Potato Update and Onions

The potatoes are flourishing in their new settings. I check them occasionally to make sure they're not getting soggy or rotting. So far, so good!

Red Norland

Kennebecs and Purple Vikings

Banana Fingerlings

My "walrus" banana fingerling

But, apparently, the best place for potatoes to start budding out is in the basket where I keep the potatoes from the grocery store!



Another new veggie in the garden this year is onions. We tried, very unsuccessfully last year to grow them. We planted them wayyyyyyyy too late and they gave up the ghost before we really even got started. Here are the onions waiting to go out. I have 2 bunches of red burgundy and 3 bunches of 1015Ys, "the" sweet Texas onion. Their packed in some dirt and I water them about every other day. Didn't want to leave them without water as they'd die. Still a few weeks away from planting time, so I gotta keep them babies alive!



In other news, the seeds are sorted and my catalog of what we're growing is made. I'm still looking for a few things, like a different okra variety and possibly another variety of pole beans. Other than that, I think we're set! To see my spreadsheet, you can visit it on Google docs. Stephanie's Spring 2010 Plant List Once you get there, just click on the blue links at the bottom to go to either herbs, flowers, or veggies.

Potatoes

Gardening season is getting ready to fire up around here. I'm so excited! One of the first things we'll plant are potatoes. This will be my first year growing potatoes, so I didn't order too many (1/2 lb. of 4 varieties). I'm also fairly clueless about potatoes, other than how to eat them, so this will definitely be a learning experience for me.

Around New Year's I ordered my potatoes from Ronniger Potato Farm. My planting date is Valentine's Day, so I requested my taters to be shipped the week of January 17th (this week). My potatoes arrived the first week of January during the Deep Freeze! They came wrapped in mesh bags clearly labeled with the variety. I ordered Red Norland, Kennebec, Purple Viking, and Banana fingerlings.


According to the Gardening Gurus over at Dave's Garden, you're supposed to take the seed potatoes out of the bags and let them start growing. (I grow my store-bought potatoes VERY well, so I'm an expert at this part! LOL) I put them in some kind of container and labeled each container with the variety so when I go to plant them, I'll know what I'm putting where.

Initially, I put them in the enclosed sun room where they'd get lots of warm air and sunshine. I have since found out that I should put them in a place that gets indirect light and not too warm temps as the warmer temps will cause them to rot faster. I don't think you can plant rotten potatoes. You can however, put them in the compost pile. Been there, done that!

Here was my setup yesterday out in the sunroom:



And today, on the kitchen counters. Please excuse the mess.




As you can see from the pics, some are already starting to sprout. That's great news!

When I plant them in a few weeks, I'll be planting some of them in this container. DH originally designed and built it to be a compost bin, but that's never happened, so I'm going to put it to good use. It's made from some kind palettes that they used to get where he worked. It has plenty of drain holes and ventilation. I think it's going to be perfect!


He just told me today that he's got more of these blue things in his old van, so he's going to build more containers for me! I didn't know he'd been holding out on me. :)