New York Renovator

My firstfruits are in! I gave these to my church as a tithe. Look at how beautiful they are!

The potatoes are Adirondack Reds. It is my first year with them; it’s my first year with seed potatoes, actually. I bought these from Johnny’s Selected Seeds online. In years past, I just used store-bought eating potatoes, let them develop eyes, and plugged them in the ground. This year I just wanted to try seed potatoes. They are coming up beautifully.

The skins are very thin– even a moderate scrubbing will peel them off. I like eating potato skins, so I am careful when I scrub. These potatoes are also a little heavier– more dense– than the regular white potatoes I buy at the grocery store. I cannot wait to sink my teeth into them!

About potato growing– this year I was smart and made distinctive rows. I planted the potatoes closer together than recommended. After plugging in the potato quarters, I poured a layer of peat moss over the bed. I used peat as a mulch (it is very effective) for the growing season. Next year I will roto-till it in the soil, added with my compost. The plants just love this method.

I also heaped up mounds of soil around the potato plants when they grew to 8 inches. This encourages horizontal root growth and makes it much easier to dig for the potatoes. In times past, I had to basically uproot the plant and dig down into the hard ground to get my potatoes. Now, I just plunge my fingers into the peat and pluck what I need.

P.S. Is it true that rubbing a raw potato on one’s skin is as effective as a modern-day acne treatment?

My garden is not as varied and not as luxurious as last year’s. But pardon me if I brag a little about my potato plants. Aren’t they gorgeous?! I planted almost an entire bed of them– they are Adirondack Reds.

These are the seed potatoes when I planted them in May.

I’ve never planted this variety before, and never even eaten them! Can’t wait to sink my teeth into them!

I haven’t really done an official Growing Challenge update in a while. My little annuals that I’ve planted are doing well. Everything is really thriving in this heat (except my hydrangeas). I have gardens filled with perennials, and this is about the time they start to strut their stuff. The peonies are in full flower and smell so delicious. My iris plants are doing well, too. This is the best they’ve done, and I’ve had them for five years.

The Adirondack Red seed potatoes I plopped in are doing very, very well! I am so happy with them. The plants are so high that I piled up mounds of soil around the stems, to encourage side growth. This will make potato harvesting much easier– I won’t have to dig down into hardened garden soil to get my potatoes. The potatoes should grow right inside these mounds, which are a mixture of plain garden soil, peat, and compost.

We are taking comfort that the intolerable heat and humidity is having a good effect on something!

My grape vine, a Reliance stock, came in the mail today. I am still waiting on my seed potatoes. I am disgruntled with Johnny’s Selected Seeds about that. I’d ordered everything online, and the potatoes I ordered especially because they were in stock. I got a phone call two weeks later, informing me that the potatoes I ordered were out of stock. Oooook. So the girl and I haggled through the potatoes choices, and I ordered another kind, with the assurance that these were in stock. Two months later, I got my package. No potatoes. Just a little note, saying that they were out of stock. Huh?! I have been trying to call the company for weeks. Their telephone number is not toll-free (they are across the country from me) and i am put on hold for ten minutes before a recording tells me that I have a long wait. Grrrrrrrrrr! So I still have no potatoes. If you’re going to sell potatoes, why tell the customer that they are in stock the day of the order but not the day of the shipment?!