Welcome back! We’re going to take a little detour this post just to share pure randomness. This post: Special Operation Sweet Potatoes– June 25, 2020
This year has given me the opportunity to try growing some new types of plants. One that I am particularly excited about is my sweet potatoes. Not only do I love eating them, but they are gorgeous and elegant plants to behold. So I determined to figure out how I could try growing some on a small scale this year. While winter was still rolling along, I stopped at a beautiful Whole Foods and picked up two spuds to use for getting started, one regular sweet potato and one garnet. Along with the ginger and turmeric roots I purchased, I think I spent less than $3 total. Not bad, huh?
Of course this was just the beginning… I brought them home to try and sprout them. All it took was a little water and some patience. I’m sure that as you’re reading this, if you saw the pictures of the garden from last year, you’re wondering where I planned on putting these prolific plants. You’re in good company, because I was steadily puzzling over the same thing the whole time!
Before long the vines were starting to get too long to keep inside. I went out in the yard, and forced myself to pick a spot to prepare for them. I knew that they needed to be in a separate space all their own. The main obstacle to this was that I had run out of material to build the new planter for them, so….
Yes! They would have to temporarily grow in some fabulous cardboard boxes. I figured that if I wanted to change things up later, it wouldn’t be too much of a chore.
Now this is where things became very interesting. I had filled two large cardboard boxes with as much homemade compost I could find, planted the sweet potatoes and mulched over with shredded cardboard/paper. They had been steadily growing for about a month or so. One day when I went out to check on everything I noticed a significant hole in the mulch of one of the boxes.
What a way to find out that we have voles! I had been assuming that we had moles in the lawn. As a gardener, I was quite fine with the moles, since they prefer to eat bugs and worms. But voles are a different animal altogether! They love eating plants, and especially roots. I investigated the hole in my planter, and came to find that the little critter had tunneled up from the ground through the bottom of the box and about 1.5 feet of compost to reach his target. He ate the spud and left the vine! This meant war! It was also a blessing because I knew that I could replant the vine portion that was left and still hopefully get a harvest of roots. It was time to do something more permanent, and fast!
Off to Lowes.com I went. I made sure to order enough cinder blocks to not only construct a vole-proof planter, but also to expand my current composting station. Along with the blocks I ordered 1/2″ hardware cloth. Once everything was delivered, the construction of the new planter only took about a day (two afternoons really). Here you can see the initial layout of everything next to the old cardboard planter boxes.
To start off, the hardware cloth went down against the ground. This is main line of defense against those wily voles. If they try to chew through this, I think it will be their last meal with teeth! After that, it was like playing with blocks. Once the first row was all lined up, the next row followed very easily on top. You can see the final layout below, and note the brick pattern. Shifting the top row by 1/2 block lends more strength to the whole structure.
All that was left to do was maneuver those spuds and their vines into the new planter. Easier said than done, but still not bad. The boxes had been outside so long that the bottoms just separated from the rest of the box. It was to be expected with all the moisture and temperature fluctuation. The weight of the contents didn’t help either. The sides were still largely intact, and provided a nice frame to then carefully lift the plants and compost into their new spot. This picture below shows them after about 45 days in their new home, nice and lush.
So far, so good. I have seen zero evidence of vole infiltration, and I don’t expect to see any. This experience was so valuable for me. I just thank God that the timing of everything went the way it did. And I’m thankful that for every challenge and difficulty He provides a way to address things constructively. It wasn’t just about growing food, this was truly about building character. It would be nice if I also gained a little muscle in the process of lifting all of those blocks! But maybe that’s pushing it a little. 😄 Until the next post, keep it simple, and be blessed!