Planting Potatoes

I once read, the more hunger a group has experienced, the more potatoes they grow.  Another book once stated that spuds should be one quarter of one’s vegetable garden.  Just before the Soviet Union collapsed, the government had instructed the army to help pick the potatoes, by hand (not much mechanization) but at that time they were even struggling to pay the army.  I remember the photo – a couple of forlorn soldiers standing in a large frost covered field.

During these current unsettled times I have increased my potato production.  Not so much out of need but more as insurance.  Plus, I get lots of excellent tasting organic potatoes to eat and give away.

For me April is the month for planting spuds.  Our average last frost here is April 15^th so that fits well.  Last year I rediscovered mid-late season Red Pontiacs after about five years of Red Chieftains.  There is quite a difference, in my opinion, and it was good to get back to the Pontiacs.  Last year my son TOG introduced me to an early white variety called Alta Blush and it was great – firm, clean skinned and kept very well – it just didn’t produce as well per square foot as the later season Reds.

This year I was on my own for finding seed since TOG had missed his supplier.  So, at the local nurseries I picked up Pontiacs, and some earlier Red Norlands.  Finally, I figured I could use the last of my own Alta Blush as well.  They’d been very disease free so should stand one more generation.

I got the earlys planted April 14^th and now I attacked my next two beds for some of the Pontiacs.  My spud rotation usually follows the carrots, root crops and onions.  I know spuds are roots too but that’s the best I can do currently with only four rotations and trying to keep the tomatoes away from the spuds -- alternating years.  The other three beds to get the potatoes had the chickens’ run in them previously and so they didn’t need any additional nitrogen, but these two ex-carrot beds hadn’t had my two hens in them because I’d stored my carrots in these beds all winter until now under a one-foot layer of fall leaves.

I lifted the last of the sweet juicy carrots, beets, parsnips and rutabagas and my Lovely Wife filled her fridge with them.  The leaves went into bins to later go into the two beds of the chickens’ summer run.  Then I edged the bed next to the lawn and marked the bed perimeters with temporary pegs measured from my benchmark fence line.  I don’t usually use a string line but just keep an eye on the pegs for the path boundaries.

On these two beds I got to experiment with different nitrogen sources.  In one bed I used one five gallon pail of one year old composted chicken manure from my brother-in-law’s organic free run layers.  The other bed I added 3.75 lbs of Soya Meal and 3 lbs of Alfalfa Meal.  This is a bit more than I usually add but my potato plants haven’t been quite as tall as they used to be. (with chickens staged in the beds over the seasons this should all change).  Both beds also got 2 lbs each of Rock Phosphate.  I never add lime to the spud beds.  I have enough trouble with scab on my Pontiacs and the Rock Phosphate helps relieve that too.

This was all nicely tilled in with my little electric Mantis Tiller.  The machine isn’t for sod busting or attacking hard ground but it is perfect for mixing in soil amendments and loosening the soil down to 8 inches.  Remember, I Never Walk On The Beds so they’re always very loose and friable.  The tiller works best with a rocking motion: two feet forward and then pulled 1.5 feet back.  It spins away and digs itself down to the fender whenever held in one place.  All tilling is done while standing in the paths.

After tilling, the beds are raked flat and with the row marker I mark two lines 24 inches apart down the length of the beds.  For main season potatoes I mark cross lines 18 inches apart (14 inches for the Alta Blush) which gives me 16 plants per 12.5 foot long, 50 square foot bed.  I find the double row within the four-foot-wide bed works well for optimum use of space.  The full leaf canopy nicely shades out most weeds in the bed.

I had slightly over purchased Pontiacs and so didn’t need to cut all the spuds in half.  I cut the biggest ones first, always making sure lots of eyes on each piece, until I had the exact number of seeds I needed and left the rest whole.  The spuds are gently dropped onto the marked line intersections and then with my bare hands and on my knees beside the bed, I scoop a hole and place them about 2 inches under the surface.

That just leaves laying down wire fencing pieces, 4 feet by 6 feet pieces with a 2 by 4 inch wire grid, to deter the neighbours' cats.  The potatoes are free to grow up to about 8 inches high through the fencing before I lift the wire.  Any taller and it tends to tear the leaves when removing.  The first hilling can be done at about 18 inches tall.

Happy Gardening.

Setting Out Spring Spinach and Lettuce

18 pots of Olympia Spinach (Pacific Northwest Seeds) and 17 Encore Lettuce Mix (Johnny’s Seeds) were seeded indoors on March 13^th in one cup pots at 2 seeds per pot.  Germination was 100% and 83% and they were thinned to one plant per pot and grown under lights for 2 weeks then into the greenhouse on trays for 2 more weeks.

14 square feet of bed was fortified with 1.5 gallons of one year old composted Chicken Gold, 1/3 lb of Lime, and ½ lb of Rock Phosphate.  Tilled in with my little Mantis tiller, raked flat and smooth with the back of the bow rake, and marked out with the row marker on 8 inch square centres.  I was tempted to work with 10 inch centres this time since I had surplus space in that bed but declined – the tighter rows will shade out weeds more easily once the crop is established. 

I first sat the pots in a tray of water for an hour to absorb water up through bottoms making sure no dry patches in the root balls.  One month in one cup pots was just the right amount of time – the root balls were not too root bound but just able to keep their shape when flipped upside down and pot tapped upwards on the rim to dislodge the pot.

I planted alternating spinach plants with lettuces so that when the spinach finishes before the lettuces, they’ll leave more room for mature lettuce plants.

Covered the bed with 2 by 6 inch grid fencing wire sections elevated on 6 inch overturned empty pots --- to keep the cats away.  

In the morning I won't soak in one gallon of fish fertilizer mix to give them that transplanting boost.  It's probably too close to harvest for that kind of treatment with a chance of some fish getting on the leaves.  It is such wonderful stinky stuff -- but not this time.  I'll hope the ancient chicken already mixed in the soil will do the trick instead.

Happy Gardening.

Potting Up Tomato Plants

The time has come to Repot / Transplant the tomato and pepper plants into bigger containers.  The tomatoes were seeded on March 10^th.  The pepper seeds were soaked on March 1^st and planted on the 6^th.  They were all seeded into 4 litre milk jug bottoms at either 9, 11 or 12 seeds per container with about 1.5 inches of potting mix in each container.  Overall germination of the tomatoes was good at 90%.

Five days before transplanting, the plants were ‘sliced’ with a sharp knife through their roots to separate them and let them recover from the stress of the slicing.  This results in a great flurry of new rootlets coming from the main roots of each plant.  Pre-slicing helps them through the dual stresses of the breaking of the roots and transplanting.  

Years ago, I had a poorer germination of one container of peppers and so didn’t need to slice and transplant some of them but left them widely spaced in the original container.  Others were transplanted and within a few weeks the non-transplanted ones were visibly smaller than the sliced and moved ones.  I believe the slicing, causing the fresh flush of rootlets, helped in growing stronger, bigger plants.

The tomatoes were moved from 9 plants per milk jug to 2.  Using a scissor, I removed the first two non-true leaves then gently lifted each plant with a tablespoon and placed it into the bottom of the new container using just a thin layer of potting soil underneath it.  After half backfilling the container, I watered them in and then finished backfilling well above those first two removed leaves.

My choice of tomato varieties this year are all from Johnny’s Seeds: 

1) Sun Gold, a small orange cherry with phenomenal flavour.  

2) Bolseno, a dependable, red slicer.  

3) Mountain Magic, a plum sized early and late dependable producer. 

4) Tiren, a large successful paste tomato with some orange shoulders.  

5) Big Beef, retrying this standard slicer.  

6) Chef’s Choice Orange, the best tasting, productive slicer I’ve found, but for some it’s just the wrong colour.  

All these varieties are indeterminate and grow well in my greenhouse up 7 and 8-foot lengths of twine using tomato clips.  Since I live in an area that is very prone to Late Blight, growing tomatoes outside isn’t really an option.  Some kind of cover from the rain is necessary, so why not enclose the sides as well = a greenhouse.

The pepper plants stay smaller, are a bit slower growing and are transplanted into their own smaller single pots.  They go back under the fluorescent tube lights.

The tomatoes now leave my fluorescent tube lights and grow under my new LED (beginner pot grower’s) grow light.  I’m using aluminum foil on plastic sign board as reflectors for that light and I’m still learning the proper spacing from the light to the leaves.

In about 3 weeks they’ll be wanting more room and so will get repotted again into their own 1+ gallon pots and will head over to the greenhouse until their time comes to be planted into the beds in the greenhouse in mid-May.  I only need 8 tomato plants for my greenhouse this year so the rest will be given away.

Happy Gardening.

Planting Onions

I transplanted my winter storage onions into their 50 square foot bed this week.  I seeded two varieties: Patterson F1 on January 7^th and my later arriving, Talon F1 on Jan 15^th -- both from Johnny’s Seeds.  Their germination rate was 73% and 80% respectively.  I seeded two seeds in each one cup yogurt container.  That resulted in 66 Pattersons in 39 pots and 24 Talons in 14 pots. 

 

The onion seedlings were under the grow lights for 5 and 4 weeks and then hit the greenhouse (unheated) for the balance.  We experienced no cold snaps during that time and I was ready to bring them into the garage on short notice if a bad frost was headed our way.

The goal was to have them just filling their pots by the time they were set out into their bed.

The bed had been a chicken run bed up until February and so there was no need to beef up the soil with any feed or seed meals for nitrogen.  I sprinkled 1.5 lbs of Rock Phosphate and 1.25 lbs of Lime over the surface of the bed and tilled it up with my little Mantis tiller.

I raked the tilled bed flat with the flat side of my bow rake.  I need a flat bed surface rather than a domed one – I find the watering (with a wand) works better in the summer with less run off and erosion using flat beds.  With my Row Marker I marked rows across the bed one foot apart.  Then I marked lines down the length of the bed 8 inches apart for my onion spacing within the rows.

The pairs of onions were just root bound enough to hold the root ball together while transplanting.  The single onions were just a bit too loose so I had to be more careful transplanting those.  I have discovered they don’t like their roots disturbed. Seeding Onions In January  Once they were all transplanted I watered them in with two gallons of mixed fish fertilizer.

We still have two more weeks before our last frost (technically) so I quickly covered them with one of my new fencing wire bed covers Bed Covers.  I drove the small stakes into the edge of the bed and arched the six foot long fencing wire pieces across the bed between the stakes.  

I covered the arched wire pieces with a 7-foot wide piece of clear plastic and held that down on its edges with good sized rocks.  The bed cover should increase the soil temperature by a couple of degrees as well as shield the onions from any stray frost.  

There’s little left to do but the occasional weeding and watering.  Once the soil really warms up in late May I’ll mulch with old maple leaves to suppress weeds and keep the roots evenly moist.  Harvest is expected sometime in late July.  

Currently, we’re still eating our crop of winter storage onions from last year.  That’s more than an eight month supply of organic onions.

Happy Gardening.