Life in Southeast Alaska

Garden Pics and My Potato Experiment

I finally finished filling the 3rd raised bed with dirt.  We have a large birm on the property that is great dirt - just needs to be sifted.  So I dig it out of the hill, throw against a screen so the dirt goes thru and the rocks slide down the screen.  I then transfer the sifted dirt to the wheelbarrow and haul to the garden and dump.  Then repeat, and repeat, and repeat...  :o)  Eventually the box is full!

Rod and I decided that this box would be for more potatoes since I had a bunch more that needed somewhere to be planted.  These are Yukon Gold potatoes I grew last year from organic seed potatoes.  I had kept them thru the winter just in the kitchen in 5 gallon buckets with a towel over the top to keep out the light.  We ate them all winter until they started sprouting in February.  In April the sprouts were quite tall!  I took one bucket and broke off all the long sprouts, but the other bucket I just left them long.  I planted them in one raised bed and 3 potato bins a few weeks ago.  I had the leftover ones just sitting on top of the dirt, while I figured out where to plant them.  Well, some of them decided it was a good spot and put out roots, leaves and a couple had little potatoes.

So here is my experiment.  I decided to plant the potatoes with the long sprouts and all horizontally in the new bed.  I think that potatoes will form all along the sprout, similar to how they form up the stem when you hill them up normally.  I spread them in the bed, spaced pretty close together, then covered with 3 or 4 inches of dirt.  I was able to fit 70 potatoes in the bed.  The other potato bed, which is also 3' by 16', has 42 potatoes.  It will be interesting to see what happens come harvest time. Which bed will produce more potatoes?  Which bed will produce the biggest potatoes?  I think the new bed will have more potatoes, the old bed will have bigger potatoes, but not sure which one will have the most pounds of potatoes.  What do you think?

The green beans are popping out of the ground now.  I've only planted them once before and they didn't do very well.  This time I'm trying plastic, supposed to help keep the ground warmer for them.  We'll see...

I took the Wall O Waters off the tomato plants which look very healthy.

Here are the cucumbers - starting to get bigger.  Also some cabbage plants waiting for a new home.

Untitled Comment

10:38 PM, Friday, June 5, 2009 .. Posted by mamato8

Those tomato plants look amazing! Great idea putting plastic down! And please send some of your hot weather that to me is cool weather down this way! We are stiffled here!