alfalfa and spuds

it's been a fairly busy day for a day off work and after i returned home from discharging some responsibilities it got a bit busier...i have a couple of small stands of alfalfa growing out back ( top two photos )...i had a bit more but i turned it under when i planted some spuds back there...alfalfa is a legume and it acts as a "green manure" setting nitrogen in the soil in conjunction with soil bacteria...that's the original intent i had when i planted it...then, to complicate things, i ordered mason bees as pollinators...all fine and good but their season ends in july leaving late blooming crops out in the cold relative to my back yard...so the solution was to purchase some summer bees ( which i did but hey have not arrived yet ) to fill the gap...those summer bees just happen to be alfalfa leaf cutter bees who prefer alfalfa leaves to use to construct their nests...so i left the two remaining stands go and ordered some more alfalfa seed...it came today ( third photo ) and so i took a handful ( fourth photo ) and started several (3) more stands of the plants in anticipation of bees...having finished that up i went downstairs to find another seed potato plant had died back and rendered a couple of yukon gold drops ( fifth photo )...so far the basement project has yielded eighteen tubers and there are still more plants going strong under the lights so there is a possibility of more soon enough...i had wanted to get to the community garden today for a number of reason but time was not on my side in this...so...saturday is the new target...time to turn those green manures under in anticipation of planting day...there may be rain...it does not matter...gardening is an all-weather sport.

seasonal overlap I

came home from work this evening to find the early blue plants in the top photo had pretty much finished their season so i dug in and was pleasantly surprised to find a dozen tubers of various sizes...none are huge so they will all be "drops" when i plant them later this spring...they are without doubt early blues and i will be interested to see how their season develops since the parent tubers for these plants came form the same plants that produced last seasons potato fruits...call me greedy if you like but i would like to find more of those this year...the indoor teosinte is moving along and if you look closely you will see that the leaf node at the top of the plant ( fourth photo )has produced four rather than three ears..it has been a pretty good evening...the indoor season is winding down in favor of the outdoor...still, the two are connected.

yukon gold

a potato plant in the plant room has reached the end of its season today...there is no more production left in it...but it did produce, yielding three thin-skinned yukon gold tubers to be planted outdoors in the next month or so...as it stands there will be ample local seed potatoes for the community garden and any number of others...into its second year the seed potato project is beginning to pay off...there are well established plants from last seasons tubers growing in the basement that will provide an early harvest as these tubers sprout and mature...started in february those plants should harvest in late may or early june setting the stage for a cyclical harvest into september and october.

spuds from seeds and tubers...and a flower

top two potatoes from tubers. third photo potatoes from seed...morphologically similar and different at once...the plants from seed are far more vine-like while the leaves are dead ringers...last photo is the teosinte flower continuing emerging from its sheath...that still has the agriculturalist geeked.

spudland

from plants nearing the end of their season to seedlings to those in robust middle age the plant room is chock full of spuds...there will be more harvests in the next few weeks...and the government potatoes are due sometime at the end of the month or early next...who doesn't love an organic tuber smothered in butter? well...if you don't i just leaves more for me.

something of a variety

the craigs snowwhite in the first photo has clearly found the end of its basement season so i dug it up to see if there was anything worth seeing...what i found was more proof...if needed..of the genetic diversity of spuds...three small tubers ( remember these aren't for eating...they're for planting..size is pretty much irrelevant and each of these will produce a plant later this year ) ( second photo )...two of them are scored with lines and i would say they had been "greening" if they had ever been exposed to direct rather than indirect sunlight...the third tuber ( bottom photo ) is clearly a true craigs snowwhite...so where did the other two get their genetics from? beats me...wish i knew...as it stand there are three more tubers in the spring planting stock to go with those that have wintered over from last autumn's harvest..so...something like fifty seed potatoes of varying sizes on hand so far and more in containers with some time to go yet...we may have small potatoes to plant this spring but they will be decidedly local in origin. ( with the exception of the tubers coming from the usda of course )

twenty-two day old spuds

the top four photos are purple valley, ollala, red pontiac, and all red potatoes grown from tubers i planted on the first of this month...they are well along and will be hardened off and planted in the gardens by, hopefully, the end of next month...if winter ever lets go...they are presenting some interesting technical problems brought on by the space limitations of my plant room...there is an entirely improvised response covered in the next post...the mashua is doing just fine and the leaf deployment is progressing...more slowly than i might wish perhaps...but part of gardening is learning patience...many lessons in microcosm...life.

limited room in the room

there are twenty-nine potato plants up and running in various stages of maturity in the plant room...it is somewhat crowded...the tubers i planted at the beginning of this month are thriving and rooting robustly...so much so that their roots are growing out of the bottoms of the pots ( top photo )...i have no room left for larger pots under the lights...expansion is not an option...so, in what can only be termed true rube goldberg fashion i simply filled another 5" peat pot with a mixture of potting soil and seed starting mix and put one pot into another...more room for root growth until they can be hardened off and planted outside...the craigs snowwhite ( fourth photo ) should have begun setting tubers last month and it looks as if its season is drawing to a close...we'll look into tuber production after the die back is complete ( yes that is nietzsche )...the potato seedlings are still doing well although i am not entirely sure where this will lead...all but the one in the bottom picture have rather a vineish appearance...transplanting them outdoors and producing tubers seems a bit of wishful thinking...still, we aren't done yet.

spuds and mashua

the spuds growing from tubers down there are showing their own brand of diversity in leaf and stem structures... the first four photos from the top down are red pontiac, purple valley, early blue, and ollala each with different characteristics ( some of which is doubtlessly due to their different places on the timeline to maturity...but some stem from the fact that they are four different varieties as well )...some, like the craigs snowwhite, will be finished soon...others will run into april...still looking forward to a fair harvest of seed tuber for the gardens come spring...the bottom two photos are of the mashua plant that has sprung up...it is in the process of deploying leaves...as soon as those are out the nasturtium family traits will become obvious...more as that comes along.

spud report II

the seed potato project still has thirty-one plants up and running and two more are developing flower buds...these are ollalas both in the same container so we may be able to help them along to fruit if the manage to blossom...who knows if the basement will actually provide conditions favorable to that? i do not...all i can do is watch and wait...the chitting spuds that i have planted this moth will go into the ground in april since they will not be done in time to help with seed potatoes for the gardens...in watching them develop i notice that the roots are radiating out from just under the sprout and on the top of the planted tuber...that explains why they wont set tubers below the depth they are planted at...the roots are developing at the top of the planting depth, not the bottom...also explains why "hilling" stimulates more tuber production since it allows more space for the shallow root system to develop...i'm learning...part of why i'm here...there are philosophical and political issues in play as well but i have covered them elsewhere in this blog...and the potatoes don't care.

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.