Doug P

South Louisiana here.

1. Evangeline sweet potatoes really hate heavy clay. Whole harvest was pinky size tubers 🙄

2. Plastic lined + raised garden beds are a great way to bake all your plants in a drought (zero access to deeper moisture).

3. Outdoor mushroom growing doesn't work down here. Innoculated willow, white oak, and red oak with oyster and shitake mushrooms only to have them taken over by native non-edibles and ants. I'll just stick with foraging oysters from now on in the swamp

4. Heavy hay mulching attracts fire ants to build their nests directly underneath the hay, making seedling planting a potentially unpleasant process.

5. Horse manure can be chockful of rhizome grass, leading to extra time weeding

6. Planting on hugel mounds before they have "settled" doesn't leave enough carbon for young plants, and cave-ins consume whole seedlings.


Can I throw in a few unexpected wins?

1. Ginger and turmeric I discarded in an unused heavy shade bed not only grew but probably 5x the original plugs I threw aside.

2. If your soil stays wet and holds water, hilling your rows is vital to success. Also gives you foundation for flood irrigation

3. A healthy dose of cayenne pepper powder on your plants seems to deter the deer. Maybe I should just make a pepper spray and use that next?

At the hunt camp I go to, we have a smoker we generally use for hog meat. After cleaning my hog/deer and removing all the meat this last year, decided I'd try to smoke the bones prior to making them into stock.

Y'all, this alone completely changed my chilli game.

If you got access to a freeze dryer, it makes a nice instant broth as well, though be aware it can leave a bit of a strong smokey smell in the dehydrater, so ideally have something planned after that wouldn't be hurt by a slight smokey flavor.

For deer specifically if you're in a CWD area (we aren't yet but probably in a few years), be mindful of using spine/neck.