Monday, April 12, 2021

Potatoes: Tasty Tubers


Potatoes are one of the most rewarding crops to grow. While the tops grow, flower, and then die back tasty tubers are forming underground.  Digging in the cool rich soil pulling out tasty potatoes grown organically is a thrill!  With skin colors from purple, blue,  red, and brown potatoes are anything but boring!  Some of the harvest will store well into the winter with very little preparation.  And some will be enjoyed on the day of harvest because nothing beats a fresh baked potato. 

Potatoes  are a family favorite with endless cooking options:  baked, boiled, roasted, shredded, steamed or fried.  They can serve as a taste side dish, in a salad, or even as the main event at a meal.

They are a great storage crop and can be processed in a pressure canner or dehydrated.  With so many options why not give the spectacular spud a try?

Purple Viking Potatoes

Are Potatoes Healthy?

Potatoes are actually nutritional gold mines.  They contain  vitamin C, potassium, iron and are a good source of fiber. They also contain B vitamins, vitamin A, minerals like zinc, iron, calcium and magnesium, and antioxidants. In fact, one medium potato with its skin can provide half of the recommended daily dose of vitamin C. In a survival situation, this would definitely be an important crop because it is calorie and nutrient dense characteristics.

Kennebec

Why Brother Growing Potatoes?


Why not just purchase potatoes from the store?  After all they are inexpensive, so why go to the effort to grow them?  There is a difference between fresh potatoes and store potatoes.  Texture and taste are so much better. Also there are so many varieties and colors and shapes of potatoes each suited to  a particular use and cooking method. Flavor ranges from nutty to sweet and from mild to intense.  Each variety has its own texture.  The texture determines what dishes each variety is best suited for.  Once you start growing your own spuds you will always find a space for them in the garden.

Besides the endless options of heirloom varieties,growing your own potatoes means you are getting an organic pesticide free potato.  Commercial potatoes are heavily sprayed with chemical fungicides and pesticides.
Purple Viking

Picking a Potato

Potatoes are planted from whole or partial seed tubers.  Use only certified seed quality tubers not grocery store potatoes.  This prevents the risk of certain diseases.

Potatoes can be characterized by maturity date, any where from 65-180 days, and skin type.  There are early, mid season, and late varieties.  I like to plant at least one variety of the early, mid, and late season potatoes. This extends the potato season allowing us to enjoy these yummy spuds from late summer through fall.  Skin types include russets, smooth, and colored.  Some varieties exhibit some resistance to potato disease so that is another factor to look at.  Each variety allows a different yield from light to heavy yields. Storage length is also another consideration with the late season varieties being the best for storing.

Weeding and prepping the field

 Planting Potatoes

Start with egg sized potatoes.  Larger potatoes can be cut and left out overnight to cure at room temperature.  Potatoes can be planted 4-6 weeks before the last frost date as long as the soil can be worked.  They like a sandy soil with lots of organic matter. 

 I start with a trench 1-1 1/2  feet deep. Leave the removed soil on the side of the trench. Before planting, I add dry organic fertilizer.  I  plant the seed potatoes 8 inches apart.  Cover the potatoes with only 2 inches of dirt.  


When the potatoes emerge and have about 6 inches of top growth cover them with another 2-4 inches of soil.  Continue to do this until the plants are level with the surrounding ground.  Then mound up one more time around the potatoes so they are actually  growing on a hill.  This is important because potatoes form between the seed potato and the ground level.  Mounding ensures an abundant crop.



Care of Potatoes

Other than the dry organic fertilizer you put in the trench potatoes do not need any other fertilizer.  You can cover emerging potatoes with compost once while mounding them and again when you hill them. Straw can also be used to mulch potatoes just be sure it is seed free. 

Even moisture is important to prevent mishapen potatoes.


Pests

There are a few pest to watch for in your potato crop.  As with all your crops, a stroll through the potato plot looking for signs of insect damage will result in early detection and possibly save your crop.  

 Colorado Potato Beetle? - Leptinotarsa decemlineata       Colorado Potato Beetle Larva   Colorado Potato Beetle eggs on Nightshade leaf
 Colorado Potato Beetle

This beetle reside in most states despite the name Colorado potato beetle.  Check the underside of leaves, looking for masses of orange eggs.  Destroy them!  The adult beetle is yellow with black stripes.  The larvae is dark red or orange with black spots.  Both adults and larvae feed on the potato foliage.  Pick them off or spray with Neem and Spinosad.

 flea-beetle-1.jpg
Flea Beetle

Flea beetles are small pesky black beetles.  They chew small holes in plant leaves damaging young plants.  Rotating your crops and maintaining high organic matter in the soil will help.

Diseases

Problems with disease vary from year to year.  The determining factor will be the weather. Moisture and temperature and the right host make disease pathogens active.  

There are some preventative measures you can take.  First of all it is very important to rotate where you plant potatoes.  Potatoes and tomatoes are in the same family so keep that in mind when planning your crop rotation. Second always use certified disease free potato seed.  And finally use a regular organic spray routine throughout the season.

I have found the following spray routine effective for both pests and disease:

  • Neem Oil
  • Spinosad
  • Kaolin Clay

I put all three sprays in the same sprayer and apply every two weeks.  I also add kelp and fish emulsion.

 Scab

The fungus that cause common scab lives in the soil for many years.  It is inactive if the pH of the soil is below 5.4.  You can take a soil test to determine pH.  Look for scab resistant varieties.

Late Blight

Late blight was responsible for the Irish potato famine.  It is caused by the fungs Phytophthora infestans.  This disease loves cool, wet weather and spreads as the weather warms up.  Look for water soaked areas that turn brown and black as the leaf dies.  Both potatoes and leaves can be affected.  Be sure to plant certified seed and follow a regular spray routine.  If weather conditions are right add Serenade to the spry routine.

  Mosaic Virus

  MosaicVirus is spread by aphids.  It causes leaves to curl and they look two toned.  This virus occurs throughout the United States.  Kennebec and Katahdin, two of my favorite storage varieties, have some resistance to this virus.


Let everyone help look for potatoes!

Holding the lids open

Harvesting Potatoes

You can harvest new potatoes before the main harvest.  This robbing can be done 50-60 days after planting.  A good time to rob for new potatoes is right before flowering.  Just gently reach into the hill and remove the new potatoes. Be very gentle.

Potatoes for storage are dug after the plant flowers and the vines begin to die.  They must be dug before the ground freezes.  

To check for maturity dig up a plant and rub the skin.  The skins should not rub off. If they do and weather permits leave them in the ground a couple more weeks. Harvest in the morning on a dry day.  Dig your potato fork to the side of the plants and gently lift out the spuds.  Digging around will result in finding more potatoes.  It's like a treasure hunt.

Brush off the dirt but do not wash until you are ready to use them.  I cure them in a cool garage on a rack which allows circulation and continues to cure the skins. Curing allows skins to harden and cuts and bruises to heal.

Used to store potatoes in the house.

Storage rack to cure potatoes in my garage.

Storing Potatoes

Potatoes are stored best in cool, dark, and humid conditions.  The ideal temperature is 40 degrees with 80-90% humidity.  Lower humidity causes potatoes to shrivel and light causes them to sprout.  In the west it is difficult to maintain high humidity, but do the best you can to maintain good storage conditions.  Not all varieties store well so use them up first and save those varieties intended for long term storage for later.

Varieties I like:.

Early Season 

Purple Viking: early, purple skin, white flesh my favorite.  My all time favorite

Red Norland:  Red skin, white flesh resistant to scab
Moutain Rose:  Red skin and flesh

Mid Season: 

Katahdin:  Reliable, white flesh, good storage, a must in my garden
Kennebec:  Large, reliable, large yields, long storage, excellent

La Soda Red:  Dark red, white flesh, disease resistant, high yields


Late Season:

Carola:  yellow flesh, excellent quality, drought, scab, and blight resistant, high yields
All Blue:  Large blue skin and flesh, high yields

Be sure to place online potato orders early or you will not have very many choices available.  The sell fast.  














Thursday, April 8, 2021

Growing Spinach



Spinach has specific growing requirements and if you procrastinate you will miss out on this delicious  and nutritious green.

Spinach needs a good 6 weeks of cool weather.  It can be planted when soil temperatures are 55-65 degrees or as soon as your ground can be worked  It will not germinate well in soils that are above 70 degrees.  It is not a summer crops  It can be sown again in fall and protected under row covers for late fall harvests.


The spinach plant is daylength sensitive.  This means it waits until there are a certain number of daylight hours and that is the signal to bolt or set seed. When daylight hours reach 12-15, your spinach knows it's time to produce seeds. It is at this point that you can determine the sex of you plants if that is important to you.  If you save seed that will be a factor. You need both male and female plants.



 Keep in mind that spinach is wind pollinated and the pollen is very fine and travels far.  You can only save seed from one variety and must have both male and female plants.  


Types of Spinach

There are two types of spinach leaves:  smooth and savoyed or wrinkled.  Some people prefer the smooth, but I like both and plant some of both.  The seed  type can be used to determine the leaf type.  The smooth seed produces wrinkled leaves while the prickly seed produces smooth leaves.  


Planting Guides

Spinach should be seeded directly in the garden it does not like to be transplanted. It can usually be seeded 3-4 weeks before the last frost date which for me is May 14th.  If I count back 4 weeks, that means around mid April 1st can begin planting.  If weather permits and the soil has warmed up, I plant even early and use a low tunnel or floating row covers.


 Give the plants ample space.  No more than 4 per square foot.  It is a good idea to successive plant every couple weeks in early spring but stop planting if you do not have 6 weeks of cool weather remaining.  It does not like temperature above 75 nor does spinach do well in fluctuating temperatures.

Plant in a soil with plenty of organic matter worked in and a dry organic fertilizer.  I use a mixture of bone meal and blood meal.  Fertilizing is not usually necessary after that as long as you prepared your soil.  Mulch around the seedlings and water regularly.  Spinach is very cold hardy and can survive in temperature as low as 15-20 degrees. 



Harvesting

I usually harvest the outer leaves so I can have a continuous harvest but the entire plant can be harvested.  The younger the leaves, the more tender and better flavored they are. Harvest in the morning.  Slightly rinse the leaves and store in a plastic container or plastic bag.  Do not clean thoroughly until you are ready to use the spinach.  


Spinach is store with lettuce and sorrel  in a large plastic air tight container.

I enjoy spinach raw in spinach salads or mixed with other greens. It's also very good in place of lettuce on sandwiches.  It is very nutritious with vitamins A, B6, C, folate, calcium, and iron. 



Pests and Disease of Spinach

Spinach can get leaf miners and Mosaic virus which is called spinach blight.



Leaf Miners


Brown  and tan blotches on the leaves are a sign of leaf miners.  The adult is a fly that pupates in the soil and lays white eggs on the under side of the leaf.  The larvae called maggots (yuck) enter the leaf and create leaf mines.  They are hard to kill with pesticides because they are inside the leaf.  I pull off infected leaves so that the larvae don't mature and feed to livestock or chickens.  To help control leaf miners, cultivate or turn over the soil where you plant spinach, chard, and beets to kill the pupae.  Row covers can also keep the adult from laying eggs on the leaves.


Spinach Blight

Plants infected with spinach blight just need to be pulled up.  There is no cure for viruses and they can be spread by insects feeding on various plants. 





Varieties of Spinach

Bloomsdale Longstanding (OP):  This is the standard for spinach.  It's my favorite.  It has deeply savoyed (wrinkled leaves) and is deep green and wonderfully flavored for salads.  The leaves are upright off the ground.  


America (OP)  savoyed type that is supposed to be slow to bolt. A Bloomsdale longstanding type.  A new variety I am trying this year.

Space (F1):  A smooth leafed spinach with spoon shaped leaves. 

Tyee (F1):  This is slightly savoyed leaf.


Giant Noble (H):  Heirloom of 1926.  Very large leafed, tender


Melody (F1):  Also very large leaves with upright growth


Butterflay:  Another good variety but low to the ground and more susceptible to problems because of that.



There are lots of other varieties to try but my garden will always have Bloomsdale Long Standing along with a other varieties.  Be sure to try a smooth leaf variety.  It will make that spinach salad much more interesting.



Summer Spinach

After all the talk about cool weather, both New Zealand Spinach and Malabar Spinach that can be grown in the summer.  The reason is that neither are a true spinach.


Malabar Spinach is a perennial vine in warm climates.  It prefers hot humid weather.  The leaves are used like spinach in salads.


New Zealand spinach needs warm soil to germinate and does not tolerate frost .  The leaves can be substituted in cooked dishes for spinach.  It is very high in oxalic acid which causes a flavor many people do not like.


Tuesday, April 6, 2021

Jostaberries, Not "Justaberry" It's so much more!




The jostaberry bush is not too common in the United States but if you are looking for a low maintenance, productive bush for the landscape or garden this is the bush for you.  It is a hybrid cross between a black currant and gooseberry.  There are no spines and the berries are a beautiful deep purple almost black when ripe.  They hang in clusters of 3- 5. They are great in desserts, ice cream, or jellies. They are tart but actually not too bad eaten fresh.  They are extremely healthy. Birds also like these berries.


 This bush will tolerant most soil conditions but naturally if berry production is your goal you will want to mix organic matter into the soil before planting along with a dry organic fertilizer.  I use my own mix of 1 part blood meal and 2 parts bone meal with a little greensand or azomite for trace minerals or there are many complete organic fertilizers available. Use on for vegetables. These bushes are very cold tolerant and will even do fine in part shade.  They are great if you are looking for an edible landscape bush.

 This is a large bush needing 6-8 ft between bushes.  It will take 4 years to come into full production but will give berries prior to that.  They bear on 4 year old wood and younger so you can prune out older wood. Remove weak and crossing branches in the early spring. In the summer you can shorten the new growth to prevent the plant getting too big and completely out of control. This should also encourage the formation of fruiting buds for the next year. After several years, it may be a good idea to rejuvenate the bush by cutting out some of the oldest branches from the base, allowing new branches to grow and eventually fruit. However if you do no pruning it is still productive.

Each year you can mulch around the plant and in early spring spread a dry organic fertilizer around the root zone.  I really like this berry it's larger than black currants and and no spines to worry about like a gooseberry.  I have 4 of these bushes and will probably add a few more.  Two are in my landscape and 2 are in a berry patch.  Make sure to leave room around this bush to pick the berries.  




After making jostaberry jelly, this is definitely a berry I'm looking forward to each year.  I think it would also make a great juice, syrup, and the berries canned in syrup would be great on ice cream. 



These members of the Ribes genus are highly nutritious and are easily propagated through hardwood cuttings.  I will be doing this to get some additional bushes.  If you are looking for them from a nursery try Raintree.  I suggest planting in early spring.

Jostaberries and gooseberries are very popular in Europe and are slowly gaining popularity in the United States. 





Nutritional Information
  • As in blackcurrants, they too have significantly high amounts of phenolic phytochemicals especially flavones and anthocyanins. These compounds have been found to have numerous health-benefiting effects against cancer, aging, inflammation, and neurological diseases.
  • They have antioxidant and moderate amounts of vitamins A, C, and B.
Jostaberries are a good choice for an edible landscape, shelterbelt, or hedgerow.  The deer also seem to leave them alone. You can't go wrong with jostaberries.