Tuesday, December 24, 2013

small potatoes

are fine with me...results are results at this point in the winter...the yema de huevos in one of the baskets had died back thoroughly and so i dug for tubers this morning and...hey presto! spuds...small as they may be ( and the crop i brought in from outside weren't exactly huge ) they will sprout and that is what matters at this point...nine so far...there are a couple of plants that haven't died back completely but i do believe i will be digging them today anyway...in the course of the harvest i found three larger and very soft tubers that basically collapsed as i dug them out...this has me worried about viruses so i will dig the remaining plants today ...i brought in a frozen forty pound chunk of compost from the back of my truck ( it is minus two faherenheit outside my house right now ) and as soon as it thaws i will be replacing the soil in one basket to replant the harvest...that compost can go out in the yard come spring removed from any potato patch i plant...or, perhaps, i will just dump it in the compost bin for a bit of heat sterilization before it gets run through any plants...if i can produce another crop of tubers under the light these spuds will go out into the gardens ( since we are intercropping in the community garden some will find a home there and there hasn't been a potato in the perennial garden project ( and they are perennials ) in a number of years and i am inclined to think it is time..they are smallish potatoes and ancestors of yukon golds ( an ancestor domesticate/domesticate comparison? we grew yukon golds in the community garden very successfully in the community garden last season...something to consider since i have a reliable local source of yukons....more on the replant and the rest of the potato projects as the compost thaws...parts of the 2014 season are coming together...happy holidays everyone.

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