. Still, it will add some nitrogen to the soil as well as shade it.

Clover ground cover.

Clover doesn't like hot dry weather, so it benefits from my frequent watering too.

The only other challenge will be keeping birds from devouring the grain before I can harvest! Some netting might be in order for that.

Upland Rice Growing Update © June 2019

by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com

What's Growing, What's Not

Daylilies have just begun blooming.

May has been a month of harvesting the last of the winter garden and planting for summer. The fall and winter garden have pretty much wound down.

Garlic has been harvested

Multiplier onions are next

Sugar beets and kale are still growing.

The kale is Lacinato, an heirloom variety and new for me. A keeper!

It's mild, tender, and tasty. Here's some sauteed with carrots and onions.

I don't remember what lettuce this is. but I
want seed from it because it never got bitter.

For the summer garden I've been busy getting growing things in the ground.

I had about three dozen tomato starts.

They've all been planted and most are doing very well. 

I transplanted pepper starts too.

Do you remember the survivor strawberries Dan found last January and I transplanted in the hoop house?

My one little bed has done very well.

We didn't get many, but it was enough for a
couple of batches of strawberry pancakes.

Some of my potted potatoes.

Potatoes plants grown from grocery store organic potatoes.

I planted cowpeas in the potato bed.

My rice is doing well, though I admit I pamper it. I worry that our current hot, dry spell may be unhappy for it.

Loto rice, a short variety.

Cho Seun Zo Saeng grows taller.

Other things that are doing well:

Crabapples

Starks Moonglow Pears. They are sweet and spicy.

Hops. I say it's doing well but I lost 2 out of 3
plants. Here's hoping this one is a female!

One of our hay patches with sorghum-sudangrass. 

Some things haven't done very well.

Only a couple of cucumber plants came up so I replanted.

I had to replant my corn too.

Still to plant:

Sweet potato slips. They'll go in soon. The potted flower
was a mother's day gift from my oldest granddaughter.

This one was from my youngest granddaughter.

I don't know what they are but it's perfect to grace my barn bench.

So there's what's growing (or trying to grow) around our homestead. How about you?

What's Growing, What's Not © May 2019

by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com