Showing posts with label potatoes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label potatoes. Show all posts
Monday, July 27, 2020
Potatoes 2020
This is my main potato harvest for 2020. I planted red skin and light brown skin (white) seed potatoes and had several volunteer blue ones come up from last year, so a box of red, white, and blue potatoes! We had an earlier harvest when the grandkids were here in early July and that harvest was both red and blue potatoes. This year’s crop is mostly small sized tubers although the white ones did produce some larger baked-potato sized examples. Low rainfall results in smaller tubers as they are mostly water. Still have 3 more white potatoes left in the garden as their plants were still mostly green. Overall a nice harvest and all tubers were good looking without any scale or scab problems.
Wednesday, August 27, 2014
Potatoes, potahtoes
I dug out the first of two raised potato beds this morning. Both of the varieties produced almost the same amount of new potatoes—I planted 2 pounds each of 4 varieties and today I harvested 20 pounds of the tan skin and yellow flesh variety (Yukon Gold) and 24 pounds of the red skin and pink flesh variety (Mountain Rose).
Most of the potatoes are baseball-sized or bigger and there were lots of small marble-sized baby potatoes. The wet summer we have had this year helped to produce the bigger sized potatoes, as they need a lot of water. All of the potatoes today were is great shape, no rust or discolorations on the skins. I dug these potatoes out with a 4-pronged fork (pitchfork) with heavy flat tines and I only speared one Yukon Gold, which I ate for lunch. I used two fabric bags that we got last spring when we bought 2 small tart cherry trees and these were the tree containers. The second raised bed has 2 additional varieties, a purple skin and flesh variety (Purple Majesty) and I think the fourth variety is a Russet, but will have to check the tubers to make sure.
Update 8/29:
I spent another 90 minutes harvesting the last 2 varieties of potatoes. The tan skin with pale yellow flesh variety is German Butterball, I think. I collected 16 pounds of this variety. The purple skin and flesh variety is Purple Majesty. I collected just over 13 pounds of this variety. Overall, these two varieties produced smaller potatoes that the first bed I harvested. This bed had more clay in the soil, so maybe that had some influence on the growth of the tubers.
I used the same pitchfork that I used on the first bed and today I speared two of the purple potatoes, so I had them for lunch.
That pretty much concludes the potato harvest this season, although there are a couple of volunteer plants in the other raised beds from last year's crop. Typically these volunteers do not produce any
tubers and if they do, they are pretty small.
Most of the potatoes are baseball-sized or bigger and there were lots of small marble-sized baby potatoes. The wet summer we have had this year helped to produce the bigger sized potatoes, as they need a lot of water. All of the potatoes today were is great shape, no rust or discolorations on the skins. I dug these potatoes out with a 4-pronged fork (pitchfork) with heavy flat tines and I only speared one Yukon Gold, which I ate for lunch. I used two fabric bags that we got last spring when we bought 2 small tart cherry trees and these were the tree containers. The second raised bed has 2 additional varieties, a purple skin and flesh variety (Purple Majesty) and I think the fourth variety is a Russet, but will have to check the tubers to make sure.
I spent another 90 minutes harvesting the last 2 varieties of potatoes. The tan skin with pale yellow flesh variety is German Butterball, I think. I collected 16 pounds of this variety. The purple skin and flesh variety is Purple Majesty. I collected just over 13 pounds of this variety. Overall, these two varieties produced smaller potatoes that the first bed I harvested. This bed had more clay in the soil, so maybe that had some influence on the growth of the tubers.
I used the same pitchfork that I used on the first bed and today I speared two of the purple potatoes, so I had them for lunch.
That pretty much concludes the potato harvest this season, although there are a couple of volunteer plants in the other raised beds from last year's crop. Typically these volunteers do not produce any
tubers and if they do, they are pretty small.
Tuesday, August 5, 2014
Friday, July 22, 2011
9 potato varieties
All of the potato beds are showing effects of the heat and the plants have pretty much died off. That means we can harvest the potatoes now, so I dug up several of the varieties we had not tried yet. So far we have harvested about 2/3 of the crop. The potatoes are generally small sized, probably due to the crowded conditions from my dense planting and the soil in the raised beds was only about 8 inches deep and I didn't do any mounding around the plants. Still, the potatoes look and taste great.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Midyear view from Skytop
The fruit trees are big enough to see from across the valley. The walking track is not visible behind the tall grass in the rest of the meadow.
We harvested the first (4) potatoes. The potato bug had pretty well demolished the plant so it seems a good time to harvest. The potatoes were small but tender and tasty. The delicate skin puckered right off after the boil.
Gambol found a nest of indigo buntings with 3 quarter-sized babies in a caged mountain ash in the meadow. He said they were a good breakfast snack. I have to learn when he points to have him hold until I check it out.
The video assignment was a 2 min. interview but I couldn't get organized when I had help around so I was left to my own devices. I guess I get points for creativity.
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