Root Crops at market

Yummy beets will be at market again this week

The SWEET GOLDEN

CHIGGOIA, CYLINDER, and Detroit Red

(aren't they beautiful)

Turnips and Potatoes

ONION BRAIDS

probably my last week for purple and yellow beans

I will have a big variety of summer veges 

and bushels and bushels of CARROTS!

Please come early, I will be leaving market at 5:00 for an

 ARTIST RECEPTION

at the Gallery in the Western Park Museum

 Vernal, Utah

celebrating the 25th annual Jurried show

I've entered several of my paintings

hope you all come out to see the exhibit!

I just couldn't resist, I entered this little 8x10 self portrait entitled
 "FarmHER JILL"
 in the open oil category
hopefully the judge has a sense of humor!

POTATO CAKES

 

To make potatoe cakes you use left-over mashed potatoes.  

If you make the origional mashed potatoes rich, smooth and creamy, the cakes will not hold their shape as well.

 

 I have best results mashing  with a fork or potatoe masher and adding a small amount of milk and butter.

 

 

 

Just form the cold mashed potatoes into cakes and fry in butter or olive oil

 

 

 

 

When crisp, turn and add cheese if desired

 

 

 

Try adding onions, minced garlic, chives, or grated cheese to the cakes before frying.

Serve with a spoon of sour cream on top.

 

An egg  and flour can also be added.

 

 

IRISH POTATOE CAKES

 

3 lbs. boiled and cooled potatoes

grate or mash pototoes

add

3/4c. flour (more if needed to form a stiff dough)

1 tsp. baking powder

dash of salt

3/4c. butter

mix with your hands

roll out dough 1/2"- 3/4" thick with a rolling pin and cut into circles

Fry on a hot griddle.

Serve with a fancy cream cheese topped with smoked salmon

or sliced tomatoe

 

 

I have a confession to make

I have felt guilty about this all week.  I have been swamped with all the kidding, bogged down and drug around by my tiller, blistering my hands shoveling potato rows, and almost getting a hernia from lifting  125 pound bales of hay.  And to top it all off I got a flat tire that I had to change myself.  Well, I ------here goes-----I bought-----------paper plates.  Not just the wrinkled edged white ones, but heavy duty ones with a cutesy design around the rim.  It seemed that after dragging in long after dark I just didn't have the energy to wash dishes by hand.  I am so  ashamed.  I have always used the finest un-matching china I could purchase from the thrift store.  Beautiful rose patterns trimmed in gold, amber green glass goblets from the seventies and silver flatware left behind by a prior caretaker.  A lace table cloth  adorned the table and a meal fit for a king would be placed upon it.   Now when I do stop long enough to eat I plop a scoop of  yogurt on a paper plate, top it off with a handful of berries, grab an oatmeal raisin cookie (found the dough in the freezer that Jake must have made last summer) and away I go.  Just had to get that off my conscience.  Back to work.

Planting Potatoes

                          
                                         The moon is waning.  It is time to plant the potatoes.

                                              Red Potatoes saved from last years crop

Cut potatoes, leaving 3 or 4 eyes in each piece

and the sprouts attached

This large potato I cut into 4 pieces.  Leave potatoes whole if they are small.

I only plant about an acre of potatoes so this is my fancy planting equipment:  a bucket to carry the seed in, and a shovel to dig the rows and then plant the seed by digging down deep into the top of the row.  Now holding the shovel with all the dirt on, I somehow reach into the bucket and plant the seed as far into the ground as possible.   The dirt is replaced and hilled up.  By planting very deep I miss setting the crop back due to frost, and spend less time hilling up  over the growing season.  Oh did I forget to mention you also need a good strong back. ( I'm getting to old for this!)

potatoes are planted very deep and hilled up with a hoe when I weed

I have planted Blue, Red, and Yukon Gold thus far, I will be planting Purple Viking and Russets and hopefully have them in by tomorrow night.

"chitting or greening potatoes"

The potato sprouts have turned green.  This happens when the potato is set out in the sun before planting.  Many small gardeners use this method, it gives you a jump start on the season.  I plant potatoes right out of the root cellar and  leave the white, un-green sprouts on.  If the sprouts are too long you can break them off the potato and plant just the sprouts.  I have had good success using this method.  Potato seed can be expensive and if you plant the longer sprouts separate from the potato you can increase your crop substantially.

                                       these potatoes have sprouts over a foot long

This is a bag of potatoes given to me by a neighbor.  He had kept them in the paper bag and the sprouts had grown about a foot tall.  I decided to experiment.  I have tried all kinds of ways to grow potatoes in containers over the years without much success.   Large tires stacked up higher and higher as the vines grow.  Fenced in areas using sawdust and straw, barrels etc.  nothing has worked well, but I am always looking for ways to produce more in less space.  So I tried this:

A large black pipe about 4 feet wide.  Placed the potatoes on the ground and stood the sprouts up vertically; covered the potatoes with a couple 5 gallon buckets of compost, watered in well, shoveled dirt over that, and then put straw for the next layer being careful to keep the sprouts vertical.  Two more buckets of compost, straw and another bucket of compost just for good measure.  We'll see what happens.

I read that some potato varieties will only set on a certain amount of potatoes. To raise potatoes in a barrel you need one that will set all along the root system as it climbs higher.  The suggested types are Yellow Finn and Pontiac Red.  I have reds in the black pipe.

With the remaining sprouts and potato intact, I am going to dig small trenches and lay the  1 to 2 foot sprouts down length-wise.   (Usually I plant the sprouts  deep, just like potatoes, but I want to try something different)  Cover  over with a little bit of dirt, water them in well and then lay a 4 inch layer of straw over-top.  To keep the wind from blowing the straw away I will place 5x16 foot wire cattle panels on the straw.  It will be easy to remove the panels and add more straw as the vines break the surface.  Let's see if it will work.

Here is a picture half way through the growing season.  I dug trenches 3 inches deep and placed the potatoe with sprouts lengthwise along the bottom of  the trench.   I covered with a little dirt and 6 inches of straw, and then placed 16 foot wire panels over the straw to keep it from blowing away.  I removed the wire panels after the plants gained enough size to hold the straw down.  The weeds were kept to a minimum, except for wheat berries that sprouted, but those were pulled and fed to the chickens.  This has been the best method of growing (other than rows and hills)  I have tried.  The one drawback is  chickens scratching through the straw and discovering the new potatoes and eating them.

Welcome those of you who have stopped by from the square foot gardening forum.  I hope this will give you a little information.  I did not have good success with the potatoes in the black pipe.  As far as just planting the sprouts, I have had very good success.  The blue potatoes seem to produce the best from only planting the long sprouts.

Here are the end of the season results:

When the vines are dead I just use a regular shovel to remove the potatoes

This is my usual harvest per hill

all this from just one little potato seed

                            I  was raised growing potatoes on the farm, read an earlier post
                             " You say potato, I say tater".
                                    Happy Planting!!!!

You say potato, I say tater

Yesterday I had to go buy potatoes at the grocery store.  The last time we were at the farm we didn't have room in the car to bring a sack of potatoes back to Roosevelt with us.  As I emptied the brown plastic sack of small, under-nurished, over  processed, chemical ridden, etc,etc,  potatoes into the  "tater cupboard", it set my mind to thinking about potatoes. I am a potato snob.  Only the best for me.

Glen digging potato rows


As a kid my younger  sister and I had the job of watering the potatoes at the farm.  Back in the "olden" days before sprinklers the water was pumped out of the well into a very large ditch.  We then siphioned the water over the ditch bank with a curved  5 foot long, 1 inch around  pipe, directing the water into each individual potato row.  Between 50 to 100 pipes were used to carry the water load.  They had to be changed every couple of hours as the 1/2 mile rows finished watering.  Day after day we lived at the farm changing the potato rows.  At night we would set the wind-up alarm clock, crawl out of our sleeping bags and walk in the dark to where the water was.  We would change the water using exact timing so the water would not flow over the ditch bank and cause a distarous break out of the 5 ft. high bank.  We would stumble around in the dark completing our task , watching and waiting for a half hour to make certain things were done correctly, then  we would head back to the camp trailer.  We would get about an hours sleep before the alarm rang again and we started the process all over again...all night....all day.....all summer. 
   We drank out of the ditch to cool our thirst.  It was the coldest water,  sometimes we would just jump  in.  We would get ravenous hungry working in the hot sun all day.

Walking down the potato rows we'd dig under the potato plants and find the new potatoes.  Wiping them off on our pants, we'd pull a little salt shaker from our pocket and eat the potatoes to tide us over until mom came with our lunch.  I still enjoy eating raw potatoes!!! We raised Russets then, they are a good baking potato ( I don't bake my potatoes in foil I love the hard, crunchy skins eaten with a hunk of real butter), but I prefer the delicate taste  differences the other varieties provide.
Last year I didn't have as good as a variety of potatoes that I usually have.   I have smart gophers at the farm. They have discovered if  they tunnel in a straight line they can find a stash of potatoes about every 12 inches.  They harvest the potatoes, taking them to their large under-ground cavern and store them for winter eating.  Carver once discovered a burrow containing over 100 potatoes. 

Here are a few of my favorites:


PURPLE VIKING; large,  thin -skinned purple and pink.  I enjoy this potato as hashbrowns  or made into potato chips.  It is also good baked or mashed.

MOUNTAIN ROSE; a medium sized potato.  Dark red on the outside, rose collored inside.  It tastes as good as it's name.  I use it for potato salad or oven fries.  It can also be baked.

BLUE;   blue all the way through.  Use for  oven fries with olive oil and herbed itialian seasoning.  I think blue mashed potatoes are the greatest.
  I had a lady at market (nobody I knew) cuss me  out about the $ 3.00 a pound price on my speciality potatoes.  I thought to myself with a smirk, well you can just go to the big grocery store down the street and pay 5.99 a pound plus tax.
  You don't have to buy my beautiful, yummy blue potatoes. I"ll just take them home and eat them myself!

YUKON GOLD;  another one of my favorites.  Use for creamy mashed potatoes, baby potatoes roasted with olive oil and seasoning.  I also use this potato in bread and spud-nuts.

YELLOW FINN; a potato I use mostly for hashbrowns.

FINGERLINGS;  all color.  Boil  or roasted.



NOTES ABOUT POTATOES

Why do fresh, just dug potatoes taste so good?  The potate has natural sugars in them and when they are eaten just after being harvested those sugars are still intact.  As the potatoes are stored the sugars turn to starch and affects the taste, I also recomend never peeling a potato..

Glen still digging potato rows

 Thanks honey, 1 patch down, now only 6 more to go.