Time to Plant Potatoes

The potatoes I ordered last fall from Gurney's Seed and Nursery Co. have arrived! These seed potatoes have many growth buds, aka "eyes". For greater yields, I will cut the larger ones into approximately 2-ounce pieces, making sure each piece has at least a couple of eyes. Then I will lay them out on newspaper to dry at room temperature for 2 - 4 days before planting next week.

The weather forecast looks promising! With little chance of rain into the middle of next week, I expect the soil to dry out a bit allowing me to prepare the potato beds. With expected temperatures in the 60's, I'll be happy to spend time in the garden surrounded by bird song and the peeping of frogs. Spring is coming!

Chosen potato varieties for 2019:
(2 pounds each, except Russian Banana 1#)
Mountain Rose - early, red skins and flesh
Purple Majesty - deep purple color, inside and out, buttery flavor
Purple Viking - early, all-purpose potato, especially good for baking, purple skin, creamy white flesh
Yukon Gold - early, yellow-fleshed spuds, rich buttery flavor, great for baking or mashing
Russian Banana - fingerling, all-pupose potato, enormous yields

Winter Greens

Lettuce, kale, mustard, turnip greens, with sweet smelling edgeworthia chrysantha (paperbush) in the background, all immersed in welcome morning sunshine.

Cold Gray Wet - Must be winter in NC

It has been a soggy week. The ground is saturated. Rivers are full. The moss lawn is green and lovely. The water table is filling up! I have low hopes for survival of my sugar snap peas. Wondering if they've rotted in the ground?

On the delicious side...

We finally had our first taste of collards this season! Beautiful thick dark green leaves, cut into chiffonade, dropped into salted boiling water for ~ 7 minutes, drained and cooled until time to eat. Then, reheated and seasoned with salt & pepper and perfectly caramelized onions sautéed in bacon fat. Now, THAT is some good eating!

Collards Chiffonade (ribbons) - ready to be immersed in boiling water

I love the winter garden! It quietly does its thing under cover, requiring little attention. This year we've been enjoying a variety of lettuces and spinach, making for some very fresh and satisfying salads and additions to soup, beans, eggs... not to mention the occasional "mess" of tender and tasty turnip and mustard greens.

Plus, there are usually few bugs this time of year. But this week, as I harvested the first batch of collards, I noticed one leaf felt dirty on the underside. All the plants had been clean (one of the benefits of having them under cover - little to no rain splash) so I turned it over in my hand to look. It was covered in aphids! Eeewwww! I pulled up that entire infested plant and checked the others. It was the only one effected. I took it in the house, soaked it in salt water to remove the varmints, and ate the leaves anyway.

80 Degrees Today

What a day to play in the garden! I'm really happy to live in NC, where the frogs sing and the garden grows in the middle of winter. Despite being planted late in the season, the greens have been growing slowly but surely under their row covers and are ready for eating. The collard leaves are finally getting some size to them. Fresh salads have graced our table several times this week.

Today's chores:

~ Cutting the mustard
~ Thinning the lettuce
~ Planting the sugar snaps
~ Watering everything

Tonight, we eat mustard greens!

Garlic & Shallots

The finishing touch to the winter garden...

I planted a bed full of garlic:

• half hard-neck 'mystery' variety that I had on hand from this past year's crop
• half California soft-neck

I planted a small bed of shallots:

• 10 Red
• 12 Rodriguez
• 12 Bonita

Heading into the Winter Garden

A big shout-out to Rouse the Spouse for all the gardening work he has done this month! Without his help there would be no winter garden this year. As it is, the beds are cleared of summer crop detritus, mulched, and in good shape. All the pathways have been heavily mulched to deter weeds. He planted a variety of lettuce, turnip, kale, and spinach seeds which have germinated and sprouted. He set out pac choi and collard plants. Can't wait to eat all those winter greens!

Today, Evalyn and I worked together to begin the row-cover set-up. I took the pre-cut pvc pipes down from storage racks in the shed and piled them on the ground. She pretended to be a horse, grabbing a length of pipe in each hand and dragging them like a sled behind her to the garden, where we tossed them over the short fence. Then, she stood on one side of each bed and I stood on the other and we inserted the pipes into place to make hoops. A good helper sure does make the job more fun!

Next step will be to spread light-weight gardening fabric over the hoops.

Report on the Hibiscus Sabdariffa Experiment

Fail!

Betsy, my go-to master gardener, says not enough sun in the selected location for those plants to thrive, i.e. bloom and set seed, in the available seasonal time. The story of my gardening life ... and the price one pays for living in the woods.