Harvesting my Container Grown Potatoes.

 I harvested my container-grown potatoes.

I had hoped for better results but I'm still more than grateful for what I did get.

Maybe better watering (a weakness of mine) may have yielded better results. I'll try again next season with a few more variables until I stumble on a formula that works well.

Three Minute Monday. Topping up my potato bags.🥔 🥔 🥔

🥔 Episode three of Three Minute Monday. 🥔 Can a three-minute video be called an 'episode'? 🥔 My potato bags are powering along and I need to add the last layer of potting mix and compost blend and then sit back and wait for the magic to happen.🥔

King Edward

Potato Pizza

If you click on the photo you should get a good sized readable photo to work off.

Cheers

Stewart.

The colour purple

According to the Sunday Mail newspaper here in Queensland and US researches it seems that 'Health conscious cooks could be serving up a new 'super-food' - the purple potato.'

They (the Sunday Mail) go on to say that 'When cooked without fat, it had been proved to reduce blood pressure and doesn't even make you put on weight.'

'The deep colour of the Purple Majesty variety comes from the same compounds found in blueberries, red cabbage and aubergines.'

The 'US researches found that when eaten by overweight patients with high blood pressure, it was as effective as rolled oats in lowering their reading. The study may help resurrect the reputation of the potato, seen by dieters as a food to avoid.'

Cheers and plant some purple tatties

Stewart

Brass monkey weather.

Am I going to make it into the veggie garden this Sunday? I'm hoping so.

I've missed the last three Sunday's firstly due to misadventure and then to a badish reaction to a flu shot and then Sunday just gone it rained last and the weather forecast for this coming Sunday is for showers with the chance of a storm in the afternoon. But with some luck I might get the morning in at least.

Needless to say the veggie garden is getting a bit ratty looking (I'd like to apoligize in advance to any Rats out there that may take offence to my previous remark, no harm was intended).

However having said that the rain has kept everything growing and looking very happy and despite the weather's best efforts to freeze the balls off a brass monkey I still have some potatoes and tomatoes growing, albeit slowly.

I took this photo of the Savoy cabbage that was attacked mercilessly by cabbage moth grubs which, after a fair bit of attention on my part, has survived to grow into the magnificent specimen you see before you and is looking like it will contribute to a bumper coleslaw in the very near future.

Cheers for now and fingers crossed for Sunday.

Stewart

Trying a few things myself

 I've had so many people give me so many suggestions on what to do and what not to do for growing a happy healthy, and bountiful potato crop without any what I'd call amazing success. That in order to get some  happy healthy, and bountifully good potatoes I've decided to try a few things for myself and see how they work out.

The first of these was the placing of the seed potatoes on a layer of comfrey in the bottom of my potato trenches (you can read all about it here).

The second step is to hill them up with a stable manure and soil mix. I'm really keen on stable manure and one day I summon up a post to show you why.

Then I tipped out a bag of fresh stable next to where I planted the spuds so it could age while the tatties were coming up and then when the tatties were high enough I spread the mix around the base of the tatties in order to hill them.

Since then they have received 48mls of rain in a storm and are positively jumping out of the ground.

Close up here on the left shows a healthy potato plant that has only received the comfrey treatment.

 After the hilling. A side benefit of having the stable manure, beside the potatoes, to age is that any nutrient that might have leached out into the soil will be available to next crop I decide to plant there.

Also with the comfrey under the potatoes and the horse manure and straw on top when it comes time to harvest the potatoes there is going to be some very rich organic soil there ready for planting.

So far I am happy with the choices I have made and their growth so far and now  the only thing left for my potatoes is to keep up the straw mulch and a fortnightly application of fish emulsion and wait to see what size crop I get from them.


Cheers for now

Stewart.

Love the smell of fresh hessian in the morning!!!

 The final digging of the last of my Ruby Lou Potatoes.

And to celebrate I shouted myself two potato bags from The Lost Seed Co. to store them in.

Love the smell of fresh hessian in the morning!!!

 This is about the long and short of it. About three rows of spuds from 15 or so seed potatoes.

While Ruby Lou is a great little roasting/chipping potato I'm thinking 'little' is the operative word here. Also not what I'd call a big cropper by any accounts. I'll be looking for a different variety to plant come next spring.

They're in the bag. About half full and ready for the shed/garage.

As for what gets planted next in this bed, well they're already in. Peas it is. Mainly for their nitrogen fixing ability and then a follow up with Broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower.
They all don't mind a bit of lime so I'll chuck some of that around and dig in some compost and blood and bone at the same time and she'll be as sweet as........ honey.

Cheers everyone

Stewart

Spuddies

Spuddies; There must be thousands of books written and a gazillion of web pages devoted to the growing of spuddies so I'm not going to waste your or my time by reinventing the wheel again.

I will however stick to the basics just in case.


Ruby Lou is the name of the variety I'm growing. I grew these last year and found them a good all round potato so in they go again.

1. Soil prep; I'm working on a previously dug bed so a straight forward turning over to the full depth of the digging fork tines is in order and then a trench about 100mm deep.
   
   
2. Place the spuddies about 25cm apart with the rows 75cm apart.
   
   
3. Back fill with compost and cover with the soil you dug out for the trench.
   
   
4. I didn't water in this case due to the soil being very moist and rain forecast for the next day (which did arrive, 36mm)
   
   
5. I also didn't mulch for the same reason as above. When things dry out a bit I have some, by now, very soggy wheat straw that I'll use to mulch the rows.
   
   
6. You can hill up around your spuddies, usually twice. The first time is when the plants make about 30 or so cm's and the second time is just before flowering.
   
   
7. I'll also be spreading some sulfate of potash around just as they start to break the soil and again at flowering time.
   

Note; At 0:29 on the video. Notice how I gently place the bucket down after use, very important this.

Cheers and happy spudding

Stewart

Save

In my last post (The Lost Seed) I expressed my desire to have the Potato Scoop that was advertised in the The Lost Seed's newsletter that I'd received from the The Lost Seed company. And just to show you I was serious about buying the Potato Scoop I went out and bought a cheap money box ($2.95), which is in the shape of your keyboard keys by the way, too help facilitate in the process of doing such a thing.

As you can see I written on it what it is for and at $2.oo a week with postage and handling it will take me 20 weeks to save the amount required which should give more than enough time to prepare my soil and get some spuds in the ground so I can give it a good ol' try out.

Cheers 'till next time

Stewart

S is for surprise

As regular readers might know I have a healthy disrespect for the weather bureau's ability to reliably predict up coming rain events and so it was when most of last week they were predicting some thundery rain or showers for Friday.

I continued on my merry way not expecting anything more than a 2 to 5 ml shower if lucky. Which is how last night started out. A flash in the pan a bit of spit and drizzle but to my surprise it went on with it and rained, stormed and showered all night.

Officially, at the airport, where our official weather recording station is, BoM measured 18.8 ml.
Officially, in my backyard, where I officially measure my official rainfall I measured 28mls.

With my new maths skills I make officially make that a 67.14% windfall over the airport's officially official weather recording.

How much are the potatoes Neville and I planted (see P is for Potato) on Wednesday going to love that?


So now I have the day off from watering I guess that leaves me some reading on arguments for and against Welfare system reform in Australia for my Assignment 2 Part B.

Wishing you all well at your place,
Stewart

P is for Potato

Now we're talking, bugger this digging fork stuff, rotary hoe all the way.

That's right, the Toowoomba Community Organic Gardens has a rotary hoe which Neville and I put to good work to turn over the now planted potato patch.

25 sq/mts of potato bed.

6 kgs seed potatoes. 3 kgs of pontaic and 3kgs of sebago plus 12 ruby lou seed potatoes.

Added some organic pelletized chook poo plus some extra potash (I'm told potatoes like potash so I'll see if it makes a difference to add some) and still to come is some cow manure that we'll use when we hill them up.

Done, dusted and watered.

The information provided below comes from the DPI website.

Sebago

Origin: Bred from a cross between Katahdin and Chippewa in the U.S.A., imported into Victoria in 1940.

Maturity: Mid-season variety with a growing period of about 130 days.

Description: Plants - Upright bush, pigmented flower buds with lilac flowers. Often produces berries. Tubers – Bright white smooth skin, white flesh, shallow eyed, regular shape, thick, oval tubers. Lenticels are often prominent, especially when grown under wet conditions and detract form skin appearance.

Cooking quality: Good for all household purposes with produce from some districts suitable for processing into crisps and French fries. It usually has a medium to high specific gravity and reconditions moderately well.

Disease resistance: Susceptible to leaf roll virus and very susceptible to blackleg, Verticillium wilt and Fusarium wilt. It has a useful degree of resistance to late blight and takes virus X only slowly in the field. The tubers are less prone to powdery scab compared with Sequoia grown in early districts. Tubers are more susceptible to "brown fleck" than other varieties - especially when grown in lighter soils.

Features: Sebago consistently produces a good sample of marketable tubers and is a major variety for both the washed and brushed markets in Australia. It has a short dormant period making it suitable for double cropping systems/ kept seed areas. It is recommended for growing under irrigation because of the greater number of tubers produced per plant. Seed potatoes and those for table use need to be handled carefully as it is quite susceptible to storage rots.

Red Pontiac
Origin: Pontiac was bred from a cross between Triumph and Katahdin and was originally released in the USA in 1938 and to Australia in 1940. Red Pontiac, a selection with a brighter skin colour, was released in the USA in 1949. Certified seed of Red Pontiac was released in 1975.

Maturity: Early maturing variety with a growing period of about 110 days.

Description: Plants - Large, spreading, dark green leaves, pigmented buds with light purple flowers. Very poor berry formation. Tubers - Many round tubers with attractive red skin and white flesh. Deep eyes.

Cooking quality: Pontiac has a low specific gravity and is not suitable for fry processing. It has good flavour when boiled or baked and is a good salad potato in that it holds its shape after cooking, and rarely shows after-cooking darkening. A good potato for pre-packing and is at its best when fresh.

Disease resistance: Pontiac is susceptible to late blight, virus X, and leaf roll virus. It is also susceptible to common scab and powdery scab.

Features: An important variety for the red skin fresh market. It produces high yields, establishing quickly and bulking early. Prone to oversize and distorted tubers if irrigation and fertiliser is excessive. Skin colour can often be poor and may fade totally with eyes only remaining red. Tubers are susceptible to shatter crack particularly when dug form cold soils. Pontiac tubers have a short dormant period. Seed which is cool-stored should be kept at a slightly lower temperature than other varieties.

Ruby Lou

Everything you wanted to know about ruby lou and then some click here.

Cheere and happy potatoing.

Stewart

Not the deadly

I had to hand in my enrollment paraphernalia for my prep course at uni today so I hopped on the deadly and rode out there.

It's about 9k's each way and mostly up hill on the way there and obviously down hill on the way home.

And for my 47 year old ex squash playing knees that don't do much more than lean on a brake peddle or accelerator in the taxi, I gotta tell ya that's a long way.


My plot at the Toowoomba Community Organic Gardens is on the way home, and as seen as I haven't been there since the last lot of rain I popped in to see how things were going.

When I first got my plot I planted some Violet Sicilian Cauliflower by seed which I planted in a spare raised bed close by. (behind the bike in the above photo)

They're doing well but I've got to get some blood and bone and sulphate of potash on them, as well as some mulch.


The peas are still growing well and will need to be stakes soon (I think I said that last time as well).













Weeds? What weeds?

This is a red cos lettuce the seeds of which I got from diggers. Never grown them before but they look good so far.








Leeks and spring onions.

I'm growing the leeks on at the moment, when they get about 200mm high I divide them up in to individual plants for growing on.










These are the broad beans I planted for a green manure but I'm finding myself attached to them and not wanting to turn them in.

When I get chance I'll ask the pres if I can have some more space for my potato planting plans and then I can keep the BB's.









Cabbage is doing well





















Broccoli Romanesco, same as the Violet Sicilian Cauliflower I planted some of these guys up.

They seem a little slow off the mark, but look healthy enough.

And same again, I've got to get some blood and bone and sulphate of pot ash on them, as well as some mulch.








Also after the recent rain the weeds are having a ball. Looks like wipper snipper time.

Well that's it for now, after having little to do for the last month the veggie gardening jobs seem to be piling up so I'd better get cracking and get into it.

Cheers,

Stewart

Spud

Hi all, I lifted this article straight off Wikipedia, so none of it is my work.
I've only posted it here because I was commenting on Peggy's Blog 'Organic Growing Pains' and noticed she called her Potatoes, 'Spuds', which I thought only us Aussies did.

So I did some searching about for info on the history of the use of the word Spud and this is what I came up with.

This article is about the common nickname for the small potato.

The etymology of spud is that this name for a small potato comes from the digging of soil (or a hole) prior to the planting of potatoes. The word is of unknown origin and was originally (c. 1440) used as a term for a short knife or dagger, probably related to Dutch spyd. The word spud traces back to the 16th century. It subsequently transferred over to a variety of digging tools. Around 1845 it transferred over to the tuber itself.

The origins of "spud" has erroneously been attributed to a 19th century activist group dedicated to keeping the potato out of Britain, calling itself The Society for the Prevention of an Unwholesome Diet.

It was Mario Pei's 1949 The Story of Language that can be blamed for the false origin of the word. Pei writes, "the potato, for its part, was in disrepute some centuries ago. Some Englishmen who did not fancy potatoes formed a Society for the Prevention of Unwholesome Diet. The initials of the main words in this title gave rise to spud." Like many other pre-20th century acronymic origins, this one is false.

The first edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica (1768-71), originally published in Edinburgh in the 18th century, referred to the potato as a "demoralizing esculent."

Watch this space #1

From this

















to this















to this
















to this














to this










to this.

What's he up to now, I hear you ask.

All will be reveled, as soon as they poke their little heads above the soil.

Cheers
Hope you have a great day.

Highly recommended #2

Pommes Dauphine
French for Potato bake only better.

The book is a Christmas present and since I have an abundance of Pommes (pink eyes to the rescue again) I decided to give Pommes Dauphine a try and it turned out the best potato bake I've had, seconded and thirded by wife and daughter.

Btw not a bad cookbook either.

Ingredents

1 clove garlic peeled and crushed with the flat of a knife
30g butter
1kg potatoes, peeled (I left my skin on) and thinly sliced
140ml single cream
Salt and Pepper
180g grated Comte or Gruyere cheese
90g butter cut into very small dice (not easy)

1/ Preheat the oven to 200c. Rub the bottom and sides of a heavy baking dish with the crushed clove of garlic. Grease the bottom and sides liberally with butter. Use a dish that can also be employed as a serving dish.

2/ Spread half of the potato slices in the bottom of the dish, sprinkle with half the cheese, salt and pepper and dot with half the butter dice. Top with the remaining slices of potato, neatly arranged. Sprinkle with the remaining cheese, salt, pepper and butter.

3/Pour the cream into the side of the dish around the potatoes.

4/ Cook in the top part of the oven for 30-40 minutes (mine took 60 min), or until the potatoes are tender and the top is nicely browned.
Serve immediately.

Post Christmas Post. Final

Boxing Day Dinner

OK the last Post Christmas Post.
The return of the Pink Eyes.
The Pink Eye potato's planted in September offered themselves (with a little help from a digging fork)up for the yummiest potato salad I've ever tasted.
My lovely wife put it together and after 17 years of marriage I think she's been holding out on me because this was really good, just hope I don't have to wait another 17 years for the next potato salad sensation






















Being Christmas there is always to much ham so with another salad my step daughter put together and with the yummiest potato salad ever dinner was just delicious.



Next post will be some real gardening news all about the dreaded blossom end rot on tomato's.

Cheers

Post Christmas Post. 1.

Hi all, I've just got my Five colour Silverbeet, Listada Di Gandia Eggplant, Rouge D'Hiver Cos Lettuce(red brown var.) and Red Iceberg planted out from their punnets so now I can do so post posting.


Christmas Day


Starting with my new camera that I got from Santa(aka me) so all photos from here on will be taken with my new da da Samsung S860. Except this one because I couldn't work out how to take a photo of the camera.





Once I worked out how to use it I've found it to be a good little camera.














Just staying with the veggie theme, here is a rundown of what the vg supplied for Christmas.


First was Christmas lunch which was a roast cooked by my lovely wife using the King Edward potato's I planted in September.

Now I've never grown these guys before and had no idea what to expect.
So when I dug the first few I was surprised to find they were coloured and lumpy or deep set eyes (see below).
Anyhow we just cleaned them up and roasted them skin and all and I've got to say that they were the best baked spuds I eaten for eons. (patting self on back again)





















Carrots, say no more yummm.
Roasted of course.















The next best vg surprise for me was the Lazy Housewife Beans which again are a first for me. I didn't particularly like them fresh off the vine when I tried them, but had hoped hey would cook up into a nice tasty bean, which, thankfully they did.









Here's the spoils before going into the kitchen.




More to come on the festive vg season then back to some more down to earth gardening.

Year of the spud

There's nothing to say here just have a giggle.

Pink eyes

Now I know why they call them Pink Eye potatoes. "Thems all got pink eyes, who woodda thought it"! (Voice in my head when I read this is like the warden from Cool Hand Luke my second fav movie)

I'm not harvesting yet but one of my plants had died back so I lifted it to see what I had or hadn't and this is what I have. Yeah for me, steamed spuds for lunch.
God I love gardening.

Clicking the photo will give you a better look!
Cheers
Stewart