my garden has been a bit neglected lately. i was starting to think that i wouldn't even have the energy to get my garlic in (and i was trying to convince myself that i was okay with that). this weekend we continued to have unseasonably warm weather and i forced myself to head over to my community garden to harvest my potatoes. it was a bit disappointing (especially after i realized that i harvested fewer potatoes that i had planted in the first place!), but they will still be delicious. i planted all blue, german butterball, and rose finn apple. this year i tried a potato tower method, which was clearly not very successful. i think a few of my problems were that my towers were too big around (about 3 feet in diameter) and i didn't keep them watered well enough. if i try this again next year, i will definitely make them smaller. what's your favorite way to plant potatoes?
i also managed to get my garlic in, which i know i will be really happy about come summer. since i wasn't sure i was going to plant any, i hadn't purchased any new seed garlic. i just used the garlic i grew this summer- german extra hardy and georgian fire. i planted cloves from the largest bulbs and covered them with a pile of leaves, since i didn't have any hay or straw.
our kale is also still going strong, and now that whatever little bugs were munching on it all summer are gone, maybe we can actually enjoy some of it. after ignoring my garden for the last two months or so, it felt so fulfilling to get in one last garden day before winter sets in.
I recently started a tower of potatos made of tires. I am adding the fifth one up this wednesday. The plants are growing super fast and strong, and I water them everyday, but I have no idea what the results will be. I will let you know!
ReplyDeleteHi Julia. We grow our potatoes by digging a ditch in the soil in a line. We then put the potatoes in leaving about 75cm-100cm in between each potato. We place a little bit of soil over each potato. As the potato plant grows we add more soil to the mound leaving just some of the leaves above the soil. We keep doing this and then eventually end up with a big mound of soil sitting on top of the garden bed.
ReplyDeleteWith the tire method, I have read that chemicals from the tires are absorbed by the potatoes. This was in a well known and reliable magazine here in Australia.
Good luck. xxoo