little winter garden starting small....

   The little winter garden is starting small. I have some leftover onions and carrots from the Fall, and new plantings of red cabbage, chard, lettuce, and collard greens. I have high hopes for some good salads.

backyard garden

sweet potatoes

I finally got around to digging the sweet potatoes. This year was the first year I planted sweet potatoes; I started with a little plant from a neighbor. I tried this plant off in a corner of the yard and tended it with benign neglect. Only grew one sweet potato from the plant, and it's delicious.

sweet potato - Ipomoea batatas - just dug

sweet potato - cooked and mashed

Satsuma mandarins

The satsuma mandarins have been good - not super sweet but still very good. There have been aphids on the new leaves, but the tree has still borne fruit. This spring I'll try more ladybugs.

satsuma mandarin

sanditas are still producing

Last season I planted a sandita vine (Melothria scabra) as an experiment to see how this little fruit tastes. The word "sandita" means "little watermelon" in Spanish, and the plant has been grown in Mexico since before the arrival of the Spaniards. The vine seems very hardy; the taste of the fruit is much like a cucumber.

Melothria scabra