Friday, January 10, 2014

perhaps i was asking too much

clearly there is a reason why four months is the outside limit of the time-frame for traditional potato storage...as long as the tubers were solid i was rubbing the sprouts off these early blue potatoes...unfortunately when i checked on them this evening they were not only sprouting, but they were soft and beginning to shrivel...the limits of tradition would seem to have been reached and i felt i had no alternative besides planting them to produce another round of tubers for spring planting much like the strategy for the yema de huevos ( which are also sprouting but have a bit of time to go before they are planted )...so i commandeered one of the bushel baskets ( which means procuring more spud containers...off to the garden center tomorrow...need another broad spectrum grow lighty too ) and planted them...since no tuber will grow below the ones i planted i only filled the basket halfway and i will be hilling these plants to the top to stimulate more tuber production...there are still three more to plant so my hope are for a fair harvest in april...it would have been a stretch in storage twice as long as traditional methods allow and it may have been completely unrealistic to think i could pull it off...i do not have the andean micro-climates enabled by altitude that gives me enough leeway to make it work...so the basement will have to provide the climate...it is a steady temperature and humidity which is favorable..now i have to hope the timing is right...i imagine planting them in may rather than april won't cause too much of an issue...harvest in september rather than august...more as it comes up.

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