seed potatoes arrived
My seed potatoes arrived in the mail today. I have to get their bed ready and get them planted – next weekend.
potato order
I just ordered my seed potatoes. Fedco/Moose Tubers has a nice selection of “Keepers” that includes: German Butterball, Katahdin, Elba, Red Pontiac, and Russet Burbank. 2 1/2 lbs of each for only $19. Can’t beat it. I’ll pick of a few blues at the supermarket to add to my planting.
sprouting sweets and saving squash seeds
Today, I finally remembered to bring my small (finger-sized) sweet potatoes upstairs to see if the warmer temperature will get them to sprout. (I left the big ones downstairs to keep for eating.) I’d like to get the sweet potatoes to sprout soon. They start off slow. Also, I roasted a nice buttercup squash from my local CSA and couldn’t resist saving a few of the fat seeds. It is a nice variety with thick orange flesh that tasted great and kept very well until now. Even though squashes do…
fried potatoes
I can’t do much gardening now, but I’m cooking and eating my produce. Today’s recipe is fried potatoes. I found, then lost, a recipe online that worked great. Standard potatoes: russets, blues, etc. Sweet potatoes Canola oil 1- Scrub and cut standard potatoes (whites, yellows and/or blues, leave skin on). Rinse in cold water, then soak 5 or more minutes in cold water. 2- Heat oil to 210-230*F. 3- Dry soaked potatoes on towel, then fry about 10 minutes in preheated oil. Remove to paper towel and let cool. 4-…
leek and potato soup
One of my favorites! I printed out the recipe I posted a few years ago (here’s the link) and my son helped by stir it. I haven’t harvested my single celeriac yet, but the recipe is great without it. The leeks are from my local CSA. I grew leeks once long ago and they did well. I should try them again.
digging sweet potatoes!!!
My son helped me dig sweet potatoes on Sunday evening. What a great event!!! I have to admit that to get my 18 year old into the garden, I had to trade for something he was interested in – $$. Since he currently doesn’t have a job, but wants cash, I offered him the rate he got at his most recent job. Anyway, he got the garden fork and started in on the bed as I ripped out the vines. My sweet potato bed was about 4 by 4 feet.…
digging potatoes
Freshly dug potatoes! I grew 4 varieties this year: Cobbler, All Blue, Green Mountain, and Rio Grande Russet. The Blue potatoes produced very well and are a nice purple color. My favorite is probably the Russets, which grill very nicely. I only harvested about 1/10th the amount of potatoes of last year’s harvest. This year, I planted in a very shady bed in my home garden. Mostly because of last year’s late blight problems, I decided to remove all late blight susceptible plants from my community garden. Next year I…
a happier potato story
I went out and dug a bit in my garden just now. What a relief to find a bunch of nice potatoes! From one All Blue plant, I found 4 potatoes. The other plant I dug was a Green Mountain (I think, though can’t remember for sure). Three big potatoes from that plant. The yields are low because the bed gets sun from noon-3. With so little sun, I’m really glad to get this many. And they are so pretty! And no critter damage! Yippee!!
a sad story about potatoes
Yesterday I visited my parents and we dug potatoes from their garden. We were looking forward this. But we didn’t have very good luck 🙁 Dad dug, I sifted through the soil and grabbed the potatoes, and Mom washed them. But there were hardly any. And the ones we did find were half eaten! Another critter! Its too bad. They had little tiny tooth marks and very large portions of the potatoes were missing. I thought the critter was maybe a mole. My sister suggested a pocket gopher might be…
This is a journal of my vegetable gardens. Skippy thinks the garden is his, even though I do all the work. We're located near Boston, in USDA zone 6. I have bees, chickens, fruit trees and berry bushes, too. I use all sustainable organic methods and strive to grow all of my family's vegetables myself. -Kathy
weeks and counting until my last spring frost
My garden this week
Skippy’s vegetable of the month – Egyptian walking onions!
