Indoor Potato Experiment Ends
Greenhouse Winter Potato Growing Experiment Jan.1, '09 - May 4, '09
Four months may seem about the right timing for a successful potato harvest, the number of days for harvest ranging from 70 to 135 (according to The Wood Praire Farm in Maine, which is in no way responsible for this potato comedy. They are lovely growers of seed potatoes already planted outside. We'll see how those turn out in approximately 90 days.)
First mentioned on Feb.11 in the post Greenhouse Potatoes, this experiment was to see if seed potato would be able to last out the warmish winter until planting time by growing in a deep greenhouse bed. Was the experiment successful? That would depend if success was based solely on harvest or by the relative health of the plants and the carefree nature in which I'd wished they had grown.
Summer of '08 was my first potato planting, so I am unfamiliar with their ways. Now I realize that what I'd thought of as dread disease in the greenhouse plants may be just the natural dying off of mature plants. Are you experienced? Please let me know your thoughts.
They looked at first (well after the frost die off in their first weeks of life), to be marvelously healthy, albeit planted too closely together. It was an urgent "save the seed" movement, rather than careful planning of optimal growth conditions. This photo is from March 13th.
Then came the little disfigurements of disease
and depredation.
Then total disaster as the aphids increased, thanks to the ants.
Then it seemed that the plants were truly dying. Of course I never thought to count the days to see if perhaps all was on divine schedule after all. I used nitrogen therapy to try to bolster the leaves. That worked nicely for a couple of days, but alas, just more and more wilt.
Also, I was hoping to see some flowers. I'd read that the potatoes are reaching maturity when the plant flowers. I suppose all its flower-making energy was going into the aphids and I didn't receive the sign to start digging for potato treasures.
Finally today I decided I couldn't stand to see the dead foliage any more, cut the dead branches of one plant off and gingerly dug. First I pushed away the aphid ridden soil so it wouldn't get on the potatoes, then dug up ...
These beautiful, if small, clean and healthy looking blue skin potatoes. There's even enough left of the seed and stems to plant again, if there's room in the garden.
Although the original idea of these was to serve as seed potato, I've ordered many others from Maine. The brothers of the seed planted in the Greenhouse spent the rest of the winter in a friend's crawl space, cooler than mine. It turns out that those seed did wonderfully well and are now ready to plant. I hope that its dry enough tomorrow to do just that. They have wonderfully grown up eyes.
What to do with the new potatoes shown above? If they are not to be used as seed, what then? Hmmm, yummmm, with butter.
We'll know when we eat them, if the winter greenhouse potato experiment was indeed, a success.
May all your experiments bring out the beauty, joy and resiliency of life.
Interplanting Potatoes, Eggplant, Cabbage +
What is Inter-Planting?
This method of gardening is the opposite of Mono-Culture. Remember seeing row after row of the same crop, off into the horizon? Well, that's not all that mono-culture is. Even back here in my garden, when I have a row or a bed which only holds one type of plant it is also considered to be mono-culture - though there is nothing "agri-biz" in my garden.
Why would one want to confuse the gardener by mixing up the plants? My gardening friend says that it also "confuses the bugs." Now, that's worthwhile!
Also, if you have read or heard about Companion Planting, then you know that there are advantages in bringing plants of different types into the same bed. (No obviously not to mate - see the post on Saving Seeds which has not as yet been written for information on "crossing cultivars." Interplanting is way beyond (and inclusive of) mixing cultivars.
Potato Plants in Captivity (February 29, 2009) in the Greenhouse (before aphids & ants)
How did my interest in this come about? In the last Organic Club Meeting, I was asking how to inhibit the Blister Beetles that devoured my potato leaves last year. Besides being told that yes, there is a bird which eats them (the mightily noisy Guinea Hen), there are other ways to dissuade the bugs from an all out smorgasbord across the garden. That is, of course, Interplanting. I wrote about some of this in my previous blog about Interplanting Planning.
Today's garden adventure found the selected plants at the site of the potato patch for planting. Eggplant, Cabbage, Horseradish, Marigold & Nasturtium. Also invited to the party, but unable to attend today (as they are still in seed form and I'm not certain that its warm enough yet) were bush beans, corn and watermelon. All these plants grow well with potatoes or are of some value to the potato plant.
There seem to be no photos of my eggplant seedlings. Yet over 20 were counted today. (What a terrible mother of plants I am, not to have a single photo, and here they are, being planted already!) Oh well.
Nasturtium in the greenhouse, buds ready to flower, awaiting planting in the garden.
There is a very important difference between those two ways of being "companionable." Take the example of the Eggplant. I thought how wonderful that there is a good place for this vegetable. I was mistaken. On deeper reading I found the reason that it is recommended next to the potato is that the Colorado Potato Bug likes eating Eggplant even better than potato leaves! I realized that every Eggplant placed in that patch is being sacrificed! Actually, I have started way too many Eggplants, so the extras might as well be useful. I will try to save them from being devoured, but I understand their purpose here.
Horseradish is said to protect against blister beetles on the potatoes, by planting one at each corner of the patch. This morning I dug up last year's horseradish. My husband made a very strong grated, vinegar'd horseradish for medicinal and culinary uses. I planted a few thin roots into a greenhouse bed to see what would happen, and the biggest roots went out to the garden. I'm glad I'll have a few extras to use as I expand the potato beds around the yard.
Horseradish in the Upper Garden this morning before being dug up.
Technically this is supposed to be done before the leaves come up, or in the Autumn after the leaves have been removed. But I read about that after doing it "my" way, because NOW is when it needed to be moved to do service in the potato patch.
The directions I received for interplanting seemed to be to put a different plant on each side of all the plants. That extensive a "checker boarding" would use up a lot of my supply of plants and most importantly, space. We started this patch using the 12 sheets of newspaper (minimum) with straw on top method, with the intension of planting the potatoes in the straw. I thought it was an ultimately way over the top amount of space - but no, its not going to be near enough.
My first variety of potatoes (with interplants) took up 4 rows of perhaps 12 (its too dark outside to count now). I didn't even finish using all the seed of that variety. There's a lot more seed potatoes in the basement waiting for planting. It seems like I'm going to have to use a lot of upper garden space that I thought we were covering in that same paper/straw method just to get it ready for next year and have a neater garden. No, I think its going to all be potato fields forever (no, that's strawberries).
Cabbages, red and green, much younger than today.
Why so many potatoes? I took care of placing the group order for the Club, and wound up with extras, more than I had ordered. My husband likes potatoes. He makes a wonderful potato soup, and mashed garlic potatoes, and really good herbed roasted potatoes, and more. They are a very nutritious and complete food. They even are an emotional comfort food. And even if we don't need that many potatoes, I guess someone will.
I'd like to have enough left over to save for next year's seed too. Here's hoping ...
If I can't plant them all, I hope someone from the Garden Club will buy the seed from me. We sent away for top quality Organic Certified Seed Potatoes from Wood Prairie Farm in Maine. There are some unique and interesting varieties, including King Henry which is supposed to protect itself and its neighboring potato plants from bugs. So yes, that variety is interplanted with the others.
With four interplanted rows under my belt, I may be able to handle the details and take photos of the process tomorrow. Exciting details will include a dusting of fresh grass clippings, an original method of marking plant spacing and the joys of crawling about in a fully straw filled garden bed.
May all the beds you crawl in and out of, yield loving, happy harvest.
Interplanting Planning & Cold (achoo) Delay Outdoor Planting
Interplanting Instead of Mono-Culture on a Small Scale
My new perspective on planting the potatoes takes planning. Interplanting is an idea new to me, shared at the last Organic Garden Club meeting. To confuse the bugs and make the most of the soil minerals, I'm told to break up the plot from the mono-culture concept (one type of plant in each plot) and plant many different plants which "get along" in the same area. Keeping it mixed up year to year.
This info broke a mental stalemate I was in, uncertain where to plant what, and how to keep to a crop rotation when we do not plant equal amounts of plants in the varying categories to do it "the correct." I'm so fastidiously trying to do something "right". Usually I work hap-hazardly, which sometimes works, and other times, not so well.
My gardening friend said that she was reading a book called Solar Gardening, which gives the ideas of which plants will take the sun now, get harvested before their neighbors need the sun. Also she said that the concepts from Square Feet Gardening which advocates placing many different types of plants in small spaces.
If my description of these books seems rather weak, you are reading clearly. I have not read the books, I heard the idea from my friend, and combining those ideas with the help of companion planting book Carrots Love Tomatoes (which I do have and read and consult quite frequently), this year's garden plan is looking very different.
Of course, its late to be planning, and time to be doing!
Here's some of my beloveds waiting until its warm enough to dig in to the soil. These are tomatoes which I will attempt to plant with carrots (though its late to seed them). And the carrots like to be near parsley which is also ready for planting.
All the plants go out to the sunshine for hardening off
And then get put back in the greenhouse for a safe night's rest
Next day same thing, over and over
They are beginning to tell me that they wish to spread their roots deeper into the soil,
let's go already gardener!
"Achoo" I tell them, and find the energy to take another nap.
I hope you are not too bored, looking at these trays. I'm not showing all the plants which are impatiently waiting to be planted!
Yes there was some planting done since my last post.
To place the onions and leeks at the correct distance, I made up a Plant Measure Stick from the stalk of last year's sunflowers, straight and light weight (so if it rolled onto the plants it wouldn't hurt them). I marked 4, 5 and 6 inch intervals with a marker and used my wonderful Hori Hori knife to make the planting hole.
A soon after planting not-interplanted bed of onions. Some of them are now (one week later) more vertical, some not.
And the new strawberries also were planted.
Finally I did take the strawberry companions out to join their buddies in the soil. Chinese Greens and spinach do well with strawberries (so says the companion planting book). Also the borage herb was moved to their place beside the strawberries.
As evidence of how tired I felt, I did not even think to take a photo, though the camera was in my fanny pack. I'm almost done with these cold symptoms and the next few days will be good for planting. I have my list of what to mix in with the potatoes. The plot is ready, with string marked rows and deep straw. Just have to figure out the spacing between the plants and how many companions I have to mix in. Its a very exciting time for me.
Dear Readers, another reason for the long space of time between posts is that I've been trying to figure out WordPress as this blog software, RapidWeaver, does not integrate very well with Blotanical, a gardeners' blog central which I enjoy. But instead of studying tonight, I prefer to share, even if all the bells and whistles do not yet function.
May all energy, focus and timing flow through you in synch with Nature's rhythms.
1st Harvest - Bok Choy, Cabbage, Chard = sautéed greens
A First Harvest of Bok Choy and Chinese Cabbage was caused by the unexpected bloom of the Bok Choy. At least, I believe that it is Bok Choy. Perhaps it is one of the smaller versions of Oriental Greens which one might expect to reach maturity so early in the season.
Soon to be sauteed greens, (with millet, garlic and tofu). Yum.
Also in the basket are parsley, oregano, onion leaves, chinese cabbage and chard. All these plants are waiting to get into the garden. These lucky volunteers are going straight into the kitchen.
In the greenhouse, the bok choy (AKA ?) was living in good soil in a two and half inch pot, along with its fellows, awaiting a seemingly good time to enter the outside garden. I thought they'd wait until after the freeze and at a time when I'd have the energy and tools to put up row covers as the first fabric bug screen of my life in the buggy Ozarks.
Here's a good reason (from last year) why I know that protection is necessary:
June 10. 2008 in the upper garden. Catepillars also are rampant, but invisible in this photo.
Do you have an idea what that Oriental Green might be? I have been unfair to those developing plants. Couldn't find a single closeup photo to show, whereas the lettuce has many. Thanks for sharing your ideas.
Compare Growing Bibb and Romaine/Cos Lettuce
I have to harvest it frequently just to give enough space. Well, I did plant it all too close, thinking that I’d be able to plant it outside, but it grew up way beyond my expectations. I was planning also to cut off every other one as they grew too big. However, it got so overgrown that I have to do surgery just to find the stem to do the cutting.
Notice the one plant above that stands up straight and slightly darker green. This is a mix of Bibb and Romaine and I really like the upright posture which keeps the leaves out of the dirt, keeps the water running off of it and makes a tighter head. Its a lot easier to deal with.
The photo above is of a group that had the outer leaves thinned a couple of days ago. You can see some of the inner leaves of the Bibb lettuce, they are a bit crisper and crinkly and seem to come together almost like a head. I think that to give them a really fair trial I ought to thin out the plants and leave them room to leaf. I could put some in pots and start hardening them to the outside, maybe bringing them back inside for foul or frosty weather.
The greenhouse will be jam packed soon. Its time here in the Ozarks to start the nightshade seeds and its hard not to go too overboard on them. Hoefully this year if I have too many plants started, there will be neighbors or people at the Farmer’s Market who would like to take them home.
Above are my favorites. Crisp and crunchy, well behaved Romaine or Cos lettuce. They are much easier to care for as the leaves don’t touch the dirt and I can have them closer together. Of course, the question is, for how long will they be able to be so close together. If I can keep on eating salad twice a day, I’ll be able to trim off the outer leaves - but I doubt I can stay ahead of this growth.
Below is today’s favorite tool for harvesting the lettuce, leaf by leaf. If the heads were much bigger, thicker and I were whacking off a whole head, then something bigger would be good. But for the kind of trimming from the outside of the head, these little clippers, shown here in their plastic pouch, are very easy to wield. They have a very precise response. I’ve seen them in craft stores.
The greenhouse beds the lettuce are growing in were given good amendments last year and when the lettuce starts were planted they were planted in some worm castings. Probably could use some more, if I could get through the plants to the soil.
I always do this, try to plant more than what is recommended for the spacing. Its hard for me to believe what it says in books or on the back of the seed envelop. Must do the mistakes myself, often more than once. I think I can get away with it, but rarely does it turn out to be good. When the lettuce was really little, it seemed like lots of space. Below is how they looked on January 5. Yes, they look too close together then too.
Alright, it must be time to re-supply the neighbors.
So whatever lettuce you choose,
May you be Growing Ever More Joyful!
