today's garden work

It was a beautiful, bright and warm HALLOWEEN day! I was lucky to do garden work all day. There are not so many of these good outdoor days any more as the season moves on toward winter. Here's what I did:

- Finished up my seed list. (Last year I started a list of all the seed packets I have that includes the folder they are stored in and when I planted them. By going through my seeds again now I put misplaced ones back in correct folders and identified seed packets that were used up this year so I know what to buy for next year.)

- From my home garden I harvested some kale and bulb fennel, dug up 3 first year artichoke plants for overwintering in pots in the garage, and dug 4 or 5 Belgian endive plants and set them out to cure under several layers of row cover.

- I photographed 3 types of mushrooms growing in my home garden. One on untreated pine raised bed wood, and two on birch logs that edge my flower bed. I'll get these identified by an expert. I THINK two are edible, one possibly a turkey tail and another maybe an oyster mushroom. I have no idea what the third is.

- I unpacked 4 or 5 of the 10 or so micronutrients that I am collecting mail order to refurbish the soil of my small orchard (3 apple trees, a cherry and a peach).

- And finally, the task that wiped me out, I dug a bed of potatoes at my community garden. I recovered about 20 lbs of beautiful russets from the bed in soil that was REALLY heavy. I was thrilled to get such a good harvest and shouldn't complain, but it was a lot of work!! We have had an unusually rainy fall here and even though I dig potatoes only after a couple dry days, the soil is still heavy. I've dug two beds so far, one more to go, lots of rain in the forecast...

Charley and my potatoes

I dug a bushel of potatoes this year. Pretty good for me. I had three rows about 6 feet each. Probably 18 plants. I grew only two varieties this year. I dug one row of La Ratte fingerlings early and we've eaten them all already. These are Green Mountain. A great producer, storage, and all purpose cooking. They are delicious baked, fried, or sauteed.  Charley likes them a lot!!

my potato shipment is here

I mail ordered a box of seed potatoes (Green Mountain) from Moose Tubers and they arrived today. I was surprised it's already time for planting potatoes!

Earlier, I had purchased a small box of red fingerling seed potatoes at a local garden center. They have been "chitting" on my windowsill next to the seedlings that don't fit on my plant shelves. I'll set up the new potatoes to chit too until I get time to plant, which will probably be a week or two yet. The weather is slowly warming up, but we have a lot of cold dreary rain that doesn't encourage work in the garden.

AmaRosa potatoes

Last night I fried up some of the potatoes I grew this year. One was a relatively newly released potato called AmaRosa. It looked interesting to me because its skin as well as its flesh are red.

AmaRosa is described as a mid season fingerling-shaped tuber with red skin and red flesh that is ideal for microwaving, frying or baking. Also, chips made from AmaRosa retain their rosy color and resist fading. Photos and information at PVMI (link here), show it as very deep red. I bought them from Fedco/Moose Tubers. They said the tubers were bigger than a fingerling in their trials.

Anyway, I really like the color, but for me the flesh was pale pink, not red. It stayed pink after frying. I had a bad year for all my potatoes (last year - drought and poor soil prep), but it was as big as any of my potatoes. I suppose the drought or my soil may have affected the color. It's a potato I might grow again.

I usually grow many potato varieties, but next year I'm thinking of growing just one - Green Mountain, which is a nice all-purpose potato. I'm not sure if I can really stick to this - I always want to squeeze in a few more plants and try other varieties.

Sliced AmaRosa, German Butterball, and Green Mountain potatoes:



The same potatoes, fried:

sprouted potatoes

After 3 weeks of sprouting on my window sill, this is how my potatoes look. No, I did not sit and watch them the whole time. ;-) Tomorrow, I have two potato planting events scheduled. I'll help the kids at the Wheelock School in Medfield MA plant their potatoes and then I'll go to my community garden plot and plant my own potatoes. It's potato planting time!!

sprouting my seed potatoes

I like to sprout my seed potatoes before I plant them. They're all sitting on my kitchen windowsill now. I'm looking at them and wondering: does a watched potato sprout? (silly...)



Potatoes are hardy enough to be planted outside now. One reason I'm sprouting them inside is I haven't prepared my potato beds yet. It's been chilly and I've been busy. But I have been researching how to prepare the beds. (They're at my community garden.) I looked up whether potatoes like a fertile soil and I found all sorts of different answers: some site say they're light feeders, others say heavy feeders! OK, so a Google advanced search of only .edu sites, voila!, they are heavy feeders. All the extension sites agree.

I didn't realize potatoes are heavy feeders and so I haven't given them much compost in the past. This year I want to put on a good 2 inches of compost. That means I'll need 1 cubic yd (27 cu ft). Compost is so expensive, especially when purchased by the bag. I think I'll bring compost from my home bins to my community garden. I've generated a lot of compost in the past year and I figure the effort to transport it is similar to transporting bags of compost. So that's on my to-do list next week.

At my Master Gardener class today, the speaker talked about SOIL. A great topic! The head of the soil testing lab at the Univ of Conn (Dawn Pettinelli) gave a super 5 hour soil course. She told us that pH is the most important parameter to keep track of in garden soils (drainage too). She mentioned that potato scab is one of the plant diseases affected by soil pH. (I hate digging up potatoes and finding them covered in scab.) She said that at a pH lower than 5.2, the scab pathogen won't grow (the potatoes will), so this is one approach to prevent scab. But if you lower the pH in your potato bed, it makes it hard to rotate plantings. So she said - grow resistant varieties. OK, I did select for scab resistance in the varieties I have this year. Hopefully I'll have scab-free potaotes this year.

seed potatoes arrived today

My seed potatoes from Moose tubers arrived today. My plan: let them sprout a couple weeks, while I amend their beds, then plant them. I have the tubers on my kitchen windowsill so I can watch them sprouting. To amend the beds, I want to add a good 2 inches of compost and dig it in. No scimping this year! I want my spuds in happy soil.

potato order

I've decided on my potato selection for this year. 4 types, all from Fedco Moose Tubers:

Natascha, v. early, yellow skin/yellow flesh, waxy, high yield, high scab res
AmaRosa, mid-late, red skin/red flesh, waxy, high yield, high scab res
German Butterball, late, yellow-russet skin/yellow flesh, med/dry texture, med/high yieid, exel storage
Russet Burbank, late, russet skin/white flesh, dry texture, high yield, high scab res., exel storage

Last year I restrained my self to one variety, spaced the eyes out nicely, and ended up with a very poor harvest. I'm looking forward to abundance this year!

Jan 18: I've just placed my order. Some things are already selling out at Moose Tubers. Fortunately they still had the four varieties I want, but conventional only - the organic ones were sold out. I was surprised at their shipping charge of $15 on my $21 order (10 lbs total), but I want these varieties and I suppose 10 lbs isn't like shipping little seed packets. (Thanks for the correction below.)

In placing the Burbank Russet order I see this note: "This dependable standard requires heavy feeding and regular moisture for exceptional performance." I'll have to remember that. I neglected both with the Russets I grew last year and had a very low harvest.

potatoes - a tiny harvest

Some things grew great this year and others, well, :-( didn't. On my "didn't" list, potatoes.

I thought they were doing well until last week when I dug them. An underground crop is a mystery until you go to harvest!



This spring I planted only one type of potato because in the past I've had so many seed tubers left over that I can't find space for. Usually I crowd the seed, spacing them maybe 6 inches apart when 12 would be better. So I only planted my favorite, russets. And I tried a new variety, Canela, from Territorial, that is a high yield potato. I planted 5 lbs.

Potatoes will yield up to 20 times more than you plant. I usually expect about 10 times. So, I was hoping for 50 lbs, or at least 30. I ended up with about 15-20 lbs. It was a lot of work to dig the bed searching for spuds that were few and far between. (Even with Skippy's help...) Each plant had about 5 potatoes and their were hardly any plants.



The potatoes I got were a mix of sizes, big and small. The usual scab I get with Burbank russets. They're delicious baked, fried or mashed - can't complain about that.

So, to try to figure this out my low yield, I looked back over my photos from the season. I think part of it is that they didn't sprout well. I remember I was short of time and the seed potatoes sat in their box a while. I didn't get them sprouting in a warm spot before planting. And I didn't add much compost to the bed. Hmm, come to think of it, I didn't give them any fertilizer either. On top of that, the mid summer weather was certainly not great for potatoes - very hot and dry. The plants had good foliage, so I assumed they were happily growing tubers. I'm not sure which of these was the biggest problem, maybe the combination. This gives me a list of things to make sure I do next year: sprout, compost, fertilize and water! Oh, and go back to planting more varieties and crowing them in.

May 12, the freshly turned bed. May 31, sprouts in the furrows.

June 22, growing plants. July 18, fully grown potato plants.

potatoes in storage are sprouting

I've been storing my potatoes in the kitchen since I have no basement or garage (yet). Its usually 65-70*F in here, and warmer sometimes. Potatoes are ideally stored at 35-40*F for long term storage. So I plugged in a small refrigerator, sorted my potatoes by variety (I have All Blue, Burbank russet, and Yukon Gold), found three old mesh vegetable bags I saved, bagged them up and popped them in the fridge. This reminds, me - I should go check on them now.... they're good.

I ended up with SO MANY blues potatoes. I like the russets and Yukon's better, so I'm ending up with many blues left. They are a bit mealier than the others, but they do mash and roast well. I planted about equal amounts of each variety, but the blues produced maybe twice as many potatoes.

I am thinking about potatoes for next year. I'd like to grow German Butterball again. I ordered too late this year and they were sold out at Fedco. Fedco is not accepting orders yet, but I'll keep an eye on the site and order when they open up. I think I'll get 3 varieties again this year: German Butterball, Dark Red Norland and Burbank Russet.

potato bed ready for planting

Finally, I have a potato bed ready to plant. I've gone over to my community plot several times to work on it, but each time I go there is some other task that needs to be done. Like removing salt marsh hay mulch from my garlic and onions and layering it in my garden paths, emptying my compost bin and sifting the new compost, pruning my pear trees and raspberry canes, top-dressing my asparagus with compost and pruning lots of winter kill from my lilac bush (it sure was a tough winter). Today I brought two wheelbarrows full of rich compost to the potato beds, turned it under and dug troughs.

Finally, the potato bed is ready.

Tonight I cut my seed potatoes into sections with one eye each. They are curing now in the kitchen. I'll plant them tommorow in the prepared beds. Adirondack Blue and Yukon Gold. A dozen eyes of each.

I still have a dozen eyes of Burbank Russet and a couple Kennebec Reds waiting til I have time to prepare another bed.

my seed potatoes are here

I ordered two varieties of potatoes this year. Instead of the 4 or 5 I usually order. I am trying to cut back.... They look really nice. Burbank Russet and German Butterball from Fedco Moose Tubers.

Some years I have planted them right away. Other years I wait and let them sprout a bit. I am wondering what is the "correct" thing to do.

Another thing I'm wondering about is different planting methods. I have always planted in trenches then back filled as the spuds sprout. I end up with potatoes growing in a flat bed. Fields I see have potatoes growing from the tops of hills. I'll have to look this one up.

freshly dug potatoes

My husband and I dug potatoes today. 20 lbs - a good haul. Mostly Burbank Russets. A few Green Mountains and Adirondack Reds.

I start digging potatoes, as we need them, a couple weeks after they flower (mid July). I plant the early Reds, Fingerlings, and Butterballs at the front of the bed. I start digging here and then gradually move to the back of the bed to where I planted the keeper potatoes, the Russets and Green Mountains.

My Russet tubers are small - as usual. I plant them close together (about 9 inches). With a small space, I like to squeeze in as much as I can. If I spaced the seed potatoes more, I'd have bigger potatoes, but I'm not sure if the total yield (weight) would be more. I figure that this year I got 40 lbs of potatoes from 35 square feet (a 10 x 3.5 foot bed, with six 3.5 ft rows).

I've found that small baked potatoes are really nice. Perfect for a single serving. They bake up fluffy inside and crisp skin outside. Ahhh....

today's harvest

I am digging my potatoes from the front of the bed toward the back as we need them. I finished a row of German Butterball and started on a row of Adirondack Red today. Fun to unearth the bright magenta/pink tubers. Unlike soil-colored Butterballs, these seem to pop right out of the dirt.

As usual, a bunch of RC zucchini and Zephyr yellow squash. Very prolific varieties. I have very low production form my tow other summer squashes: Starship and Yellow Crookneck. Maybe they will produce later in the season.

And some tomatoes are starting to ripen right on schedule - July 21 is a pretty average first tomato date for me. I have a fully ripe New Girl, two almost ripe Pink beauties and some Purple Calabash starting to color-up in the garden. Of course, lots of Sun Gold cherries, which started ripening a week ago.

today's harvest

potatoes

I let the potatoes dry on the counter after I washed the dirt off. Then we made a nice Shepard's Pie. Potatoes make great comfort food.

seed potatoes arrived

My seed potatoes arrived in the mail today. I have to get their bed ready and get them planted - next weekend.

potato order

I just ordered my seed potatoes. Fedco/Moose Tubers has a nice selection of "Keepers" that includes: German Butterball, Katahdin, Elba, Red Pontiac, and Russet Burbank. 2 1/2 lbs of each for only $19. Can't beat it. I'll pick of a few blues at the supermarket to add to my planting.

fried potatoes

I can't do much gardening now, but I'm cooking and eating my produce. Today's recipe is fried potatoes. I found, then lost, a recipe online that worked great.

Standard potatoes: russets, blues, etc.
Sweet potatoes
Canola oil

1- Scrub and cut standard potatoes (whites, yellows and/or blues, leave skin on). Rinse in cold water, then soak 5 or more minutes in cold water.
2- Heat oil to 210-230*F.
3- Dry soaked potatoes on towel, then fry about 10 minutes in preheated oil. Remove to paper towel and let cool.
4- Increase oil temperature to 265*F.
5- Scrub and cut the sweet potatoes (leave skin on).
6- Add all potatoes (sweets and standards to the oil. Fry 5-10 minutes til nicely browned. Add salt and enjoy!

digging potatoes

Freshly dug potatoes! I grew 4 varieties this year: Cobbler, All Blue, Green Mountain, and Rio Grande Russet. The Blue potatoes produced very well and are a nice purple color. My favorite is probably the Russets, which grill very nicely.

I only harvested about 1/10th the amount of potatoes of last year's harvest. This year, I planted in a very shady bed in my home garden. Mostly because of last year's late blight problems, I decided to remove all late blight susceptible plants from my community garden. Next year I am looking forward to growing potatoes in full sun again.