Easy Potato Harvest!

We grew a few different kinds of potatoes this year and in different ways. Recently we harvested our red potatoes which were grown in the most interesting way. This harvest was done with just my bare hands and I didn't even get very dirty! Here is one of the plants pulled up with the tubers underneath:

 These were grown in a small cinder block raised bed. The growing medium was not dirt. It was a soil-less mix of peat moss, rice hulls and other organic material. Since this medium is so loose, you can harvest these potatoes by just reaching into to mix.

It is pretty hard to show you what I mean in words or pictures, so here's a first for GardenDesk - a video!

It really is that easy. My favorite thing about harvesting in this way is that it is easy to steal away new potatoes any time while they're growing. I didn't get a video of that earlier in the year, but below is a good simulation. Ignore that the plant has died back. This technique worked the same way while the plants were growing.

I just reached in every so often and took a new potato without harming the plant.

So if this mix is so great, why isn't my whole garden like this? First of all, it is a bit expensive. More importantly, The mix dries out quickly and is really hard to keep watered while the plants are growing.

I actually found this mix last year and thought maybe it would be good to have many beds like this. Before buying too much, I conducted a side-by-side test comparing this mix with my regular raised bed of garden soil, compost and peat. I grew one tomato plant, one pepper plant and four cucumber plants in each 4 foot square bed. Here were the results - this first picture is early in the season:

 

At harvest time, it looked like this:

 

My normal soil is on the left, the soil-less mix is on the right. Both sides yielded about the same amount of produce, but the new mix dried out too much. I think you can tell that the cucumber vines in the back were a bit smaller. So last year I was a bit disappointed with the new mix.

This year I began dismantling the cinder blocks but ended up keeping the new mix side of the bed. I planted the potatoes on a whim and now this mix has new value to me. I think I will reserve it for root crops from now on. Maybe I will move it into the greenhouse. 

These reds are oh so delicious! For only 4 feet of growing, I can't complain with the amount we got, and harvesting as shown in the video is so easy. Forget the pitch fork! What fun. 

Garbage Can Potato Harvest!

I like to try new things in the garden. Every year I find new things to grow and new methods to try. One of the "experiments" this year was trying to maximize yield by growing potatoes in a garbage can. I have been receiving many questions about the status of these potatoes. Well, we finally knocked over the can to see if it worked.

The idea is that you plant the seed potatoes down in the bottom of the can. As the plants grow, you fill more soil around them. Eventually, the can is filled to the top with soil and the plants are growing out of the top like this:

With proper nutrients and moisture, the potato plants send out new tuber growth all along the buried stems. The hope is that at harvest time, the garbage can would be filled with potatoes. You can see my first two posts about this idea here and here.

So it is finally time to harvest these garbage can potatoes. Here we go:

Wow, looks great doesn't it?

I could stop with the above pictures and say that everyone should switch to this method, but I won't. I always say that the purpose of this blog is to document happenings in my organic garden - to report what works and what doesn't.

Writing about what works is more fun, but this potato can actually didn't work very well. Here is a picture of the complete harvest:

That's not any more than I would have gotten if I had just planted these potato plants in the ground. So what happened?

First of all, I had four or five plants growing out of the can in the first picture of this post. All but one plant died in July. This is what the can looked like before I knocked it over:

All of these puny little potatoes might have come from this one plant. The bigger problem I think I had was that the plants didn't get enough water. When I try it again next year (and I will), I think I should change my soil mix. This mix was mostly compost, peat and regular garden soil. Next year I will add sand and have much bigger drainage holes at the bottom of the can. I want to be able to water more often and more thoroughly without the worry of being too wet.

What about you? Do you have any ideas about how to make this concept work? I know it can work. We have done it before on a smaller scale. My daughter had success with this last year with potatoes in her garden bed by enclosing two plants with wood and raising the soil around them. I know other gardeners who have raised potatoes like this in tires and even in garbage cans. What is the secret? If you have had success with this, please let us know. I know I've read about this on other good blogs but I don't remember where. If you have posted about this, please share the link for us. And if you haven't written about it, but have had some success with potato growing like this, please give us some tips.

I'm sorry to say that I am not an expert on this yet (obviously), but together I think we can perfect this method. It does work - but how?

Producing Prolific Produce!

July has seen great yields from the vegetable garden. Our new harvesting containers are these "Peach Baskets", and now it is taking three or four baskets to bring in all that is ripe.

July has been the month of the tomatoes, cabbage, onions, garlic, green beans, potatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, and now peppers and okra.

Regardless of what else is in the basket, there are always tomatoes. The extra-early tomato plants have done very well - we are now at 400 ripe tomatoes picked! The main season tomatoes are beginning to come in and my wife says it is time to stop counting the number of tomatoes harvested. I'll probably still try to sneak a count though.

Every time we bring a basket in, our cats Macy and Maggie have to check out what is new.

I can't let them look for long because they soon begin to want to sample the veggies. See Maggie licking her lips?

We quickly put everything away in the kitchen and set the baskets down to be ready for the next harvest day. Sometimes the cats think they can get a head start on us by hanging out IN the baskets!

July has gone by way too fast! I have been overly busy. Sorry that I haven't been able to post or comment on other garden blogs. My normal job has been very busy. I work in management at a large television production company and we are in the process of moving our entire operation to a new building - hectic! I will be working the next couple of weekends as well.

I have still had time to tend the garden though, and it is doing very well. I have many pictures and a few stories to share when I get caught up.

I have a few posts in my mind ready to go and pictures to go with them. Please let me know which one of these you would like me to write first. Maybe I can squeak out one or two of them in the midst of the move. Here are the posts I have in mind:

• How my corn is doing and the extraordinary pest deterrents I am employing.
• How my new experiment with extra high raised beds are doing well and why.
• My first attempt at worm composting. The success and failure and surprises I've seen.
• This years tomato support systems.
• How great the trellises are doing now that they are covered with pole beans.
• This years chronicle of a nest of baby robins growing up in front of my camera.
• Another garden insect photo safari.
• An update on the potatoes in the garbage can.<.li>
• My plans for the Fall garden.

See, I've still been active in the garden and thinking about posting. I just haven't been able to do it.

So what is the main one or two items in the above list that you would like to read about and see pictures of? I will begin posting these things in about a week.

Thank you for your continued patience and happy gardening!

Veggie Garden Harvest

One of the things I love about having a vegetable garden is that for the rest of the summer you can harvest fresh veggies for dinner.

I'm not talking about the big harvests of beans or tomatoes or zucchini that occur. I'm talking about having the ability to pick just enough for that days meals. My daughter enjoyed harvesting all of this but she thought the composition of my picture was all wrong. She rearranged the veggies to look like this:

She's right, that looks better.

Either way they are arranged, these vegetables will be eaten by my family in two meals. The eggplant is going into spaghetti sauce for a meal. The tomatoes, cucumber and pepper went into last nights salad and the potatoes and onions were cooked with a ham. The only thing that would have been better is if we had our own fresh green beans to go with it. We are growing beans, but they were planted late.

Its probably a good thing that I was late in planting so many things because I wouldn't have time for a big harvest right now. I have still been spending quite a bit of time with my Dad, helping him wherever I can since he is in the latter stages of cancer. When I do have time, the garden is a great place to go to get cheered up. Especially now that my wife weeded it (since I haven't done that enough) and since my daughter enjoys it too. Hopefully soon she can harvest another smiley face!

Carrots Still in the Garden!

It is very cold today in Kentucky. It was only 14 degrees when I woke up this morning. This weekend was much warmer though. On Saturday it was in the 50's, so the whole family got outside for some much needed sunshine and fresh air. We cleaned up fallen branches and moved some lumber that we use for our garden beds. We also measured out the spots where we will enlarge the garden this year.

While inspecting the existing garden area, my daughter found several carrots left over from last summer still in the ground. There were no tops left and we had weeded the entire bed when we pulled up the existing plants last fall. I'm not sure how they were missed, but there they were. We pulled them up and they looked okay - no insect damage or signs of rot.

I have been reading Eliot Coleman’s Four-Season Harvest, and in it he writes about planting carrots in the fall and leaving them "stored" right there in the ground ready for harvest all winter long. Our carrots were planted in early summer, so we weren't sure if they would still taste good. We were curious if they would taste alright but nobody wanted to try them. What we needed was a guinea pig or two to be the first to eat them.

So we fed some to our resident guinea pigs, Fizzy and Sammy who loved them! I then tried one and it wasn't bad. It wasn't at peak flavor, but it tasted good enough for me to believe Eliot Coleman is right about planting late carrots for winter eating.

As for Fizzy and Sammy, they actually acted more excited eating these carrots than they do when we give them store-bought carrots. It has been a while now since they got to eat any fresh produce actually grown in our garden. Come to think of it, it has been too long now since WE have eaten fresh from the garden.

I am going to try to implement some of Eliot Coleman's ideas this year to keep us eating from the garden longer. According to Eliot, we should be able to Harvest year round! That sounds good, doesn't it?!

What a Great Harvest!

Wow have we been blessed with a great harvest so far! The garden is exploding with tomatoes, potatoes, cucumbers, onions, zucchini and green beans.

We have been busy picking everything, making pickles and salsa, and freezing green beans. My daughters have been great about picking and snapping the beans.

We have been having a lot of fun with the harvest. We are still waiting on the corn and melons, but everything else has been doing well. The only thing not doing well are the carrots. We allowed the cantaloupe to take over the carrot and radish beds because I never put up the trellis that I was planning to build.

I hope your gardens are doing well. Sorry that I haven't posted in over a month. I have much to tell you and lots of pictures. I will try to get back to posting often. I want to tell you about what happened with the baby robins, and how the tomato supports have done. I have some interesting bugs to show you, some funny canning stories and much more. Check back frequently! Until then, blessings to you all.