The Modern Victory Garden

What a gorgeous day we had today!   It got up to the mid 50’s and everything is breaking dormancy fast.    I had to run some errands this morning, so I did not get out into it until after lunchtime - but the few hours I was outside this afternoon was heavenly.

Because we had late blight hit the garden last year, I did not save any of my potatoes for seed stock and chose instead to buy all new certified seed stock this year.   I ordered my potatoes from Ronniger Potato Farm LLC because they had a good selection, good reputation, and the best prices.   Friday my big box of potatoes arrived; 10 lbs of Yukon Gold; 10 lbs of Caribe; and 25 pounds of Russet Burbank.   

The front bag is the Yukon Gold and the back bag is the Caribe and underneath the two bags you can just glimpse the Russet Burbanks.   I opened the box and checked them today, but tomorrow when I have a little more time I will lay them out to begin chitting and do a count to see if I will need to cut them into smaller pieces.   I am going to use the 4-foot by 32-foot bed for the potatoes this year and will be planting them using the John Jeavon’s method of planting potatoes (done at the same time you double dig a bed) spacing them using a within row spacing of 9 inches and approximately 9 inches deep into the soil.   For a 32-foot long bed, I should end up with 42 rows at 9-inch intervals and 5 seed potato pieces per row if spaced 9 inches apart.   So my calculations come up that I need 210 to 215 potato seed pieces to do this bed in that manner.   These look like really nice seed potatoes and I am anxious to get them set out to begin forming sprouts.

The main task I worked on today was prepping the big 4-foot by 40-foot bed for the beginning of the planting season.   Specifically, I used the U-Bar to aerate the entire bed and then did a light cultivation and raking.   At the end of the bed, I also worked in some general-purpose organic fertilizer into a 4-foot by 12-foot section of the bed. This area will be the 2010 pea patch and I am planning to plant them tomorrow since the soil temperature is more than warm enough.   Here’s the bed after I finished the prep work.   The closest end in the photo below is where the pea patch will be going.   

Today I also took down the grow tunnel cover from the overwintered bed of carrots and parsnips.  You can see it in the photo above.    I intend to finish harvesting what remains of these in the next several weeks to clear out the bed for the coming potato crop that will go in that bed.   I need to similarly use up the last few January King cabbages from this bed to also get them out of the way for the potatoes.    

Other tasks I got to today included taking the U-Bar and gently aerating and fertilizing the raspberry patch – adding a layer of compost on the surface after I was completed.   I also rotated the six packs of seedlings in the trays under the grow lights to ensure that plants on the ends get a chance to be in the middle for a while - where they enjoy a more complete exposure to the grow lights.   I took the opportunity while swapping the packs around to brush the small seedlings lightly with my hands to help them “sturdy up”.                        

In the greenhouse, the kale and Chinese cabbages I planted out last weekend are doing well and the slow growing mache is starting to get a move on and produce more vegetation.   About the time the carrots and parsnips are finished up, these greens should be ready to start harvesting lightly.                          

That is it for today.   Tomorrow I am going to plant the pea patch and put up my horizontal grow support structure.    Forecast is for another gloriously beautiful day so it will be good to have an excuse to be out in it!