Potatoes

The assortment of seed potatoes received at the Annual Seed Swap earlier this year are finally in the ground. Having placed them where they could receive medium light at home for the last few weeks, small sprouts grew from the eyes indicating that they were ready to plant. Not wanting to damage the delicate sprouts as I carried the potatoes to my garden, this used egg carton came in handy.

 

Hoping that my potatoes would not rot once I planted them, I dug a hole in the soil in the raised bed where they were to be planted to see just how high the water table was. Having rained very hard for the last two days, you can see that I only had to dig about six inches to reach water.

Fortunately, I like to plant my potatoes shallow, then hill up around the plants once they start growing. I spaced the potatoes out on top of the bed, then planted them just under the surface of the soil. 

While we don't eat a lot of potatoes and I normally don't plant very many in my garden, the varieties that I planted this year seems exceptional. Here's my assortment: Dobson potatoes - originating from Australia, purple potatoes - considered a specalty potato, red skinned French fingerling potatoes, organic cherry red potatoes and Yukon gold potatoes. All organic potato starts, I can hardly wait until it's time to dig them up.

As you can see, I've still a lot of work to do in Garden Nbr. 02