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.

five day appendix

purple valley from the top and from the side and a robust craigs snowwhite.

christmas population explosion ( sort of )

the seed potato project is moving along...the craigs snowwhite has reached two feet in height ( top photo )and the growth should be moderating a bit...the early blue in the second pot back ( second photo ) should begin setting tubers any tine now and should be done by the end of january...the purple valley in the third photo has easily topped the container but wont begin setting until the end of next month...there are spuds all along the life cycle down there...there is a yema de huevos just coming up in the fifth photo and an ollala in the bottom one...as of today there are seventeen plants up and running and more chitting away...it's almost the end of the year and late chitters may well be just planted in march rather than put under the lights...they move to their schedule, not mine and frankly it is getting crowded down there...another light fixture is on the way but space is limited.

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.

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.

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.

basement potatoes...

the purple valley spud in the top two photos has begun to sprout in a couple of places and looks to be the next likely candidate for cutting, callousing, and planting...but probably not for a few weeks...while those are coming along the early blue i planted last saturday are greening up and will be producing leaves soon enough( third through fifth photos...i just noticed several roots on the surface in the fourth photo ( all that white stuff...if you click on it you may be able to actually see root hairs off to the lower right of the stem )...so far the indoor seed potato project is up and running...i would expect casualties...i also expect enough tubers for spring planting of exceedingly local potatoes...i have many more photos of teosinte...i will refrain for now.

soalanum tuberosum in the pgp

ther hasn't been a spud in the pgp since 2011 and there's a reason for that...there is limited space there and you need a three year rotation to avoid pest and virus build ups in potato beds...well it's been three years and i took out the intermediate wheat grass that had overgrown its bed on the west side a couple of weeks ago and today i went out to plant...first thing i did was turn another eighty pounds of compost into the bed ( i quit keeping track after i had reached a ton of compost in this one hundred and twenty square foot garden...it still isn't level...it sinks towards the east ) then i planted seventeen tubers...six german butterball, five red pontiac, one each of juice valley, craigs snowwhite, leona, pungo, and purple valley...plus one mashua tuber...there is still room for a few all reds or yukon golds later next month...so spuds return...they did well three years ago...hoping for a repeat...it occurs to me, a day after i posted this, that i negelected to mention i planted a mashua tuber in the pgp yesterday as well...there are two in a be din the community garden and i put the third in this one...sub-tropical tubers i wonder how they will take to the long summer photo period...they are cold hardy and have along season so perhaps they will begin to set tubers towards autumn when the days shorten...their natural habitat is at high elevations where it is too cold to grow potatoes ( they are another andean plant...relative of the garden nasturtium...another andean plant the incas used to grow for the edible flowers ) and i wonder about how the will take the heat of a northwest indiana summer...we will find out together.

my tax dollars at work

tubers have been cropping up around the house with startling regularity recently and today was no exception...my government potatoes form the potato introduction station is sturgeons' bay wisconsin came next day air and were waiting when i got home from work...this further expands our tuber diversity and will make for some interesting comparisons...they came neatly packaged in brown paper bags with labels telling what was what...in the second photo, they are, left to right: purple valley, juice valley, craigs snowwhite, leona, and pungo...their respective origins are the u.s.,scotland, south korea, south korea, and peru...the third photo is of ( l-r ) german butterball, early blue, and all red...all form the u.s... the last photo is of mashua and it oriinated in columbia...an international cast of diverse tubers...and the relentless jerusalem artichokes are not pictured...there will be homes for all around the campus gardens ( the iu northwest community garden and the pgp ) and around my yard as well..there's a lot to talk about here...from the abundant productivity of the jerusalem artichokes to the nematode control characteristics of the mashua and the nitrogen fixing of white clover, hairy vetch, alfalfa, and illinois bundleflower...gearing up to chemical free pest control and fertility is a front burner issue for this gardener...the fundamental purpose of the garden is education and community building...providing a like-minded group of people with all the information on organic gardening, nutritional values, harnessing natural processes, food security, and food sustainability along with a vehicle to utilize that learning..the new garden site is much larger and has the potential to be a lynchpin in a community/university integration...this is going to be good...stay tuned.