spuds 2017 III

planting spuds at the community garden was pretty much the same story as the back yard...four yukon golds,,,four red pontiacs..and one all blue...all unsprouted...they will be along in a few weeks...the asparagus count is up to twenty=one...including one just breaking the surface...all looking robust and very purple.

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.

first container spud.

this plant has been through quite a bit...it started out as a spud merrily chitting away in my basement and was planted in a container under the lights in march...it was moved outside when the weather finally warmed enough in april only to be critter disturbed, insect gnaw, and bludgeoned by hail...i has been dying back fro a bit but today i noticed the stem beginning to turn yellow and there were some leaves that were brown and dessicated...its productive days were clearly over so i decided to see if ti had managed to produce anything...resilient is a good word here...when i popped the root ball up i found it had produced only one red pontiac spud..but at 6 3/4 ounces it wasn't a shabby one...first spud of the season and it's a good one...out of the soil before any insects or rot could set in...unfortunately i have had store bought potatoes today so i will leave enjoying this one for later...imagine it will be good...it has been a busy weekend around the blog...believe oi'll take a break...more later.

spud production

while i was at it i decided it was time to move some of the maturing plants out of the basement and into the real world so i pulled a couple of red pontiacs out from under the lights and prepared to put them in containers...when i tore the peat pot off the first one i discovered it was producing already when i inadvertently pulled a couple of tuber off of stolons ( top two photos )...ther is still a third, small tuber on the roots ( third photo ) so i planted it to keep things going...odd because i planted this in the basement as a chitting tuber in february and i would not have expected to see tubers just yet...then again the basement project has had success in tuber production in other varieties so why not these?...two small drops...for the coach i think...she likes red spuds.

solanum

different seasons in different places...the top photo is of two big rainbow heirloom tomatoes up form seed my friend fern sent along...i planted eight altogether...hoping for more soon...this is an all solanum posy as the second photo is of the jungle of vines that the potatoes from seed have become...is this their outdoor appearance as well or is it the environment? i plant to germinate some and plant them outdoors as soon as the weather breaks ( it snowed here yesterday ) ...so we will find out...the red pontiac in the third photo is chitting away and it too needs the weather to break soon so it can get grounded outside...finally, the potted ollalas in the bottom photo are reaching the end of their season...a hopeful harvest of seed potatoes soon ...mpor eon that in a few days.

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.