EggMeister's 2018 Veggie Progress - Self-Sufficiency Drive - End Of May Update

Hello Veggie Meisters,

Here is the 2nd of my May 2018 updates on the progress of my Runner Beans, Butternut Squashes & Potatoes.

random beautiful picture of one of mum's plants

In my last post just over 2 weeks ago https://steemit.com/homesteading/@eggmeister/eggmeister-s-2018-veggie-progress-self-sufficiency-drive I had planted out all the veggies (squashes & potatoes from the nursery pots and the beans directly into the soil).

I'll start with the beans first; out of 36 'Scarlet Emperor' beans planted, all but 5 have sprouted. 4 no-shows on the left cane tower and 1 no-show on the middle one. All present and correct on the right side tower.

Originally 14 potato seeds were planted (seeds harvested from the pods, growing off the vines last year out of the composter) but only about 11 germinated in the pots. Of these, only 9 were deemed viable for transplanting to the garden. Unfortunately, one appears to have been dug up by a pesky cat and another 2 haven't developed beyond their tiny seedling-sized stature. It's fair to say that only 6 now stand any chance of surviving into maturity. I'm not sure if this is true but it seems potatoes grown from seeds struggle to develop as quickly as those grown from seed potatoes (like the ones I planted as back-up in couple of tubs). You see folks, there's a different between seed-potatoes and potato seeds; something I was completely unaware of until around 10 months ago LOL. https://steemit.com/homesteading/@eggmeister/processing-potato-seeds-long-term-storage-novice-mode As you can see from the state of the composter, I've purposely left the lid open again to tempt last year's dormant crop to sprout and guess what folks! They have :) I'm really hoping that these vines will produce another yield of 'tomato-like' pods again this year so I can process 100s more seeds for the long-term storage collection. As I've already stated, last years 'harvest' had an adequate success rate with 11 germinating out of the 14 planted.

Supertatties in the composter

missing tatties :(

'back-up' tatties from seed-potatoes (whites on left, reds on right)

Onto the Butternut Squashes, as you can see in the pictures, some of the leaves have turned yellow and after a bit of research I'm hoping it's due to lack of nutrients and so a couple of days ago I added a liquid feed to them.

Mum's old Nasturtiums have dredged themselves back into life and currently lightly 'pepper' the whole veggie patch. As I recently found out (thanks to one of Doug & Stacy's videos), Nasturtiums are excellent companion plants as well as being edible to.

So then folks, I think it fair to say that for my first proper foray into veggies; I'm not doing too bad?!?

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I'll update next month with hopefully even better news.

Japanese Maple, Lillies & a couple of yellow things ;)

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Bye for now,
EggMeister

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My previous posts on this project can be found here:

https://steemit.com/homesteading/@eggmeister/eggmeister-s-2018-veggie-progress-self-sufficiency-drive

https://steemit.com/homesteading/@eggmeister/eggmeister-s-2018-veggie-progress-self-sufficiency-drive-may-update

Also, related topics here:

https://steemit.com/prepping/@eggmeister/prepping-with-potato-seeds-not-seed-potatoes

https://steemit.com/homesteading/@eggmeister/processing-potato-seeds-long-term-storage-novice-mode

https://steemit.com/homesteading/@eggmeister/let-s-try-growing-potatoes-from-seeds-this-year-eggmeister-going-green-fingered