My Harvest Life - Episode 16: The Potato Harvest!

Year 1 - Fall Day 31

Today I harvested the rest of the potatoes!  There was a nice small bags worth from the 3 to 4 potato plants that produced.  I didn't get a ton of potatoes, and I also didn't let the skin harden enough for long term storage, so we'll have to eat them relatively soon.  There were a bunch of medium and small potatoes as well as some really large ones.  Above is one of the bigger ones that I got.  It was neat since these were just red potatoes from the store that I used to start the plants, and next year I plan to get some fancier, rarer brands of potatoes to grow.  In addition I will also dig up the ground before planting to give them some broken up earth beneath to easily grow down into.  The ground is a bit hard and I think that contributed to the limited potato supply.

Other than harvesting potatoes today, I also planted 200+ flower bulbs in front of my house.  For 25$ on Bulbs Direct I got 2 large bundles of various bulb flowers and planted them around our feature plants in the front.  Some of the flowers included:

Liatris Spicata Purple

Anemone Coronaria Mr Fokker

Muscari Armeniacum

Gladiola Nanus Mix

And there were a bunch more varieties of flowers as well from white and purple flowers to yellow flowers.  So I am looking forward to seeing these all bloom next spring and seeing them fill in the front of the house.

Next year I will be sure to photograph the beautiful displays of color!

- Level 1 Gardener: Jace -

Next Episode 17: Putting The Tomato Plants out of their Misery

My Harvest Life - Episode 15: First Potato & Lunch

Year 1 - Fall Day 24

Today I got my first little red potato!  The potato plants were dying and getting eaten up, so I cut down the tops and will let them sit for a week or so before harvesting the rest of the potatoes.  I'm curious to see how many the plants produced in the rocky ground.  There does appear to be a couple large ones near the surface, so hopefully there are a bunch more deeper in.

Some Early Potatoes on the Surface

I've also harvested a bunch of tomatoes: a lot of little ones and a few big ones.  They're full of tomato flavor and have been good cut up on sandwiches and in other dishes.  I also finished picking all of the carrots, as they've stopped growing too much in the rocky soil.  Their growth was stunted, as the rocks beneath the first few inches of soil stopped them from getting big, so next spring I'm going to till up those rocks and pull em out so that the carrots can grow deeper.  I wonder if that will affect the potatoes as well.

Final Carrots and First Bunch of Tomatoes

Tasty things have been made with the tomatoes and the first medium sized potato above.  Today I made myself a scrambled-eggs-cheezy-hashbrown thing that looks horrendous but was pretty tasty!  I sautéed some onions and made the hash browns from the first big red potato, and then added some sliced tomato and topped it all with whipped eggs and cheese.  Was a bit of a goopy mess, but was actually pretty good.

Delicious, despite looking like mush

The basement herb garden has been going okay, but all of the herbs seem rather stunted, so I decided to pick half of them to allow the other half to grow bigger.  I also transplanted a few of the lemon mint plants outside in one of the flower pots so that they could get some room to breath and grow.  This should give the rest of the herbs in the basement growing area a bit of breathing room and space to stretch out and thrive.

For the ones I picked I created a little place to hang them in the kitchen window.  The fragrant aromas of the basil, oregano and thyme are a pleasant experience and in a few weeks they'll be dried and ready for storage.

Fresh Herbs and Tomatoes

The spinach continues to slowly grow despite my dog, Max thinking the garden is an area to jump into and stomp around.  He's knocked over the barrier a few times, and I've had to fix it and staple it back up.  The kale however... we'll see what happens but this one seems to be a failure.  Something, either rabbits or my dog, keeps getting in and eating all the leaves.  (Maybe caterpillars?)  And the tomato plants have fallen over where the kale was planted, so they're not getting much sunlight.  However the onions and garlic are finally making a resurgence after removing the overbearing cucumber plants.  They're finally starting to thicken up and grow a bit, hopefully they can finish growing before winter sets in.

- Level 1 Gardener: Jace -

Next Episode 16: Potato Harvest!