Sweet Potatoes, Potatoes, Furnace, & Trees

 Typical Morning.  Scriptures, breakfast and then checked the greenhouses.

The town crew came around and hauled away all of the broken tree limbs and branches and took them to tree dump.  I didn't know that they were going to do this.  I worked pretty fast cutting the limbs and dragging them out to the road.  I told Rose Ann Frost at the post office to call Rod to come back and get our stuff.  They were soon there and got them loaded. 

The furnace in house five is not working.  Andre came and took it apart.  He removed the five burners.  The were dirty and plugged by spider nests.

Here is a view of the five burners.

Here he is putting it back together.  

Freshly dug sweet potatoes.

I washed off some of the dirt with a watering can.

I took them into the house and washed them again.  I washed them in a bucket and let them drain in the sink.  I don't like to run dirt into our sewer tank.  I dumped the water outside.

Here is the three pounder.

The potatoes are drying on a towel.  The next step is to put them in the garage where they can cure.

Two handfuls.

Another handful.

I spent the rest of the evening digging potatoes.  I have filled nine nursery tubs since I started to dig a couple of weeks ago.

I will be grading them into two or three sizes for storage.  We can't eat all of these.  Many of them will be given to family and friends.

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Almost Finished/Small Table

There are a couple of things that I want to make.  Number one is a can storage system.  I all ready started a table.  I made the legs, the side skirts, then end skirts, and twelve braces several weeks ago.  So don't start a new project, finish the one that I have already started.

Yesterday, I bought five sweet potatoes.  This morning I prepped them for growing slips.  I used three wide mouth mason jars.  The potatoes would fit the narrow mouth jars, but it would be difficult to add water to the jar.

The stem end is up and the root goes down.  I use a sharp nail to hold the top above the edge of the jar.  I push three into each potato in a triangular pattern.

I put them on the table to get a picture a white background.  

I put water in the jar and placed them in the window.  I put a label on the middle jar with today's date. 12-12-2019.  It doesn't show clearly enough to read in the above photo.

I sanded all of the parts except the table top before I put them together.  There were a few saw marks that I was able to remove.

The above pictures shows the side skirts and the end skirts with the braces.

The same parts but from a different angle.

I had drilled all the holes earlier to hold the legs to the skirts.  I tried several times to put a screw through the hole in the leg and into the skirt.  It didn't work out that way very well.  I pinned it to the skirt with my my nail gun and made a mistake.   I did not hold it straight and then pin came out the side.

Attaching the top to the frame was quite a challenge.  I had to apply glue on the underside of the table under the skirts.  I clamped piece of wood on the inside and outside which defined the location of the glue.

The above photo shows leg, skirt, brace, and the table top.   A bead of glue is show because the table to is wrapped some.  The clamps hold it tight until the glue sets.

While the table was upside down I clamped both ends the skirt.  I turned it right side up and clamped the side skirts to the top.  Was tempted to remove the clamps after supper, but did resist and will remove the clamps in the morning.   I should get more photos, but the garage is quite dark.

Comments and questions are welcome.

Digging Sweet Potatoes

Rain off and on during the day mixed with a little bit of sunshine late in the afternoon.  I am writing a paper to put on the bulletin board at the post office.  I am recruiting  persons to join our CSA for next year.  I have worked on it several times the last couple of days.  I hope to post it tomorrow.  In the warmer part of the afternoon I decided to dig up one sweet potato.

The roots grow all over and some of the potatoes grow horizontal before growing a tuber.  I carefully removed soil.  So, the photo above shows about three tubers.  I invited Carol to come out and take a look before I dug it up.  I was going to dig the others at a later date.  She felt it best to dig them all, so that is what we did.

I planted three slips plus the mother potato.  This is the mother potato with dozens of small narrow tubers and there were several large ones in the above group.

 Above a the pile of potatoes.  A bunch of large one and more of the smaller ones.

Above is the shovel, the hole, and the red potato roots.

These two have odd shapes.  To me it looks like an L & a J.  Looking at it now I have the J backwards.  It stands for my dad.  Lester Johnson.

I put them in a large orange box that we picked up at Sam's Club.  I am sure that it ways over fifty pounds.

Here the box is in the garage setting on top of two five gallon buckets.

Comments and questions are welcome.

Nature's Swamp Cooler

I has been hot from 9 a.m. until the sun went down.  House one is shaded some until 11 a.m.

In house one there are six isles.  The above photo show the space between the isle.  There are two rows of tomatoes.  Using a stirrup hoe I was able to get most of the weeds.  The using the same hoe, I was able to hoe out most of the weeds on both sides of the isle and then down the middle.  There are two rows where I can't walk in the space between the plants.  I crawled on my hand and knees using a short handled stirrup hoe.  I have hoed out most of the weeds.

It is pretty hot in house two. I pulled most of the weeds in the raised beds.  There were some where I had to cut the roots with a pair of scissors.  Most of those were annual grasses.  

 I picked a nice batch of strawberries.  After I finished I put to hose on them and watered them well.   

I soaked the above raised bed preparing it for sweet potatoes.  There are four rooted quart pots and a rooted sweet potato in a quart bottle.  I dug five deep holes and put each plant in the hole and filled it water and soil.  They are looking pretty good.

The raspberry plants are doing well and should have some large berries if they are properly watered.  Years ago I made this portable sprinkler.  It has been in the far backyard.  I positioned it on the north east corner of the raspberry patch.  It was to tall to be able to adjust the coverage.  I had to remove a couple of large nipples which to two pipe wrenches and one five foot heavy pipe.  I finally got it adjusted.  I turned on the water for an all night spray.  

I took pictures of a couple of native plants.  Above is that of Dorr's Sage, Salvia dorrii.  It is quit pretty but the flowers don't last long.  I will havest the seeds when they are ripe.

This is a photo of Curl leaf Mountain Mohogany, Cercocarpus ledifolius, growing in our dry garden.  It is about five feet tall.  It needs some pruning. 

 In the heat of the day I dug weeds south of the asparagus.

The above picture shows a row of tomatoes, peas, onions, and another row of tomatoes.  I strung another trellis twine for the peas,  I watered the res of the plants.  Carol and I weeded the onions.


Comments and questions are welcome.

Tried to Fix the Lawnmower

Another busy day.  At various times during the day I hung the tomato plants in house one.

 There are five basket with tomato plants called Tumbling Tom.  They are large cherry tomatoes that are to produce all season.

I had some extra plants so I planted two Tumbling Toms in one Azalea pot.

I had some old Wave Petunia seeds that I mixed up and planted in this germination tray.  They will be ready to put out in the garden in a couple of weeks.

 The lawnmower won't run, and two tires are flat.  We went to Fillmore and I bought a can of air that will pump up the tires.  It worked.  I bought a can of carburetor cleaner.  I sprayed that into the carburetor. The engine would start but it quite about ten seconds later.  I think that it is not getting any gas.

Last Friday I broke an irrigation pipe.  I replaced it Saturday and covered it today.

 This afternoon I began to build a trellis for the pea vines.  It will be finished sometime next week.

 The sweet potatoes are doing well.  I had three starts that I put into quart pots.  I will plant them in the garden in a couple of weeks. I put them in water to soak up the potting soil.

There nineteen tomato starts in this quart jar.  I transplanted them into four inch square pots.

Weeded the bristle cone pine.  

and these Gamble oak seedlings.



Comments and questions are welcome.

New Life in the Tablesaw Sharpner

 On day 31 the sweet potato is growing a stem about 1/8 inch long.

 I watched several You Tube videos on how to prepare the sharpner for the first blade. Last week I sharpened two blades the wrong way.  I sharpened them okay.

 The blade was put on the blade rest in the proper way.  The blade center goes first. then the spring, and then the washer, then the blade, and last the nut which is tightened to secure the blade.

 I sharpened a blade that I haven't used for years.  I made a couple of adjustments to blade at the proper angle against the diamond grinder.

Above is glue up of 2x4's in which I will cut the upper brackets and the two feet.