This is our first year growing potatoes. Besides sweet potatoes, which aren’t ready yet, we grew three varieties of white potatoes. Red Cloud and Dark Red Norland are red-skinned varieties and Carola is a yellow potato (check out our August newsletter). We tried to get a russet variety, but the farm we ordered from didn’t have a good supply. Which is just fine with us, since red and yellow (and purple) are our favorite varieties anyhow. Let’s see how we did with our potato harvest.
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The summer is still hot, but we’re already looking toward fall. Join us for a tour of our summer garden. Some of the plants in our garden have been harvested completely, some are finishing up and looking a little sad in the summer heat and unusually dry weather, but we still have some we’re very much looking forward to harvesting. Find out what we planted for the first time this year, what did well for us, what didn’t quite work as planned. In addition, what will be in our fall garden.
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Growing garlic is so easy, even I can do it! I bet you can, too!
There are two types of garlic, but many varieties.
Hardneck varieties have larger cloves, but fewer per head, develop a flower stalk also called a scape, can be easier to peel, produce better in colder climates, don’t store as long. This type will have cloves that develop around a hard stalk that runs up the middle of the head.
Softneck varieties have more but smaller cloves per head, don’t develop a scape, can store longer
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This year, we are going to try a new approach to starting seeds, hopefully, with more success.
We have used hex cell starter trays but found they get to be too small too soon.
We have also planted seeds in a few spots per pot in larger pots. However, we found it more difficult to have a place for them to be put in the sun but out of the way of mischievous house pets….