The third week in March has grown into Potato Planting Week here on the farm in East Tennessee, and today was unofficially Spud Day. The first of the seed potatoes went into the ground.
(Unfortunately, all we have is the "after" pictures, none "during." The crew does not always take kindly to having a photographer on the scene while work is being done, and I did not want to risk a work stoppage.)
We put in more than 130 pounds of potatoes -- a few more than 80 pounds in the potato garden, east of the vegetable garden which John operates. Then we put in 50 pounds in the first rows of my part of the vegetable garden. For the record, here's how they went in:
Row 6 (east to west): Yukon Gold; mixture
Row 7: Red Gold; Russian banana (fingerlings)
Row 8: Russian bananas
Row 9: French fingerlings
Row 10: Peanut fingerlings
As usual, we ordered our seed potatoes from Roninger's out in Colorado, and our hopes are high. Roninger's has good products and we have been very satisfied with their service.
The weather for planting today was nearly perfect: dry, cloudy and temps in the mid 50s. We will remember this day when we are harvesting in July.
This is actually been a two-day process to get the garden read (and protected) for planting. Cattle from the field next to ours have been getting through the fences, and they do every spring. Unfortunately, the owner of the cattle figures they will be back, no matter where they wander, and doesn't see his job as keeping the cattle in. Consequently, I have to work to the keep the cattle out.
So, yesterday morning starting with my doing some fence mending. It's just one of the things I've learned to do since we have been on the first. I found a couple of spots where the cattle were getting through and had to string some new lines of barbed wire to discourage them.
This will probably not be the last time I have to go through this process.
But for now, the cattle are on the other side of the fence, the potatoes are in the ground, spring is in the air and all seems to be well.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Spud Day on the farm
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1 comment:
This will be my task for today! The Yukon Gold and Red Pontiac potatoes are on our list for this year. I'm also setting (a little late due to the wild winter this year) in our Red and Vidalia onion sets today. Horn of Plenty in Maryville always carries the best sets for onions! I've never had bad luck with them.
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