Posted on 10/23/2009 10:55:17 AM PDT by Red_Devil 232
How did you do that? Just lay the potato eye in the straw?
MMMM clean potatoes.
Yes baisl can be dried and it is very easy to do in your oven or even the microwave. I prefer to just freeze mine. I freeze the fresh leaves whole packed in zip-lock bags. I add just a little water to the bag to cover the leaves in the bag. They will be limp after thawing and useful mostly for just adding to soups or sauces. You could also make a pesto with them and freeze that in cubes and then toss into sauces as needed.
No! And salsa is good on breakfast toast.
Take a 5 gallon bucket and put 3” of good, friable soil in the bottom. I use Yukon Gold seed potatoes but have also used kennebecs and red varieties as well. Kennebecs are a little large for the bucket ... they will be limited size wise. Red potatoes are perfect, especially if you like “new potatoes” ... just reach down into the bucket and harvest the youngsters without disturbing the plant.
But I digress. Seed potatoes do best if a cut piece has at least 3 eyes on it. For those that are not aware, most potatoes you buy commercially are sprayed so they do not produce buds and thus shelf life is longer. So buy certified seed potatoes. I always take my seed pot. and put them in a sunny window for about 10 days to get the buds to sprout ... then cut into pieces keeping at least three eyes per piece. Let them sit in the sun a couple days to let the cut callous over ... they are susceptible to rot if you don't Not so likely in buckets, because drainage is very good.
Oh .. I made an assumption (and we know what that means). Make sure you have plenty of drainage holes drilled in the bottom of your bucket.
So backtrack, 3” of good soil, 3 seed pot. with 3 eyes in each bucket, cover with 2” of soil and water. When the plant gets 3” tall, cover it except the top 1/2” with compost or a light airy soil mix. Potting soil with vermiculite is wonderful, cept it is tooo spendy for me, and just about all potting mixes have fertilzers (typically miracle grow) in them. That will make for a nice leafy plant, but no potatoes. So I go back to my cheap, self made compost. (gardeners black gold)
Keep letting the pot. grow 3 “ and then voer with more compost until the bucket is full. My buckets are full to the brim with compost and I have the most beautiful foliage that is already 2 ft high growing out of my buckets. I use the buckets in my sunny perennial beds to create interest of texture. Hey .. try that with tomatoes as well ... great looking foliage.
In SW OH, many plant potatoes by St. Paddy's day. Ifind it is too cold .. and seed will just rot. First of April still gives you plenty of time.
A not of caution. Buckets even filled with rich compost can dry out quickly in warm temps. We had a brief few days of 87 degrees and I soaked mine down after 3 days ... If drainage is good in your buckets, water until you just see water coming out the bottom of the bucket, over water and you will leech out all the nutrients in the soil.
I do not fertilize .. my compost seems to be ideal, but if you must, use a low nitrogen, high phosphate blend. Just stay away from high nitrogen, unless you want to develop lots of foliage and minimum potatoes.
End of Sept, dump them out in the yard. The fat boys way to capture potatoes. Short handled shovel do not fit this fat boys hand. Don't even own one anymore.
Back to new “reds” if you use compost your can harvest early by reaching down along side the plant and picking the size you want.
Again, I grow mine in buckets predominantly for the foliage interest in my landscape .. but a fat boy loves new reds, piping hot and swimming in butter and a little essence.
Hungry all of a sudden ... writing about gardening does that to me.
Hope this is useful to you.
Again I have not tied sweet potatoes .. we are tooo far north, but I imagine that they would work just as well.
one tip from your cardboard earlier I stapled that weed cloth one puts under mulch to the bottom of my boxes it keeps the weeds out and the soil in but lets water go through. I still dug the grass out of the area for the boxes and recessed them a couple of inches into the ground to help keep the corners from opening. I used 2X8 to make my boxes and old aluminum blinds for the strips. Mel thinks highly of strips.
http://www.squarefootgardening.com/
First lay down a thick layer of wet newspapers....Lay the seed potatoes on the newspapers, then cover with straw....add more straw later around the plants.....EASY!
Pull the straw back if you want to take a few ‘new potatoes’, but you can do that without disturbing others that are growing.
To harvest just pull the straw back....did it with bare hands and put the potatoes in a basket.
“Bagged the leaves make a good protection around my blueberry plants.”
Brilliant solution! I was one of those people who would drive around taking bags of leaves from the curb for my compost piles before my trees were mature enough to put out a lot of leaves. Now with fifteen Black Walnut, six Red Oak, two White Oak and countless fruit trees, that’s no longer a problem, LOL!
Gotta love Mother Nature. She knows just what to do with anything that’s extra. No waste, no muss, no fuss. :)
It is, but it can be invasive, so till it back in as soon as you can in the spring...or this fall if weather conditions are dry enough and it stays warmer down by you.
‘Round here, our DNR actually has an irradication program for the stuff. Stupid Hippies planted it all over the place in their organic gardens, and people were using it for errosion control on hillside slopes.
Yeah, it’ll hold the soil on the side of the hill...and then travel up, down and AROUND the hill, LOL!
We live in an old farm house from 1906 that’s had a few improvements over the years...like electricity and indoor plumbing...but not much else!
When my boys were little I constantly threatened Husband that I was going to rip out the flooring and put in the original DIRT floors that came with the place, LOL!
I guess I’m back to Square One! :)
No feeding right now. You WANT them to go into their dormancy for the winter months; feeding them will just wake them up...and you don’t want that! It’s a waste of product because they’re really not taking up water and nutrients at this point, anyway.
Fertilize in the spring with a basic 10-10-10 for the fruit trees, and amend the soil around your blueberry bushes with soil sulphur or aluminum sulfate (the ‘aluminum’ does NOT make its way into the berries, so don’t worry!) and then FEED them with Miracid from Miracle Grow, or the same formulation from Jack’s or another national brand designed for acid-loving plants.
The soil sulphur changes the PH of the soil ONLY; it doesn’t FEED the blueberry bush, so you need to FEED the bush too, which will produce more blooms and more juicy blueberries...a common misconception. ;)
And if those are young fruit trees, make sure you have a spiral wrap on them to keep the bunnies at bay; they love that sweet fruit tree bark in the winter! As for the blueberries, a chicken-wire cage around them, filled with leaves or straw will also keep the bunnies away from chewing on your young blueberry bushes.
Jeff Gordon. ;)
Move them when you can...but don’t expect blooms until they’re settled in again. So, if you move them now, or even in the spring, you’ll have to sacrifice a season of bloom...which isn’t the end of the world. :)
I'm glad you added the name of another brand. I will buy NOTHING from Scott's/Miracle Gro
I know you do! I like Jack’s much better. They have some great forumlations, though we are dropping a few due to redundancy in our product mix. I’m gettin’ pretty good at this ‘corporate retail-speak,’ aren’t I? ;)
My new favorite is anything from Algoflash, which also has an acid-loving formula. Stupid, stupid name, but the chit works like crazy-mad, LOL!
Jack’s ‘Bloom Booster’ kept my hanging baskets and large potted planters blooming up until frost. I don’t let anyone leave the store without a container of it if they buy a hanging basket or planter from me in the spring. It’s really, really good stuff. :)
LOL!!!! We’ll talk come spring.
Hubby is currently banging his head against the wall (actually the barn door) over neither the riding mower or tiller working.........everytime he gets another part, something other problem rears its head. There was NO talking to him today. I steered clear of him ALL afternoon :)
Yep. We’re ALL married to the same man. They just change their hair and eye color to confuse us, LOL! :)
I do believe you may be right.
Very good DiW! I would like to ask you not to join our nascar Freeper thread and league next year as I don’t need the competition and yes I am running Flash this weekend.
Meanwhile back at the compost bins, because broadleaf deciduous trees are scarce here in Eureka Ca I dream of driving down the streets in my pickup picking up curbside bags of Maple leaves, SO on the way home from Old Town today I spot a city employee piling those very leaves in a downtown parking lot for bagging. I just couldn’t succumb to my inner desires to stop and beg this creature to forgive my sins and please load them in the back.
How long will I need therapy and will Medicare cover it?
Ok!
I fixed all 4 windows by ordering the parts over the net for less than $350.
GM - Buick claim there is no problem with their windows - but just Google it!
Dufus me, I love pesto and never thought to do that. I’ll pick some tomorrow and make a partial pesto. Thanks for the mind jog.
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