Last of Potatoes Dug

Dug the last of the potatoes this weekend. All the foliage from the Yukon Golds had died back, so it seemed like time to dig them up. I dug the first row by hand with a pitch fork, just like I did all three rows of the Red Nordlands. Being that it was incredibly hot this weekend I needed to find a better way if was going to get them all done. Decided to try out the potato plow which I used to plow the trenches that the potatoes were planted in. I was originally concerned that the plow would damage the potatoes, hence the hand digging. I was surprised by how well the plow worked. It popped up most of the potatoes and completely loosened the ground so the rest were easy to uncover with my bare hands. Chalk this one up to being new to farming. From now on I will be plowing up the potatoes except for the times when I just want to grab a couple new potatoes out of the field.

Fun at the Ag Fair

Here are some pictures from our trip to the Washington County Ag Expo yesterday. The kids enjoyed seeing all the animals as well as the activities, and since it was very hot, the snow cones were also a big hit.

Cleaning Up My Deer Problem

As mentioned numerous times on this blog, the local deer population really enjoys my corn crop. While I have started to get some corn from my first planting the size of the plants and consequently the size of the corn is quite small due to all the deer damage. Having finally gotten tired of it, and spurred on by the visit last weekend of an interested party (who supplied the Irish Spring) last night I assembled a soap barrier around my corn field. I sliced the soap into pieces, affixed them to bamboo stakes with zip ties and placed them approx. 10-15 feet apart in a perimeter around the corn field. While I am resigned to the fact that this will do little to help the first planting, I am hopeful that the latter corn plantings may do better if the soap reduces the deer grazing.

Shortest Corn in the East!

No this is not some new dwarf corn variety. This white super sweet planted on May 7^th should be 6 to 7 feet tall, but the deer have done a good job of stunting its growth. While never reaching full height it has started to silk out and form cobs. I guess we will just have to wait and see if we get any edible corn out of this first planting.

The second planting which went in on June 4^th is doing noticeably better. It is already as tall as the first planting while being four weeks behind. My neighbors corn, not more than 100 yds away is tall and almost untouched by the deer. I talked with them this weekend and plan on picking up some Irish Spring soap to hang from posts around the outside of the corn field since it has seemed to work for them. Hopefully this will keep the deer browseing down to a minimum and allow the second and third planting to do better. Next year I will have the electric fence setup which will hopefully alleviate the deer problem.

Kitchen Garden

We were out looking at the progress of our kitchen garden last night and noticed things were coming along nicely. Our first tomatoes of the season have started to ripen. Danielle started all our tomatoes from seeds inside the house, a first for us, so it is nice to see them doing well. Gold Nuggets, our first to ripen, are about the size of a cherry tomato but are this cool gold color (hence the name) when ripe.



They were delicious right off the vine, and although we picked probably twenty or so, Sam made sure that none of them made it into the house.



Some raspberries were also ripe, although Danielle and I ate them ourselves and didn't share any with the kids.



The lettuce, broccoli, and onions continue to do well. We are hoping to have some pole beans to harvest soon as well as more tomato varieties.

Planted Last of the Corn

Since we have harvested two rows of red potatoes I had more room in the plot. After tilling up the soil I finished planting out the two sections of super sweet corn as well as a new long strip where the potatoes once were. If things work out this latest batch of corn will be ready in the middle of September. My early corn is doing ok. The deer have taken a toll on it, but the recent rains have really helped a lot. I am hopeful that the corn is large enough now that we will be able to get some ears off of it soon. The first planting that went in on May 7th should be ready in the next two weeks or so, but I think the dry spring and deer have delayed it some.
The bi-color super sweet.

Here you can see the white super sweet, the last row of red potatoes, and the long strip which was just planted with bi-color.

Potato Storage

The kids and I dug/picked another row of potatoes this morning. This brought about the realization that we had a huge amount of potatoes and no where to store them. I had always planned on putting a potato box down in the storage closet of our basement. It is cool and dark, the closest thing we have to a root cellar. I used some scrap half-inch plywood I had left over from the chicken coop. The box is nominally 48" x 18" x 18", yielding a capacity of approx. 6.75 bushels. I have the box divided in half to provide space for both the red and yukon gold potatoes. As you can see with one row of red's still in the ground the space allotted to them is starting to fill up.

Red Potato Harvest

For the last week or so we have been picking some of our Nordland Red potatoes. At first I just grabbed a basket full to have for a couple of meals but this past weekend the kids helped me harvest one entire row of the potatoes. We seem to have a good crop (since this is my first time growing potatoes I don't have much to compare it to).

I got a deep fryer for Father's Day and we have been enjoying fresh thick cut potato chips. I need to build a storage box to keep the potatoes in the basement and finish harvesting the other two rows of red potatoes. It will be interesting to see how long the kids find harvesting fun.

The Yukon Golds still have a while to go, I don't think I will be digging them until September at the earliest.