spuds coming in

three potato plants i put in my bed at the community garden last spring ( late march/early april ) came in today and the results are good...the early blue in the first photo was a stunner...over three pounds of tubers from a single plant...including some larger tubers...the all red in the third photo came in at over a pound...and the german butterball in the fourth had a yield just over twelve ounces...altogether four pounds thirteen and a half ounces of spuds from three plants...this bed had no amendments added beyond the green manures i planted in it last autumn and turned under this spring make me hopeful that we can build sustainable beds with simply a rotation of plants...it may not close the nutrient cycle but it will be an all natural amendment from locally obtained ( my back yard ) seed... an exclusion of chemical fertilizers and a step away from imported compost...local organic...what my aim is here.

wednesday spud report

it's verging on winter outside...but the indoor season is booming along...the early blue in the top photo have topped the container and then some...i have been filling the plot as the plants grow and hope to stimulate some serious tuber production before spring...the plants produced well last winter but i would like to expand the seed potato population for next spring and grow a truly local crop of tubers of as many varieties as i can muster...which is why, difficult as it may be to see, the all red up and running in the second photo is good news...the bigger the variety the better...the cactus looking affair in the third photo is actually a third variety of potato...it is the craigs snowwhite i planted ten days ago...nicely green, there should be leaves soon...finally, the bottom photo isn't a spud at all...it is the scorzonera and it seems fine...the third leaf continues to grow...but...i have zero experience with this plant so i have a steep learning curve..it may not be well at all...time and experience will reveal that story...so far so good indoors...more fixtures for lights on the way...more potato varieties chitting away and preparing for planting...there will be more to this story later.

chitting away in the bin

all i wanted was a potato or two to cook up for a quick dinner so i started rummaging around in the bin...what did i find...chitting...something of a variety of chitting...from top to bottom...purple valley, yukon gold, all red, red pontiac, and all red again...these have a bit to go before they are ready to plant..which is a good thing...more fixtures to set up in the basement and pots to prepare..the early blue plants in the basement will have company soon...they already do actually..i found a craig's snowwhite in there too...however, that's the next post.

late season spuds

while i was rummaging around in those beds of clover i stumbled on three potato plants all but obscured by the legume as they died back...the first was the early blue in the top photo...curious after that find i looked about a bit and found a yukon gold that yielded the spuds in the second photo...the third photo is of the of the early blues after i removed them from the roots and the fourth is the haul from the third plant i found which was an all red...brought them home and washed them up then weighed them...three plants produced 2 pounds 8.375 ounces of tubers at the end of october...there are still a few early blues up and running in the pgp mostly because they are still trying to produce potato fruits...i will be interested to see what they produce..but not until after a killing frost...which should be soon...i was planning on turning the clover under in spring because, like cow peas, it seems to be a green manure that wants to colonize a whole bed...but after finding this production from three small potato plants ( and reading "the one straw revolution " ) i do believe i would like to leave one intact to inter-plant with a variety of early spring plants ( beets, turnips, etc. ) that will go in when the clover is compressed and somewhat weakened by winter...just to see if the results could be as good...there may be good reason come spring to conserve every possible square foot of bed space for food plants but i may feel compelled to keep one experimental bed running...we'll see.

planting day preperation: potatoes

there are already spuds in the community garden that ellen and i planted in april...ollala and german butterball along with some russets...juice valley, leona, pungo, purple valley and craigs snowwhite were planted ealier this month along with a few early blue and some roja narino..toss in the mashua and jerusalem artichokes and it is already tuber city...tomorrow is the "official" planting day and what would planting day be without potatoes?...compact bundles of vitamins, minerals, and carbohydrates they are nutritious and many find them irresistible ( like me )...so this evening i took some all red and german butterballs and cut them let them callous until tomorrow afternoon when they will be available for anyone who cares to plant them...i have some "drops" of yukon gold and early blue as well so there will be variety and that's what we aim for...a community of plants maintained by a community of people...it all starts at 4:30 tomorrow afternoon.

this is becoming a habit

it is a transitional season but it is all coming together like a well constructed garden bed...last friday i went with ellen and rebecca to purchase lumber for the first corner bed in the garden and on my way home i was able to pick up my organic german butterball seed potatoes ( first photo and they are chitting nicely...planting will be over the coming holiday weekend i believe )..this evening we went to pick up the lumber for next saturday's construction ( and the festivities are open to the public...the community-at-large is invited [ and encouraged ] to attend ) and when i got home fedex had left my "all red" potatoes ( second photo ) from sustainable seed company on my doorstep...the third photo is a representation of their innards which we will be exploring more thoroughly when i cut and callus them soon...my new zealand white clover seeds and rhizobia innoculant both arrived this week as well so after the spuds have established themselves we will be intercropping some nitrogen fixing legumes to feed them..the clover is a perennial ( i will be sneaking them into the garden in dribs and drabs as we go ) so even when we rotate the potatoes out of the bed there will be nitrogen fixing plants in the bed to help feed whatever we plant there in the 2015 season, helping to close nutrient cycles organically and keep the beds fertile...i for one am geeked...what's it like at your house tonight?