Wednesday, April 24, 2013

government potataoes

i pulled the box of government potatoes out of the basement, intending to cut and callus the larger of the early blue potatoes ( a strain developed here in the u s ) and was a bit surprised to find them already sprouted...so i took them over to the house and planted them whole...creating fewer plants...but using less of the finite space available as well...i planted a couple of huaca corotas in another barrel ( from bolivia ) and one of the smallish olalla potatoes ( from spain ) had begun to sprout as well so i found a home for it in a deep urn that had house some teosinte a couple of years back...the rest of this batch will need to go in soon and i am wondering just how many tubers i will get...the early blue should be no problem and i am hoping that since parts of spain and indiana are at nearly the same latitude that the olalla will do well also...the bolivian potatoes are from an area nearer the equator and i worry about day-length issues impacting the setting of tubers...the closer the plant's point of origin is to the equator the more equal it likes its days and nights to be...fifteen or sixteen hours of daylight will certainly let the plant grow but it won't reproduce...and since i need the tuber for the storage experiment that won't help much...you take your chances in gardening and i have had some spectacular public failures ( recently too )...the whole south american tuber idea may come to nothing ( one remembers the ojosa negra from last season for instance ) but i am still inclined to try...failure teaches as well as success, even if it isn't as gratifying, and i am here to learn...about the rationale behind the neolithic revolution and about what it means to be native to a place...failure has its place in that as well as success.

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