government spuds

mu government spuds from the usda potato introduction station in sturgeon's bay wisconsin arrived today...five varieties...two unnamed accessions from canada ( top two photos ) which come with intellectual property rights attached that basically say i cannot "commercialized" without written consent from "canada"...i will not be selling spuds...our neighbors to the north can breathe easier...the third photo is of two blue shetlands and the fourth is of more early blues...those have produced an abundance of fruits in the past and i am hoping for more...the fifth photo is of the two yema de huevos they sent...they are"unimproved" primitive cultivars and, as i suspected from past experience, the arrived chitting away...so i prepared a couple of peat pots and planted them under the lights straight away...i am uncertain of how viable the small one is ( the fifth photo is of them in my left hand to give some sense of scale )...however it has sprouted and so i put it in in hopes of a plant...these will be going to the community garden at iu northwest sometime next month...there will be more on these as things develop.

planting spuds

in a move that may shock some and gratify others i have decided to do away with jerusalem artichokes in the bed on the south side of the house this year and plant a bed of spuds instead ( that i would plant spuds should surprise no one...you can also see by the first two photos i have any number that needed to be planted )...so i prepared the bed with a few bags of topsoil and a few more bags of compost and had at it...papa chonca, early gem, crozon rosado, and nevskii...all government potatoes, went in first ( in the fourth though seventh photos )...then some early blue and elmer's blue followed by the standards such as german butterball and red pontiac..i also planted some tubers that came from plants i grew from true seed ( tenth photo ) this will be the third generation of clones from those true seed plants...hopefully they will be a bit bigger this time around...i'd like to ample one instead of continually saving them as seed...it is time to start preparing for leaf cutter bees too...i have some alfalfa growing out back but alfalfa is auto toxic and i cannot seed the patch with more...so i will container grow some and place it near the bee house for convenient access...the outdoor season is taking hold...there will be more reports as things liven up.

july first is andean tuber day...

...at least in my back yard...both mashua plants are doing well...but the one in the top photo seems much happier....same goes for the yacon plant in the second photo...it sustained far less hail damage last month..the other is doing well but still recovering...early blue plants are flowering across the yard ( third photo ) while the potato seedlings from last weekend's transplant in the fourth photo are adapting to new environments...the bottom photo tells me there are more transplants in the offing...time will have to be made.

...blooms...

spuds like the early blue and yukon gold in the top two photos have been blooming ( and, while i am prepared to be disappointed in this, i am greedy fro potato fruits ) for some time now...envious perhaps, the asparagus in the third photo has joined in and has produced the small, bell-like flowers that asparagus do ( fourth and fifth photos )...i would be deeply gratified to have another generation of seed from a plant dragged out of the back of my truck...we'll see...the bottom photo is a view looking west down some of the beds.

spuds away

i was supposed to meet parker! this evening at the garden but she is feeling a bit under the weather so we rescheduled for next week ( feel better soon parker! )...i has some potato plant i was planning on putting in the bed i am running in the community garden this year ( which already has jerusalem artichokes up and running...see the next post for that adventure...and which...i believe..will see mashua and yacon as well ) so i went out there and put them in before is curried home for other obligations...they are ( top to bottom ) german butter ball, ollala. early blue, and all red ) had a nice chat with a member of the library staff who said she was uncertain of being able to attend planting day...i told her if push comes to shove i would build her a bed she could plant hen she found time..we'll see what transpires...found earthworms as i dug up numerous rouges and such...always a good sign

beyond the seedlings...

a small early blue that was planted on the nineteenth of october has died back and produced the first indoor tuber for the seed potato project...it is a drop...not large enough to cut and callus...but it will be a potato plant this coming spring...the red pontiac, all red, and yema de huevos in the second picture weren't even close to the top of the container fifteen days ago ( third photo ) but the have topped it now..that's a red pontiac in the fourth photo, leafing out nicely...and it's neighbor is a purple valley that is looking robust itself...twenty-one plants from tubers are up and running with some due to begin setting tubers this month...add in the seedlings ( all doing well so far ) and we have a potential abundance of spuds to plant...space may be the defining issue.

potato progress

the early blue passed a couple of feet in height a while back...did the same thing last winter...and have slowed the vertical growth and begun to leaf out...the craigs snowwhite in the top photo has reached about 19 1/2 inches and it too is beginning to produce more leaves...it was planted on the sixteenth of last month...thirty-one days into its season and another thirty nine before it begins to set tubers...so january twenty-fifth is tuber day for them with a harvest sometime in late february or early march...the early blue were planted back on october nineteenth...fifty-nine days in but with a longer season...the fruition for both should be close...the third photo is of the purple valley four days ago and the next two are from today...noticeable leaf deployment and growth...plus another sprout to feed the roots...that was planted on the twentieth of november and will probably be finished in march...hopefully all in time for outdoor spring planting.

it's the light that does it

it might seem as though the craigs snowwhite potato in the top photo is so happy with its environment that it is going berserk in its verticality...and in a way it is..but not, i think, because it is in clover as it were...i am using a broader spectrum light this year and the teosinte ( bottom photo ) is doing much better for it...the craigs snowwhite and the early blue in the third photo ( the second is of the craigs' developing leaves ) i have other thoughts about...when i have planted potatoes in partial shade the plant shave put a lot of energy into larger plants to develop leaf area for photosynthesis...this diversion of energy has resulted in smaller spuds..as a rule of thumb i have found the smaller the plant the larger ( or more in number ) the tuber...broader spectrum light or not i think the plants are growing taller in a attempt to feed the roots with more leaves...and that will probably mean smaller tubers...i did not get especially large ones last winter either which is fine..these will be seed potatoes, not eating spud, so size isn't so much a factor as viability...they will be planted in natural light in the spring and they will know what to do...i am unconcerned about the size of the tubers...i just wan them to set tubers...that story has yet to unfold...i thought the scorzonera ( fourth photo ) might have been in trouble...it came out alright but then ut seemed to stall and i thought it might be done in...not so...just conserving energy to deploy a fourth leaf with...that is good news on that front..a few more leaves and some more root development and it's on to a larger container to await rhizomes.