Clearly, I'm a bit nuts to begin a 97 degree day by digging up part of my potato crop, but I was outside looking at the garden and noticed that two of my potato plants had yellowed and fallen over, which means it is time to harvest. The other four or five plants are still looking good, so I left them in the ground. These are Russian Banana Fingerling potatoes (if I remember correctly) that I bought from Whole Foods in the winter. A few of them started to sprout, so I left them on the counter and cut them into pieces once the eyes began to grow. I didn't plant them until mid-March (usually we plant potatoes here in February), didn't hill them up properly, but this was a nice sized crop from just two little plants. I spread some of the dirt and composted leaves over the remaining plants so they'll grow a bit more, and in a few weeks I'll harvest them, too.
There are only 10% of the original 130K+ residents left without power- they're estimating that we will join the ranks of the powered today. Last night we bailed and went to a friend's house to sleep in the AC. It was bliss.
I had planned to finish the last of the May 27 berry bowl orders this week, but obviously, that didn't happen. The good news is that the enforced rest means that my arms are healed! Hopefully next week when little boy is at a day camp I'll crank the rest out and get them out to my most patient friends and customers.
Happy Wednesday! And keep your fingers crossed for us!
5 comments:
Now I can see the blog. Which will only make sense to you if you see the message I left you on flickr. :-)
maybe roasted potatoes will be on the menu tonight? And yeah! to your arms feeling better.
crossed fingers and toes friend!
great looking potatoes!
I've always wanted to grow potatoes. And fingerlings sound so delicious. Maybe next year I will give it a try...
joyce, potatoes aren't difficult. The key thing is to do them early. You let a potato sit out so that they "eyes" develop, cut the potato up so that each chunk has at least two eyes, plant them, and then when the foliage is 1ft tall, start hilling dirt, compost, mulch, straw, whatever over them. I didn't even do that this year and they grew just fine. Garden supply company has some special collapsible bins specifically for growing potatoes, but next year I'm going to use one of my galvanized tubs.
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