spuds

the purple valley in the top photo is coming along well...small rosettes of potato leaves reaching towards the light and a close look at the photo reveals more on the way...that plant has kin for company now...the purple valley in the second photo joined it this morning in a potato planting frenzy...a new container was prepared and the olalla in the third photo and the yema de huevos in the fourth all found a home for the winter...that's six varieties of spuds under the lights now so, with a bit of work and some luck, we will be having diverse seed potatoes come spring...the craigs snowwhite that was about eight inches tall ten days ago ahs doubled it height in that time...the leaves at th e have begun to fill in and it's time to begin filling the container with soil and compost to "hill" the plant and get some space for tuber to set established...that won't be happening for another forty or fifty days but i want to send the plant a clear signal about expectations...i have not watered any of the plants yet...they are very touchy about that...i brought in bags of top soil and compost to mix and use to fill the containers...the mixture was moist...from some condensation as well as residual rain water that has frozen...the moisture from that mixture alone was enough to yellow the lower leaves on the early blue and have them begin to fall off...i might water potato plants twice in a season down there...even then some will be lost to fungus...even with heat and the fans that run non-stop.