Potato Weekend

Saturday we planted potatoes on the easement, as well as transplanted cilantro and ‘Red Russian’ kale that was waiting out the hard frosts in the cold frame (both from Frank Morton’s catalog http://www.wildgardenseed.com). Now isn’t the best time to plant kale and we’ll plant more in July for the truely sweet over-wintered taste that it’s famous for, but it will do for stir frying and salad mixes.  Matthew direct seeded arugula in the same bed as the kale and cilantro, and my whole digestive system from taste buds on down is ready to do some dedicated grazing.

But wait I must. Matthew has to keep reminding me that it’s still early, but winter seemed really long and gray and lifeless in the yard and so to say I am restless and impatient is an understatement. If it weren’t for the chickens I would have suffered a malaise worthy of Albert Camus’ “Complete Guide To Meaningless Gardening.”

Just as we were finishing up the potato planting, the FedEx man delivered a box from Nourse Farms containing 30 some odd  ‘Purple Passion’ asparagus crowns and some new horseradish root stock. I’ll post pictures of those two crops as they come up.

Back to the potatoes. We planted  about 8 lbs. of “misc. colored potatoes,” as the bag so descriptively read when we received it from a potato farmer friend of ours. The only reason I mentions this is that when I had talked to him, he asked me for specific names of potatoes and I gave him the three or four varieties that I wanted. I took it that he was listening, but maybe I sounded like one of the adults in a Peanuts animated cartoon, “Wawawawa…”

Anyway, what was in the bag didn’t really resemble what I had asked for, but you can’t look a gift potato bag in the mouth. I’m still waiting for the ‘Russian Banana’ fingerlings that are my favorites for baking with winter roots. We’ll be planting those as soon as Matt brings them home from the office. Let’s see, is there anything else from this weekend…oh, Matt also direct sowed some asparagus kale for the chickens. They are really greens starved, and it will be nice to have fresh stuff to toss into their run soon.

Mystery purple taters about to be planted

You must wear green when planting potatoes…

Or a jaunty duffer cap.

I think the lower pile is a german butter and the top pile is a light rose colored spud…

Bed with kale, cilantro and arugula planted.

~ by rosetta11 on March 22, 2009.