These are from this year’s winning potato contender for container-grown success. The vines were very tall, even under harsh conditions with shallow soil, above average heat, and extremely dry weather. And the stolons were over 8″ long. Luckily the variety also set berries that should give us lots of TPS to further our trails.
Thin Pickin's
We finally did see two tiny tufted sprouts from the Mary Washington asparagus bed. I was actually about to dig the whole thing up to see what happened to them when I noticed the first one. Chalk it up to the weird wet cold spring. It’s not enough to keep me from over planting the bed in Tarahumara Chokame black beans, Catalina Spinach and Charentais melons. But still, two of the asparagus crowns are alive in there, and I left them enough space (I hope!) to develop through the summer and put down some roots for next year.
Italian Asparagus from Seed
My real hope is the Asparago Precoce d’Argentuil that I started from seed May 15th. Many of them have sprouted. They are tiny, thin, tall, fluffy things that move in the slightest breeze. I took this picture on the Sports/Action setting and it’s still not totally in focus. I probably breathed near them. In another week or two I will pot up the ones that I get into their own 4″ pots where they will spend the rest of this year. It takes about 305 days to get asparagus from this stage to the point where they have developed enough root crowns to go into the ground. That should see these guys planted out mid-March of 2011 ‘God willing and the creek don’t rise,’ as my Daddy would have said.
Purple Passion Fronds
There is one other hope in the asparagus department for next spring. In the fall of 2009 I put in four potted asparagus roots; two Mary Washington and two Purple Passion. They seem to have over-wintered well in spite of the onions, lettuce and carrots that surrounded them all year. Now they are sending up tall, broad fronds that should be nourishing the roots below and might give us our first taste of home grown asparagus next year. The potted roots were at least a year old when I bought them, so in the spring of 2011 they might be pushing three. If we’re lucky, and that creek don’t rise. ;-)
Test Potato
Growing potatoes is kind of mysterious, so we grew one test potato on it’s own so that we could pull it part-way through the season and all the kids (and the rest of us!) could see what was going on under there. We planted all the potatoes right around Saint Patrick’s Day, except for the Blues because their seed potatoes didn’t arrive from Seed Savers until later.
Forming New Potatoes
It’s easy to see that the potatoes–and the roots–all form *above* the seed potato that you plant in the ground. You almost have to think about these guys upside down. It’s the soil that you put in on top of them that they care most about, not so much the soil that they are sitting on when they get planted. I was amazed to see how many potatoes were forming on this one plant that hadn’t even been hilled.
Basket of Rattes
Now I am curious to see how many potatoes we will be able to raise in the small spaces we have used. The La Ratte seed potatoes from Full Circle Farm are growing in an old trash basket that might hold five gallons, if we’re lucky. There are four plants in there and they have been hilled nearly to the top.
I think I remember that the potato sacks we used each hold fifteen gallons, and they are nearly full of soil at this point as well. Each sack is planted with four or five potatoes, the same amount we used in the much smaller basket of La Rattes. So maybe we’ll find out the consequences of crowding when we compare the harvests, but it will be hard to interpret, since we used different varieties.
The real test of how many potatoes we can produce in garden this size will be the All Blue’s.
On Blue Hill
When I asked at the nursery the other day what they would recommend we use to supplement our own compost when we hill our 4′ x 8′ potato patch they started doing the math for how many cubic feet we would need and some eyebrows went up. “How many potatoes are you growing?!” was asked more than once.
But that’s OK. It’s only 32 plants. Kids love potatoes, right? And these potatoes will be nearly purple. That’s got some fun appeal, doesn’t it? Not to mention all the antioxidants from the phytochemicals that cause the color in the first place.
I better go find out what you need to do to store potatoes for the winter…
24" Potato and Tomato Raised Bed
We are testing a wide variety of raised beds in the Dirt to Dinner garden. Just this week I added two new No Dig beds with tall trellising for cantaloupe and spaghetti squash. They are made of “found” lumber (it was Clean-Up Week in our neighborhood, so the finding part was easy) that 50 years ago was a backyard fence. I figure anything potentially unhealthy has surely leached out of it in all this time. Right?
The first bed we added to the front garden we took up the turf and dug the soil underneath, so it’s somewhere between 18″ and 24″ of new ammended soil mixed with the existing clay and topped with an inch of turkey farm compost. This bed holds potatoes and tomatoes, so I’m sure we’ll learn a lot about the quality of both the drainage and the new soil from the way the plants develop. It’s also in a windy corner, which the bush beans we tucked in there while the potatoes and tomatoes are getting started don’t seem too happy about. This also means the bed dries out more quickly than I would like and needs a thick mulching as soon as the plants are better established.
5" No Dig Squash Bed
The shallowest of the raised beds is a No Dig 5″ deep bed with as close to Mel’s Mix as I could make with the materials at hand. And I do mean, No Dig with this one. It’s made out of found redwood timbers tacked together and laid straight onto the lawn. I am very curious to see how this bed does through the summer. I planted my spaghetti squash in this one, so I really hope it does well.
The idea is that the grass will die underneath the soil, turn into a natural compost and eventually become one with the dirt in the planting box. I imagine adding a lot of compost to this one through the Summer to keep the moisture content up. But will the grass grow up through 5″ of soil?
2'x2' of 6" and 12" Square Foot Sections
We also have a variety of Square Foot style beds in the Dirt to Dinner garden. My favorite ones, surprisingly, are the bi-levels. I thought I would want everything as deep as possible to hold all the soil and plants I could imagine, but I like the way this one looks in the garden and so far the occupants seem happy with their digs.
By far the largest raised bed in the Dirt to Dinner garden is the kids’ growing area which is over 18″ deep. The kids removed the turf and turned the soil underneath before the bed was constructed. At 112 square feet framed in traditional English willow hurdles, it is unique and also seems to be holding up well. 
I have no doubt that the bed will provide ideal growing conditions and can’t wait to see what the kids do with it.
The original raised beds in this growing space are large plank board planters that stand 3′ high and are 4′ wide. They are great for keeping the dogs out and not having to bend over very far, and they are sturdy enough that you can even stand on the edge to adjust your cages or add to the trellis systems. But they are so deep that the soil compacts in them by a foot down and they are very ungainly to try to turn the soil in them because of their size. It’s tough to get a shovel into them and you end up breaking your back digging them out by hand every year or two to lighten the soil.
90 Days from Seed to Flower
One way or another, we are determined that we *will* have peas from our garden. Two of the varieties from the Spring pea trial are all but forgotten, but the Picolo Provenzale are growing in all three different plantings, and the January planting is starting to flower. OK, it’s what? Nearly 90 days out from planting, but hey, it’s flowers!
I’m also amazed that the Sugar Snaps in the back garden that each had their heads snapped off by some marauding varmint are starting to recover! They grew new vines from the roots up and around the bitten ends of the first ones and some of them are starting to put out tendrils like they mean to actually grow.
Sugar Sprints and Carrots
Nearby, in a 4′ x 4′ bed, there are Sugar Sprint peas growing, mostly under a burlap covered cage to protect them from everything. They don’t seem to mind the shade. The Picolo Provenzale starts in the front garden didn’t seem bothered by it while they were covered either. I take it off of them in the morning to allow them a few hours of direct sun and they seem fine.
And we are getting to the stage where we have literally buckets of tomato plants. We have Roma Paste tomatoes for sauce and catsup, we have Principe Borghese for drying, we have Costaluto Genovese for fresh cooking, Big Beef and Crimson Carmello for slicing and eating, we even have a German Orange Strawberry tomato that I can’t wait to try! I’m afraid I may have even ordered some grape tomato plants in fun shapes and colors from Park Seed when it was still cold out and the garden was a limitless imaginary place.
Surviving the Spinach Monster--So Far!
And, happily, the evil Spinach Monster that devours my plants right down to the roots if I leave them outside after dark without a cover does not appear to like Bok Choi. What IS that thing? For a long time I thought it was ravenous snails or slugs because the plants that were up on the hottub cover at night weren’t bothered by it, but earlier this week several six-packs up there were creamed by whatever it is and the chard, tomatoes, peppers, etc. sitting right next to the spinach were fine. Maybe Popeye the Possum? I don’t know.
From Dirt to Dinner 