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

chitting...

it has been five or six months since most of the unplanted potato tubers in the basement have been harvested and, naturally, many of them have begun to sprout some interesting structures in anticipation of being planted...which leaves me in a bit of a quandary...if i plant them now they will be done in early june...which means they will need to be planted outdoors in april...an odd middle ground since they won't be finished in time to provide seed potatoes for the community garden as well as needing to be planted well before the offcial planting day...not exactly the idea behind a basement seed potato project...yet if they aren't planted well before planting day they will not survive..they may end up in my yard sometime in early april...all but the fourth photo are of ollala potatoes...that photo is of a purple valley...they are beginning to look impatient...the time to act ewll be soon.

...and rooting

if some of the spuds downstairs are beginning to look impatient others have declared the season open and begun to throw out roots..the purple valley in the first two photos and the ollala in the third communicated this graphically this evening...the two all reds in the bottom two photos are evincing no roots yet they are not far behind in their demands...so all four are in pots under the lights where they will develop until they can be hardened off and planted outdoors in april...there are still thirty odd plants that should produce seed potatoes for the garden and fifteen plants form seed down there as well...the plant room is getting crowded and my feeling is the population won't be shrinking soon.