Clearing Out My Allotment

I took some time and cleared out my allotment a few weeks ago.  Pulling potatoes is the most theraputic!  I also think it would be the greatest for kids to help with–digging holes and planting seed potatoes in the spring and summer, constantly piling up soil around the potatoes during the year, and digging them up when they're ready!  What fun! I also cut some of the proliferating calendula blooms for tea as well as a few pattypan squash

 As I was clearing out my plot I pulled some dandelion root to dry for tea, as well as some more plantain spears to dry for grain.

Lastly I found some mint roots hiding out underground, which I pulled and will plant under my tree to add to my mint/lemon balm/peppermint forest :)

Cooking My Potatoes!

Olive oil, salt and pepper.  350 degree toaster oven. 30 minutes. That's all they need..... SO TASTY!!

The Potato Harvest

When your potato stalks start to die, you know it's time to harvest!  I took my makeshift potato bags and tipped them over, throwing the stalks into the compost as "browns" and dig some digging for spuds! Such fun and so easy! The soil wasn't great so there weren't too many but man, am I ever excited to eat them!

Seed Potato Transporter

I discovered the best seed potato transporter–2 egg carton tops!  

I had been saving these to start seeds in and had some left over.  I was needing to trek my seed potatoes over to my other plot and voila!  Brainwave!

Living With Roommates

It's spring and part of the roommate deal for growing food on my kitchen window ledge was that I'd get rid of the clutter of it when I had lots of food growing outside.  I'm headed away for the weekend and have been taking up all the window space with other seedlings so the indoor free food ledge is done for the year.  I'm particularly impressed with the beet tops:

 and the celery:

although the lettuce was also pretty spectacular and beautifully tender.  You really do forget what literally just picked produce tastes like!  Everything is divine!!!  I snuch a bit of a beautiful kale plant that was growing at my community garden plot–SO TENDER AND SWEET!  Yes, KALE.  Tender and sweet–PHEW!  Getting me extremely excited for the upcoming harvest!

On a side note–look at the size of my potato plants!  Wow!! And I only planted them 2 weeks ago!

First Potato Planting!

I'm building a stacking potato planter instead of needing to pile up soil on the ground.  The sprouts will shoot up and you just keep adding soil and potentially new seed potatoes to the bag as they grow. They will stack tall.  At the end of the season, you dump the soil and have a whole whack of potatoes! I have 3 bags going so I won't need to harvest everything at the same time. Here's how it goes:

My happy chitted potatoes, ready to go into the ground:

As I ran out of time to sew my own, I copped out and purchased 3 of those fold-y laundry-type bags from Dollarama (I know, I know!!) I punched a few holes in the bottom for drainage:

 Tied down the sides with the ripped up pant ties I made yesterday, through a little hole I made 2/3 down the side of the "planter":

Filled the "planter" with about a foot of soil, a bit of ash for potassium and blood meal for nitrogen (unfortunately I don't have any phosphorus, which potatoes really love...  Oh well, we'll see what happens!)

I made 4 holes a few inches deep (bag itself is approximately 2.5 feet in diameter), placed a potato with 3 sprouting eyes (or three small potatoes with one eye each) in each hole, with the eyes facing up, and covered with an inch or two of soil.
Water and wait to see what happens!

Chitting Potatoes

I've been saving organic potatoes with prominent eyes for a few weeks now.
Any time I buy potatoes, I set aside one or two in an old egg carton in a place without direct sun and let it do its thing. I'll put aside the ones already starting to chit (those little green bits you see), or ones that look like they might soon.

Moral of the story is, when you have potatoes that are starting to grow, don't throw them out, chit them!  Each of those little eyes has the capacity to grow a bunch of beautiful potatoes, and while you're waiting for them, you get flowers too!  Planting I will explain soon but in the meantime, set them aside to chit and get excited.