Wednesday, May 16, 2018

an afternoon with some andean tubers

the largest of the basement mashua plants has died back and it has decided to leave me with three healthy sized tubers from a season in great indoors...i am inordinately pleased...
yesterday i acquired some half barrels so i took two of them out to the east side of the yard and drilled drainage holes in them...
one i filled almost to the top with a mixture of compost and soil...and a few earth worms i found along the way...
and i planted all three tubers as deep as they are long in it and now we will see if this has the desired effect...
the other barrel i filled less than a third of the way and planted a mix of german butterball, all blue, and elmer's blue potatoes...we will continuously back fill this and see just haw many spuds are in a barrel...
some of the government spuds had started to chit and so i placed a shallow layer of soil in two of the infamous blue buckets and planted the two bison potatoes each in their very own habitat...another back fill to the top experiment...if fact all the newly planted outdoor spuds ( there are many yet to do ) will be of this ilk...
for the DTO-2 ( i have no idea what that designation means...names like viking and barbara are given by the breeders who "develop" the variety from the potato's genetic diversity...grow some from seed sometime and you will be surprised by what comes up...i promise ) i did the same shallow layer in a ten gallon pot and planted both...so...andean tubers in the soil a long way from home...they have done well in the past ( even if last season's mashua was a disappointment...too much shade where they were planted i think...they will have more sun this year )...there is a zea day coming soon enough...japanese beetles too i'l wager..all in a season.

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