A mast year

I am reliably informed by my neighbour Bethany, that the years when nut trees produce a much larger crop of nuts than usual is called a mast year.   This year is a mast year for walnuts.

Apparently it is part of a general reproduction strategy for trees.   The pigs, squirrels and other animals that feed on the nuts establish a size of population that reliably consumes all or nearly all of the nuts available in any year.   Then a mast year comes along and there are more nuts than can possibly be consumed, and those that remain therefore have a chance to germinate and make more trees;

Certainly, there are more nuts than I can sensibly gather, shell and eat.

Sweet potatoes

Gardening is a learning process, and this year I learned a bit more about sweet potatoes.   I bought 8 plants in two varieties from the garden centre, only one variety did well.    So I will use those tubers from this year for reproduction if I can.

They spread like crazy, and cover so much ground that I had difficulty finding the original planting sites to dig up the potatoes.    So next year, mark them with stakes.   They spread so much that I couldn't get to the weeds to pull them without treading on the plant and crushing it.   Next year, make paths to separate the plants and keep the growth off the paths.

I asked Chat GPT about keeping the tubers and apparently you have to cure them, ideally at 27 - 30 degrees and 80% - 90%  humidity for a week or so.   Here they are, curing above a tub with water in, kept at 28 degrees by my aquarium heater that I use for brewing.   (When not being photgraphed they are covered by a sheet of newspaper.)

Sweet potatoes have delicate skin.  The white spots on those in the picture are where the skin got rubbed off when I dug them up.   These are vulnerable places where moisture can escape and fungus set in.   Curing helps avoid this but is not 100% guaranteed.   The best thing is to free them from the earth by hand.   Something else to try next year.   I'll also make sure that the soil is crumbly and as free of stones as I can make it.