Harvest Taters today!

[AlaskaSue]

Just grabbed a very sweet carrot from my garden to munch and saw a couple of my little potato tire towers were ready to pull. I still have 3 to go plus the main box out back but wanted to share. I pulled glorious, delicious garlic bulbs yesterday, even some green beans, for a change. But it was nice to get this started. Three tires high, but soil only up to tire 2. Cal whites, and purples planted in May. Like digging for Easter eggs, ha! The whites are massive...but all sound.

 

[Samuel Adams]

Spuds is good food.

Your growing season must be pretty good for Alaska ?

 

[summerthyme]

Wow, nice!

Summerthyme

 

[aviax2]

Nice potatoes!

 

[AlaskaSue]

Yep, we can really grow spuds and cabbages up here like you wouldn't believe. Now I have to (um, get to) go drive the side-by-side Polaris around the fence line and look for more puffball 'shrooms for breakfast

 

[AnniePutin]

You did very WELL!!!

 

[dioptase]

Nice looking potatoes!

Last night I THINK I got the rest of the Yukon Gold potatoes harvested from the raised bed. This bed had Dark Red Norland and Yukon Gold potatoes planted in about an 8' x 3' area. I THINK I got them all out. (The raised bed was designed by a garden designer who wanted fancy shapes (not squares or rectangles), so parts of that bed are inaccessible for digging unless you climb up into the bed, which I won't.) If there are any potatoes left, I may be surprised next year!

I also grew some Colorado Rose potatoes in fabric bags. It worked, sort of, but the potatoes weren't as large as the ones grown in the raised bed. I'm sure irrigation had something to do with it.... the raised bed had automatic irrigation, whereas I was hauling a watering can for the fabric bags, and I wasn't entirely diligent about it. (After seeing the foamy stuff coming out of supposed safe-for-drinking hoses, I don't use hoses for edibles anymore.)

All in all, though, a successful venture. One leg up the learning curve (I only tried potatoes once before, in a fabric bag, with little success), lots of potatoes (but nowhere to store them!), and knowledge as to what to do for potatoes next year. (I may try garlic next year, but DH is the cook and while we love garlic, he never uses fresh bulbs.)

 

[AlaskaSue]

I have three towers to go plus the new high bed I built out back...that’s the big one. This was a stunning summer, I only had to haul water TWO times the whole season. The garlic, onions, green beans, and herbs were all my first successes after, well, a lot of years trying Now I am fixing to collect and store seeds from many of them. I just want to know I can grow food if I have to...and keep it going. Picked mushrooms today too. End of summer and just about perfect!

 

[spinner]

dioptase, garlic is very easy to grow. It is planted in the fall and harvested in the summer. Once you dig it, garlic is hung to dry and store. Just make sure that you have a variety that is good for your area. Generally speaking softneck does well in warmer areas and hardneck does better in cooler areas. I love to grow garlic and plant it every October. This was a very good garlic year, my bulbs were very large. I usually grow about 6 or 7 varieties, it doesn't take a lot of space and I try a new variety every year. I guess you mean you use it dried instead of bulbs? I just store the bulbs, but a lot of people dehydrate it. Near the end of the season if I have some that is getting soft I chop it and freeze it.

 

[dioptase]

Thanks for the info. I'd forgotten that I ordered some 'Inchelium Red' (a softneck type) to try, a few weeks ago, doh. I'm not sure how or if DH (the cook) will use it, but it is something that I've never grown before and I was thinking that it was time to give it a try (in the vein of "if I have to grow my own food, these are the things I need to learn how to grow, and/or that I don't want to do without"). Now I have to figure out where to grow it, so that it doesn't conflict space (or companion planting) wise with other things (either fall or next summer's garden).

I had a strong feeling earlier this year that I needed to try the potatoes again, and on my last nursery visit before the shutdowns, I picked up a 6-pack of red (not bunching) onions. The potatoes were successful enough. I got the onion transplants into the raised bed too late (because the bed got de-rooted too late and then I had to pull all the weeds that immediately came up). It looked like they had all died, but now some green onion-y things are coming up in that area. I don't know if these are the (large red onion) transplants or if these are from seeds from the bunching onions (seed lost and left in the soil from last year), but I guess I will see. (If these are the transplants, then I may only get smallish onions at best, but any onion is a good onion.)

 

[AlaskaSue]

Skeins of geese noisily flying overhead in a crystal blue sky, snow on many peaks in the Chugach and Talkeetna Ranges around me, and the first sunny day in a while...so Im digging all the spuds today.

First pic is the two towers I’m pulling now, next photo I divided to show what was dug from each tower. They really like to get in under the rims, likely warmest spot - though these do get a good amount of sun. Decent sized, plenty of them for the small amount I planted...though not as large as in the OP.




The wheelbarrow pic below has today‘s haul so far. I’ll let them cure a few days before I brush the dirt off as their skin is a bit more fragile than other whites. On the ground is what I dug several days ago. Tonight I’ll finish up with the rest of the purples I planted in the big old feeder in the back of the barn that I used for a planter. Not a bad haul for 3 towers. I’m cooking up the peanuts now for a late lunch with my steak.



Perfect garden weather, and with all the insanity of 2020, it’s my favorite spot I can be.

 

[dioptase]

Nice haul!

 

[AlaskaSue]

Update - Potato Berries! I'm holding off on pulling from the big trough bed; it was mostly experimental and in a new area. I thought a bird had picked off one of my still-green cherry tomatoes and dropped it back there. But today I found three more and it dawned on me that they are potato fruit. Not for consumption but since I am saving seed this year I'll go ahead and give them a try for next season.

I understand they won't be just like the potatoes from that patch but it's the first time I've had any set fruit. So why not I pulled all the green tomatoes to ripen indoors; the potato berries are in the center next to one of the tomato clusters; you can see why I thought it was a wayward tomato at first.



Already have a nice jar full of coriander seed, plus an envelope of peas for next year. Still waiting on the dill and sage plus beans and kohlrabi, but we're getting close. 34 degrees and very windy this morning but it's warmed to 58 - still quite breezy.

 

[dioptase]

Fantastic! I had hardly any flowers on my potatoes; I think maybe our climate is too warm, even though I got a harvest.

You might be interested in this site Cultivariable and especially these blog entries: True Potato Seeds (TPS) - The Cultivariable Growing Guide and Top Ten Beginner Mistakes with TPS .

I pre-ordered some of their 'Gunter Blue' and 'Rozette' tubers to try next season. Go to their products page, ignore the "Out of Stock" and click on any potato (or other thing) that looks interesting to you, and it will tell you if there are tubers/seed available for (pre)order.

I also bought some seed from cultivariable too ('Rozette' and "tetraploid blues"), but I have limited garden space so I will probably be storing the seed as a prep backup, though I might try growing one plant from seed for the experience. I also found another site ( tomatogrowers.com ) that was selling 'Clancy' red potato seeds, so I bought a pack from them, too. If we end up moving (or fleeing/bugging out), seeds can be snatched out of my "lab fridge" and taken with us - not so easy with tubers, especially if they are already in the ground!

 

[AlaskaSue]

Final potato update this season: ended up with over a dozen potato berries from which I’ll try to collect seeds. This is the last of the spuds that I needed to dig, in the new experimental bed. Total haul: 76 lb from 5.5 lb seed potatoes in the towers and old trough I repurposed.I pulled some fresh puffballs, garlic and parsley on the way back in. Time for ribeye and mushrooms....

 

[dioptase]

76 lb is an impressive haul. I didn't weigh mine but I'm sure it was not that much of a multiplier (I started with 3 lbs of seed potatoes), and the potatoes in the fabric bags were smaller than those in the raised bed.

I envy you your mushrooms but how do you know that they are SAFE ones to eat?

 

[AlaskaSue]

Puffballs are very easy, as are shaggy mane. ‘‘tis the season and I don’t bother pulling anything ‘squishy’. Puffballs are solid white and firm inside. Alas we are past the shaggy manes this year. I never got morels this season, just didn’t have time but those are awesome. Just a lovely little addition.

It wasnt a bad year for spuds, considering how little time I put into them. But spuds grow up here if you just think about them, lol!

Next time I pull mushrooms I’ll get pics before I pick...here’s how they look as I slice them. Definitely go with someone who know though, if you’ve not been mushrooming before.

 

[dioptase]

I think I'd be way too afraid of picking something poisonous to ever try mushroom hunting. Besides, I've tried "wild" mushrooms at a restaurant, and I think I just prefer the common button mushrooms (the brown ones are better) and the portobellos. Thanks for all the explanation, though!

As for potatoes, I suspect climate plays a role. It seems like the colder states are the natural potato farming states. Down here may be a bit warm, but at least I got a harvest and know that I can do it!

 

[AlaskaSue]

I think I'd be way too afraid of picking something poisonous to ever try mushroom hunting. Besides, I've tried "wild" mushrooms at a restaurant, and I think I just prefer the common button mushrooms (the brown ones are better) and the portobellos. Thanks for all the explanation, though!

As for potatoes, I suspect climate plays a role. It seems like the colder states are the natural potato farming states. Down here may be a bit warm, but at least I got a harvest and know that I can do it!

Yes, I think you are right...it’s hard NOT to grow potatoes and cabbages up here.

Just walked the fence line and took pics of puffs I’ll leave for now, and one lone little shaggy mane I might just have to cook with supper.


eta: how do you know it’s autumn in Alaska? Besides the snow on the peaks, you know it’s autumn when the morning dew has not dried off by 2:00 pm!

 

[dioptase]

Well it looks like I am still growing potatoes. I had some shrivelled Russett seed potatoes from this spring which I never got planted, so I thought "nothing ventured, nothing gained" and put the most likely ones into the large fabric bag. At least some of those are growing, so I guess I get to add mulch to that bag and water it probably into December.

Then today, I was out in the main kitchen garden checking things out and discovered to my HUGE SURPRISE green potato stalks coming up from where I thought I had harvested all of the Dark Red Norland potatoes! I'm actually a little annoyed by this, as I wanted to dig and move a rosemary plant into that area. I'm dithering now over what to do about that rosemary - leave it in (an awkward) place to get bigger (it's already getting almost too big to easily dig and move), or move it in to the general potato area and let it fight it out, or (somehow) find some other place for it. The bottom line on the newly emerging Norland potatoes, though, is that I think I should leave them in place and hope for a new harvest. (Or so something/Someone tells me.)