Potatoes, after all!

The potatoes we produce in our garden have alway been very delicious, but I've been disappointed in yields. I had decided not to grow potatoes this year. Fate had other plans ...

Our friend, Chris Diggs, master gardener from Washington, gifted me with some seed potatoes. Two varieties:

• Huckleberry Gold - medium-small, round to oval tubers with purple skin and yellow flesh. Resistant to common scab and verticillium wilt.
• Ozette - a prolific fingerling potato with thin tan skin and creamy, flaky, light yellow flesh. An unusual number of deep eyes for high yields. Excellent flavor, good storage. From the Makah tribe in NW Washington.

I like the "prolific" and "high yield" parts! The potatoes got tucked into their "lazy" bed this afternoon. For more about "lazy potato beds" see my post from March 2009 .

Is it too much to ask? full rows of sugar snaps?

Last month, I direct-seeded two rows of  sugar snaps. Many of seeds did not germinate. So, this past weekend I soaked some seed to be SURE they would germinate. Almost every seed DID sprout! I planted them this afternoon to fill in the gaps of those rows planted on February 12.

I had a few extra pea sprouts. I would hate for them to go to waste, so I planted them at the base of the cedar "tee pee" garden sculpture.

Walla Walla Onions

Courtesy of our friend, Chris Diggs, and straight from Walla Walla County, Washington. These are big, round onions with sweet, juicy flesh. Like other onions, they need consistently moist, well-drained soil. Regular fertilization recommended. Best grown in "the north". We'll see how they do in my southern garden. The starts were a bit banged up when they were delivered. I hope they'll bounce back quickly.

I planted two rows that I will encourage to grow to maturity, and one row in between that I will harvest as green, "spring onions."

Filling out that bed: a dense row of salad turnips down the middle, with spinach, lettuce, and arugula taking up the left side.

Island Garden

My raised bed garden looks like an island in a sea of straw, evidence of the tilling, raking, seeding, and spreading Rouse the Spouse recently accomplished toward a more perfect lawn. The birds have been enjoying the mother-lode of seed!

Save the Bees by Planting These!

https://www.facebook.com/HealthRanger/photos/a.169524336315.132923.35590531315/10154190359536316/?type=3&theater

Looking forward to good eats this spring!

Such beautiful weather this weekend! The high temperature today is in the mid-70's. The daffodils are blooming. The spring peepers are singing their song. It smells like spring!

Yesterday, I put some seed in the ground.

In one raised bed:
2 rows Super Sugar Snap Peas
1 row Early Scarlet Radishes

Then filled the empty half of the collards bed with:
Hybrid 7 Spinach
Buttercrunch Lettuce

A row of peas, neat and tidy. I found
lots of friendly earthworms in the soil.

Today, I planted two more raised beds.

One full of beets:
2 rows Detroit Dark Red Beets
1 row Early Wonder Tall Top Beet

Another full of greens:
Florida broadleaf mustard
Southern giant curled mustard
Mustard spinach
and...
Arugula
Black Seeded Simpson Lettuce
Giant Winter Spinach
divided by: 1 row Salad Turnips

The February Garden

Here's what has over-wintered...

Buttercrunch & Black Seeded Simpson

Turns out some lettuces are very hardy. These survived the sleet and near zero temperatures we experienced in early January. I harvested them today to make way for sugar snap peas.

Bel Fiore, of the Variegato di Lusia type

Encore! This lovely red-streaked radicchio has a mildly bitter flavor that is quite nice. I'm happy to see a couple of bonus heads.

Where did this broccoli come from?? I'm pretty sure I planted heading-collards in this place last fall. Those seedlings failed to survive. Now this lone broccoli appears. Rouse the Spouse and I will share it for dinner - ha!

The collards are on the rebound after being cut back pretty vigorously in January. We'll get another meal or three out of these plants.

The garlic likes to grow in winter. It will be ready for harvest in late June or early July. It is so easy to grow and such a pleasure to use in the kitchen.

Three varieties of kale - Lacinato, Red Russian, Dwarf Blue Curled Scotch - that's what we're feasting on these days!