The late summer we experienced in North Florida has allowed us to grow summer vegetables long into the fall. A couple of weeks ago our last summer harvest included sweet potatoes, peppers, and Jerusalem artichokes, a member of the Sunflower family that produces rhizomes that can be eaten fresh or cooked with a texture much like water chestnuts.
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| A variety of sweet potatoes |
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| Peppers |
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| Jerusalem Artichokes (Sunchokes) |
The fall vegetables are well under way also. They include mustard, collards, broccoli, radishes, kale, lettuce, arugula, carrots, and more.
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| Mustard greens |
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Mustard and Kale on
Hugelkultur bed |
One of our new ventures has been growing Trail of Tears black pole beans on a couple of our arbors. They have done well and are still producing beautiful dried black beans to enjoy all winter long. We just have to plant more of them.
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| Trail of Tears black pole beans |
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| Black beans, dried in shell |
Finally, we have been trying a new technique for mulching the fruit trees in the forest garden. We began with a ring of small brush around each tree, followed by a ring of green sweet potato vines we had just pulled up. On top of that we added wood chip mulch. We left an open ring around each trunk of at least 4 inches on all sides, sometimes more, to discourage diseases and funguses. The brush creates an air space so roots will not be compressed and will receive plenty of air. The sweet potato vines and mulch will create an insulating air blanket and will generate a small amount of heat as they decompose. The entire ring of mulch will continue to decompose throughout the winter and spring, providing nutrients to the trees as they put on new growth in the new year.
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| Adding layers of mulch around fruit trees. |
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