|
Post by chrysanthemum on Feb 6, 2022 18:32:10 GMT -6
It’s getting to be time to plant Irish potatoes down here in Texas. Yesterday after I was sure our ice was gone, I went out to Tractor Supply and picked up seed potatoes. Last year I grew a small plot of Yukon Gold, and they did pretty well. It was such a small plot, though, that we just ate them all up as we harvested them. I’m still not doing a huge amount, but I got three varieties: Yukon Gold, Red Norland, and Adirondack Blue. I have them laid out on egg cartons for chitting, though I was surprised to find when I opened the package that the Adirondack Blue already had really long sprouts. We have some work to do on the bed where we’ll plant them, but we hope to get these in in the next couple of weeks.
|
|
|
Post by heavyhitterokra on Feb 6, 2022 20:21:16 GMT -6
The sprouts in that photo remind me of an experiment we did once in Science class. We built a dark maze out of cardboard and put a potato inside it over the Winter months. We sealed out all of the light except the light at the entrance of the maze. By Spring, the potato had grown runners so long that they found their way through the entire maze and found enough light to start growing leaves at the entrance hole. They are pretty amazing plants.
|
|
|
Post by heavyhitterokra on Feb 7, 2022 5:55:57 GMT -6
My Grandma used to plant 100 pounds of Kennebec, and Red La Soda potatoes on Valentine's Day, here in Northeast Oklahoma. We'd always have new red potatoes and creamed peas in Spring. We'd harvest for winter on July 4th. We'd dig about 600 pounds and store them under her house in her dug-out 'potato hole' where she'd have me and my cousins spread lime over them until we cleaned the old shriveled ones back out each summer.
Personally, I think they store best under a thick blanket of leaves, but Grandma didn't live as near to the woods as I do out here. Currently, I have an old insulated, prefab well house that I use as potato storage. I call "All hands on deck" and have my kids come over to help me dig them in July. In years past it's been so hot at times that we actually dug them in the morning but only went back out that evening to gather them when it was a bit cooler. I remember one year that it was so hot that we were out there at 10:00 pm in our cut-offs, picking up potatoes in the dusty, pitch-black night. Then, we let the grandkids go shoot fireworks afterwards to celebrate. By then, we all needed a dip in the Illinois River to cool off and wash the dust off. (Great times, great memories, great bunch of kids!) Everybody took potatoes home at the end of the night.
Johnny's Seed has a really good seed potato comparison chart on their website: www.johnnyseeds.com/on/demandware.static/-/Library-Sites-JSSSharedLibrary/default/dw6810a3ee/assets/information/potato-varieties-comparison-chart.pdfI think you can left click on this image to zoom in or enlarge.
|
|
|
Post by chrysanthemum on Feb 8, 2022 8:35:30 GMT -6
The sprouts in that photo remind me of an experiment we did once in Science class. We built a dark maze out of cardboard and put a potato inside it over the Winter months. We sealed out all of the light except the light at the entrance of the maze. By Spring, the potato had grown runners so long that they found their way through the entire maze and found enough light to start growing leaves at the entrance hole. They are pretty amazing plants. That is such a neat idea. I looked up some examples on the web, and now I think I’m going to have to build a cardboard maze with my kids.
|
|
|
Post by chrysanthemum on Feb 18, 2022 9:10:53 GMT -6
Well, we built a potato maze yesterday afternoon and put three little potatoes or pieces thereof inside. I didn’t get a shot before we sealed it up tight, but here’s a picture of the box underneath the recently cut seed potatoes. My five year old is reaching his arm in through the exit door. The potatoes are in the left-hand corner on the same side as the exit. They have a pretty good path they’ll have to follow.
I’m hoping to plant the seed potatoes tomorrow. I’m thinking I have too many for the bed I prepared. Hmm I need to look closer at the garden plan and see where there’s space I haven’t filled.
|
|
|
Post by heavyhitterokra on Feb 18, 2022 9:28:53 GMT -6
That's so cool that you do things like that with your kids!
|
|
|
Post by chrysanthemum on Feb 20, 2022 7:55:03 GMT -6
heavyhitterokra, you’re the one who gave me the idea for the project, so thanks for that. @bon, it does look like a rolling pin, doesn’t it? That is funny. I planted the seed potatoes yesterday. I realized that last year I had not cut my seed as small as I could since I was working with such limited space. This year I cut the potatoes down to a more uniform (and supposedly ideal) size without thinking about number of pieces. That’s why I ended up with so many. I ended up not only using the bed we had prepared last week, but filling a second smaller bed, and expanding into a third, in addition to using the ends of a large planter (repurposed leaky farm trough) for a few. They’re deep down in the raised beds, and we mulched with leaf mulch (and some mixed in amendments like alfalfa pellets, cottonseed meal, and sulfur for those beds I hadn’t prepared in advance). It will probably be a few weeks before I see any of them. It was really nice to work in the soil yesterday. It was dark and rich, and I even spotted an earthworm. It still has a ways to go in terms of health, but it’s such an improvement over where we started that it was encouraging.
|
|
|
Post by chrysanthemum on Mar 5, 2022 9:20:02 GMT -6
I found the first tiny potato sprouts yesterday when I was checking on the garden with my five year old. We’ve been having some really warm days and even nights. It’s going to turn cold again this coming week (my poor blueberry blossoms—maybe I’ll drag out the remay), but the potatoes should handle it fine even if more of them come up before then. It’s so exciting to see these first shoots!
|
|
|
Post by chrysanthemum on Mar 9, 2022 15:16:04 GMT -6
A few more potato sprouts have been popping up each day. I took a photo of some Adirondack Blue foliage to send to my mom. My kids and I thought it was just so pretty. I imagine it will turn more green as time passes, but it’s really dark when it first shoots up. This was had been up a couple of days before I took the photo. I’ve never grown a blue potato before, but my kids were really interested in them, and I figure that if I can make them more interested in gardening by choosing some different varieties, I’ll do it. We’ve been playing “garden-maze tag” amongst the raised beds the past few days, and we count how many potato sprouts are up. We’ve got about 30 at this point. The current forecast calls for 28 degree temperatures on Friday night. I keep watching to see if it will change, but so far it hasn’t. I think I’ll try to cover my blueberry blossoms and perhaps see if I can do anything for the peach tree. Am I okay not doing anything for the young potatoes?
|
|
|
Post by macmex on Mar 9, 2022 15:44:46 GMT -6
I just saw that our forecast for Friday night is down to 15 F! That's really cold and we have potatoes and onions planted now.
Years ago we grew the Adirondack Blues, when our kids were small. They did alright. We mixed them with white potatoes to make a light blue mashed potatoes. It was a hit with the kids and tasted just great.
|
|
|
Post by chrysanthemum on Mar 10, 2022 9:18:15 GMT -6
The majority of my seed hasn’t put sprouts above the surface yet (unless they all pop up this afternoon in the 70 plus degree heat and sunshine!). I’m just tired of all this roller coaster weather where the plants get so much warmth and then sudden cold follows. I think I’m going to try to put some extra leaf mulch over top the little foliage that has appeared if I can fit it in this afternoon. My actual seed potatoes are well underground so they shouldn’t have any problem at all. We’re not facing anything close to 15 degrees, and our freezes tend to be quick drop in the early morning hours that then bounce back up when the sun gets higher in the sky.
|
|
|
Post by chrysanthemum on Mar 11, 2022 21:29:29 GMT -6
The cold front has moved in, and the skies cleared off, so we’re now forecast for 24 tonight. I’m really glad that my little ones played tag happily in the garden yesterday afternoon when it was sunny and warm, and I was able to make little mounds of leaf mulch over all the potato sprouts.
|
|
|
Post by heavyhitterokra on Mar 12, 2022 8:28:21 GMT -6
It won't hurt potatoes to get the tops frozen off this time of year, Just as long as the part you planted down deep doesn't get frozen solid. The leaves that get frozen off will scab over and the plant will send up new leaves in a matter of days. Potatoes are kind of cool to watch this time of year and are very resilient if they are buried deeply enough.
It really warmed my heart to read about playing tag with the kids in the garden planter maze. They'll cherish those memories when they are older. Some of my best childhood memories are of helping my mom in the garden. Even though I didn't like picking the endless rows of green beans to put up for winter, some of my most vivid memories are of crawling along the rows on my hands and knees with a galvanized bucket full of green beans; my mom, and my grandma, on either side of the row, picking green beans right beside me.
Though they both passed on decades ago, to this day, a day spent in the garden is a day spent with my mom and my grandma right beside me.
|
|
|
Post by macmex on Mar 12, 2022 11:10:10 GMT -6
I often recall the time I spent in the the garden with my dad. He LOVED gardening. Oftentimes, when he'd get home from work (wearing a suit & tie) he'd head straight to his room, change into something comfortable and head to the garden while Mom worked on supper. I'd join him there and we'd work on stuff like weeding, planting, harvesting or planning. This was my special time to debrief with Dad, man to man, before engaging back with the entire family. Meanwhile, Mom would be about to serve up a superb supper for us.
I remember fondly Dad going over seed catalogs by the fireplace and working on starting seeds both at the kitchen table and at his homemade planter in the basement.
I started out with great difficulties in school and my kindergarten teacher apparently didn't like me. Mom and Dad had to go to special conference meetings with her. I don't know all they talked about, but I DO remember Dad looking at me with a wink and unwrapping some ornamental peppers from the teacher's plant. He had gotten permission to pick a few after the teacher commented that while other kids were off playing I'd be inspecting that plant. Anyway, he showed me how to get the seeds out and plant them. We got at least 10 plants from that experiment and I was simply thrilled to pieces about it. Later we planted them in our ornamental gardens at home.
My mom would work in the garden but was often called away to cook or can in the kitchen. She was a worker, indeed, setting a great example and instilling our home with love and good food!
|
|
|
Post by chrysanthemum on Mar 13, 2022 13:30:13 GMT -6
I’m glad it won’t hurt the tops to be frozen, because a number poked their way right through my mulch and got burned.
I have lots of memories of my mom working both in the garden and the kitchen. My dad helped by shelling beans and that sort of thing that he could do in his recliner in the living room, but he was handicapped and couldn’t do a lot of outside work. He worked hard at his teaching and researching, though, to provide for our family so that my mom could stay home and provide in her way with fruit, vegetables, meat and milk.
I also remember how much I hated it when my mother made me pick blueberries or okra. The blueberries were netted, so there was a bunch of tall grass around the bushes that made me itch. The okra was even worse, and I didn’t even like to eat it (but fried okra was my sister’s favorite food). It’s funny now how I work so hard to grow both (but my blueberry enclosure is mulched and wouldn’t grow grass anyway because we don ‘t water around the pots, and I now know to wear long sleeves and gloves for okra harvest.). I don’t think my mother realized until later how sensitive my skin was until I started breaking out in hives a lot.
|
|