Potatoes

On our short trip to pick up the onions, Pooka saw more blue potatoes. We were not really planning on potatoes this year, but since they were less than a dollar per lb in bulk this time, we decided to give it another shot so long as we bought fewer potatoes to start with.

We can give it a second chance

 So we removed the potatoes from the bag and placed them in this lovely disposable muffin tin and on the bakers rack by the back door. The sunshine will help it get good eyes so we can plant the potatoes in the bags and see if we have better luck this time. Although at this point, I will have to start the potatoes soon.

And now we wait.

Using Blue potatoes

Since the blue potato harvest was so small (and the potatoes were blue) I had people wonder what you do with blue potatoes. They also wondered if the potatoes were blue on the inside. Well this proves they were very colored indeed.

Cut potatoes

 We just sliced and diced the potatoes till they were all about the same size then baked them in the oven with some garlic and some butter. Nice garlic potatoes for dinner one night. They tasted wonderful, so we will try them again next year and see if we can get any bigger ones. 

Potatoes anyone?

Red and Blue and Purple

A while back, we harvested the red tomatoes. They had begun to dry out and fall over. Sounded like a good time to harvest them to me.  They were not the biggest of things, but we would use them. We laid them out to dry on Daddy's table saw, and about a week ago, I finally got around to pulling the dried greens off.

Dried and ready to go.

The harvest did look a lot smaller when all was said and done. But they are onions and we will use them. I will say it has been nice not having to buy onions in like 2 weeks. All told, the final harvest of red onion was 44.5 oz or 2.78 lbs. Not too bad. We made our money back on them which is all we asked for. Next year we are going to space them out a bit more, as well as amend the bed better. At least this proves we can grow them.

Most of the final Red Onion harvest (we did eat some before hand)

Speaking of harvests, do you remember the blue potato harvest? Brother was happy we had blue potatoes, but I will say I was rather disappointed. They were small and not what I was expecting. However, Brother was happy and that is all we could ask.

Blue potato harvest.

What did we do with such small potatoes, we cut them up into small chunks. This is where you can really see the coloring of the potatoes. Although I do admit they look more purple in the picture.

Sliced and diced

The chopped potatoes were roasted with just some butter, garlic and onion. Made a great side dish one night to go with a fresh picked salad. Brother ate his potatoes with complaining and actually asked for seconds. A rare feat indeed since he hates any potatoes that are not French fries. We are  going to try them again next year, but if for no other reason than to have Brother eat one dinner of blue (PURPLE as pooka still contends) potatoes without a fight. Maybe then we will get enough to make him blue French fries.

Garlic Blue potatoes

Getting filthy

On Saturday, Daddy and I had to finally admit the potato plants were dead. I admit I was more the a bit nervous that we would find nothing. Brother on the other hand had thoughts that he would have enough potatoes he could sell them to the grocery store.

Dead potatoes

May I just say the word filthy comes to mind when digging these out of the bags. I swear I still have dirt in my hair, no matter how we tried to extract these things. However, the best method we came up with is to have Daddy hold the bag on the side of the bin we were putting the dirt into.

Sitting on the size of the bin

 Brother, Pooka  and I  (mostly brother and I since we didn't have enough space for all of us) would then reach in and form a bit of a cavern in the bag looking for potatoes. The dirt would fall into the bin and we could be sure we were pulling out all the potatoes as we went.

Cavern of potatoes

We didn't have a great crop, but we had over a 1 pound of blue potatoes. they are about the size of baby potatoes at the grocery store (you know, the ones that are $3.99 for a lb and a half) so that is what we priced it against. I think next year we will have to pay a bit more attention to what we were doing, and Brother is still excited to eat them. I was about to call it a failure, but Daddy said "since we got at least one meal out of it, not to call it a failure but a learning experience and isn't that what this garden is for, to teach the kids and us." Point taken

Our potato crop

What are we going to do with the all the dirt that came out of those bags? Daddy had us empty into this old plastic bin that was in the shed. After looking at it, (and not wanting to have to carry it back into the shed) Pooka and I decided to plant a few more sugar snap peas in it and let them grow. We will be sticking some wood in it to make a small trellis, and then letting them grow onto the deck. This way, the dirt isn't just sitting around and we can put some nitrogen back into the soil so it can be reused next year for something.

Reused and reuse and reuse

Surprises

The garden continues to surprise.

On Monday we found flowers on the potatoes. This made Brother and Pooka both very happy since it has to bloom and then it will die back and we will have blue potatoes. Pooka decided that they were very pretty flowers as well. I will admit it is a nice pop of color now.

Blue potato flowers

Then Tuesday I walked past the green easter basket of marigolds. These were planted in "extra" dirt from holes where we planted or seed starters that didn't start. What did I see? Two possible squash plants. I am trying to decide if they are zucchini or the mystery squash, but surprise there are extra plants. Now to move them to something else and then probably restart the marigolds. Again.

Is it Zucchini or mystery squash

This morning, I was doing my morning walkdown of the garden and I found a caterpillar on one of the tomato plants. I didn't have the camera so I didn't get a picture of it, but I did have Pooka grab her bug house and we collected him. My preliminary research is saying this is an armyworm that turns into a moth. I am not sure we are going to let him live in captivity, but he is not going on the tomato plants again.

Not the best picture, but it shows he has probably been out there a while.

Potatoes, Peas and onions oh my

I just thought I would give an update of some of the things going on around here.

The blue potatoes are doing really well. I am actually thinking about hilling the first bag already and am waiting just a bit on the second bag because it still has one smaller plant. Brother is so excited that his potatoes are doing well. Daddy even admitted that if this works, we may build a bigger bag/tower to put potatoes in next year.

The smaller of the potatoes

The peas are growing great. They are still rather small, and some are just now sprouting, but with all this rain, I am expecting a bit of an explosion on peas. I did get a stick in the ground yesterday between storms for them to start climing. Then I will tie it to the trellis on the deck so they can grow up it. We also got the ground around them mulched yesterday, so we are getting somewhere finally.

Peas before I gave them a stick

The onions were mulched as well. It looks like something tried to eat one or 2 of them and decided they didn't taste very good. The bit they bit off was laying next to the onion. It also looked a bit like they had been walked on, but the new mulch should help that as well.

Onions freshly mulched

I do have a set of tomatoes that I am trying to harden off correctly. That plus the 3 pans of seedlings I have been carting in and out of the house daily onto the front porch which is a bit more sheltered. So far they seem to be handling it quite well. I sadly still have tomatoes that are in dire need of transplanting. At least the garage is clean now so Pooka and I have a place to do it. Brother's homework assignment exploded out there for a few weeks.

Hardening off tomatoes

At school on Tuesday, Pooka made a raingauge at the local Kids Discovery Museum. She put pebbles at the bottom so it wouldn't fly away into the neighbors yard. Pooka really likes having her own rain gauge. She says "it's really fun, all you have to do is take a bottle, cut the top off, and then put measurments on it and put pebbles in it and scotch or duct tape the top on upside down. And it doesn't matter what kind of tape you use, just really strong tape. It is kinda hard to get the water out without getting the pebbles out." We got our own rain gauge the day before and hers is fairly accurate.

Rain Gauge by Pooka

 Now to hope for good weather so we can get some work done.

OUTSIDE... Finally

Yesterday I spent a good chunk of time taking most of the plants outside. It is finally warm enough that I plan to let them stay outside for a few days.  It was nice to know they finally had enough sun.

Amaryllis went out front.

I put the amaryllis Pooka got over the holiday on the front porch. They are looking rather sad after I think a cat started chewing on a few leaves. I am trying to figure out what to do with the darn things. Can I cut them off now and then have them rebloom later this summer? Any ideas from people who have done this before?

Picture one

Getting all the plants on the back deck in one picture was not going to happen if we still wanted access to the yard and the grill. Instead, I have 3 pictures. Here is the blueberries, strawberries, lilac, potatoes and veggies is all I am going with in the little pots.

Picture 2

Here you can see the last of the plants on the deck itself. The spinach and lettuce is in the back right corner. I finally moved them out of the garage yesterday and some have already taken root. Hopefully I will be cutting myself a salad in no time. The some of the tomatoes are on the strawberry tables. I forgot to bring these in last night, but they seemed okay at first glance.

Picture 3

Here is the plants on the table. I didn't have much rhyme or reason to where things went. I just kinda shoved things places, but I wanted to make sure the roasters of "seedlings" were up a bit higher to keep them safer from the dog. Now not everything looked very healthy and in some cases it was just pots of dirt, but I am hoping to pull out the seeds today and restart some of them. Fortunatly for me they are easy to restart plants like broccoli, pak choi, lettuce, beans and herbs.  Hopefully all of these being outside will help with the gnat issue that killed so many plants this year.

 

Tomates, egg flowers, scallions and mystery

I left some of the more tender plants inside. The egg flowers don't look like they are doing so well since I kinda forgot to water them for a bit. The scallions were growing great, and we actually trimmed them for dinner. We put the cut ends back into the water to see if they regrow. I forgot to get pictures since I was more then a tad melted when Daddy asked to cut them. The tomatoes I am hoping to transplant some of them this weekend. I know they were a bit dry yesterday and I was afraid to put them out when they do not have a whole lot of dirt to hold water.

Surprise peppers

These peppers are still in the front room. I know they are having an issue with mold. Something this kind of tray seems prone to, and no, I do not plan on reusing this kind next year. I am going to keep these guys and hopefully replant them as well soon so I can strengthen them to get them outside. Maybe spring will start staying. However, I haven't taken the tables down, I think that would be testing fate.

Math and Gardening and Brother

Sunday afternoon, even with all the people we had here, stuff still needed done. We decided on Brother's day to start Brother's blue potatoes. I also decided our potatoes were more then ready to go in the ground.

I think the potatoes have eyes

First we used the potato planter bag from Walmart. It was a bit smaller then I expected (but again, I have zero spacial relation ability). I pulled it from the bag and actually read the directions.

Potato bag complete with access panel for harvesting

It turns out, you are suppose to roll the bag down to about 12 inches tall. Yes, this meant I had to get a tape measure. Brother got to do the measuring which helps since he needs a bit of help with his spacial relations and measuring (sadly, he got this from me).

Finding the correct height

From there we needed to fill the bag 2/3rds full. Since Brother has been working on fractions at school, I made him do the math. He got the 8" correct and helped me pour the dirt and measure our height.

Using Math to fill with dirt

Then we had to dig a hole halfway down in the dirt. Again, I looked at Brother who has been doing fractions at school and he got the magic 4" right. He jumped right in and got his hands dirty. He had to be precise and measured the hole as well.

Brother and his hole, kinda

Next we placed the potato in the hole. Turns out the eyes need facing up. I did not cut the potatoes since I can fit 3-4 to a bag and I already had 6 potatoes. I couldn't see the point in needing another bag. The nice blue eyes went faced the surface and we covered them with dirt.

Time to grow little guy.

We covered all the potatoes with dirt and watered them throughly that day. I left them outside for a day or 2 but we are having pretty severe storms this week, so we brought them in. I did water them today since I read up on potatoes last night and oops, they need watered almost daily to produce well. Oops... good to know. Now to watch for sprouts and see what happens. Any tips on growing potatoes?

Potato, Potato

A day or 2 before Easter, we were at Walmart, and Brother noticed the potato growing bags. Out of nowhere he asked if we could grow blue potatoes. We talked about it briefly last fall and part of the winter, but Daddy and I had made a decision awhile ago that we were starting to feel overwhelmed, and did we really want to add another plant.

A bag for growing potatoes

If it had been Pooka asking, we would of just brushed over it, and move on. But this is Brother, who doesn't garden. Who I don't think cares what goes on out there. Brother asked specifically for his blue potato. A potato we asked if he would eat it (since he doesn't always like potatoes unless they are made into fries). He said he would. He was even thinking of making it into mashed potatoes.

Daddy and I thought about it, we talked about it. Multiple days later, Brother was still asking about blue potatoes. We gave in. I went to the nursery today and got 6 Adirondack Blue seed potatoes. Once I got home and read the bag I bought at Walmart today, apparently 6 is twice what we need for one bag. However, they only sold them in 6 packs, so you go with what you got.

Brother's blue potatoes

Pooka is trying to argue that they are actually purple, but I told her to not say that to Brother (who was in school when I bought the box). These are for him, so we will call them blue.

When I picked Brother up from school, we were walking towards home, and still on school property and he stopped dead in his tracks, got this HUGE smile on his face and said "THANK THANK YOU MOM, You are the best mom ever." He then about knocked me over when he went to hug me. Yep, thats why I do this. I told him flat out that this means he has to take care of them, so once we got home, we read the directions on what we need to do to grow them.

Potatoes ready to sit in the sun and grow some more.

It says the first step is to leave the potatoes in a sunny spot (since I have so many of those left) to induce sprouting. Considering they came out of the bag already sprouted, I can say we are good there. Brother got to put them all in the tins. We did lose a root or 2 getting it out of the bag, but for the most part he was super gentle. I wanted to make sure the potatoes didn't get lost, so we put them in the muffin tin that use to hold grow ums.

Wanted: Sunny window space.

I managed to find a bit of space by using a shelf divider to hold some plants on top of the potatoes. but space continues to be at a premium. Anyone got a window or 4 I can borrow?