Potato Bed

The potatoes are thrilled with the weather - they've really taken off in the past couple of weeks.

We even found a couple of potatoes we missed in the bed that had been covered by the hoop house all winter.   They were sprouting nicely.   I transplanted them here.

There's a bit of space left in this bed.  I'll put some sweet potatoes in as soon as they sprout - they've been lollygagging around, waiting for it to really warm up and stay that way.   Soon....

Dehydrated Potatoes

I picked up this bag of dehydrated potatoes earlier this year at Freedom Country Store in Worthington, Indiana.  And then I saved them for soup season.

Which is finally here!  

I figured we try them in soup and if they work, then we can dehydrate our own potatoes next year.  

They're kinda pretty.

I had the girls make up a batch of our Zuppa Toscana and throw these babies in the broth.   We generally start soup earlier in the day and let it cook for a while before dinner.  Delish!

Here's the recipe for Zuppa Toscana.  [This pic is from that post.]   If you use dehydrated potatoes, then drop them into the stock and water when you would have cooked the fresh potatoes and cook them up until soft.    

Potato Tower Experiment Finished

We did the potato towers again this year and instead of putting wood all the way up the sides like last year, we used chicken wire, so the plants could grow through the sides at will and get a lot more sunshine, etc.

We still had a very poor harvest.  Only a couple of gallons of little bitty potatoes.   It could have been the cooler summer, but we're a bit tired of this experiment. 

We're going back to the regular raised beds.  It's easier to plant and harvest from regular raised beds and all of the plants get plenty of sun and water. 

Zuppa Toscana

Soup, glorious, soup!    I've got another terrific soup recipe for you to add to your lineup.  This time it's a spicy blend of sausage, garlic, potato, kale and parmesan.

It's a nice change from chicken soup.

Plus, it has greens in it.    Greens are good for you.    And they're pretty.  

Zuppa Toscana
www.rurification.com

• 1 lb ground sausage, as spicy as you like
• 1 large onion, diced
• 3 cloves garlic minced
• 1/4 cup flour
• 4 cups chicken stock
• 4 cups water
• 4 potatoes peeled and cubed [or more, if you like]
• fresh kale, torn up into small pieces.  [8-16 oz.]  or spinach.  
• 1 cup milk, half and half or cream
• grated parmesan cheese

Cook up the sausage, breaking it apart into small pieces.

In a bigger pot, boil the potatoes in the chicken stock and water.

When the sausage is almost cooked, drain off some of the grease and add the onion and garlic.    Cook until soft.    Add flour and mix well.   Add 2 cups of the chicken stock out of the potato pot and stir and cook until it begins to thicken, about 10 minutes.   It's a roux!

When the potatoes are cooked through, add the sausage roux to the bigger pot and stir well.   Add the kale and cook until soft.   Add the milk and stir well.   Heat through and serve with grated parmesan cheese and a nice crusty bread. 

Notes:   You can make this spicier by adding a teaspoon or so of red pepper flakes when you cook the onions, or by using really spicy sausage.    Also, if you can't find kale [or don't like it], use spinach instead.   It's just as green, just as good for you and just as pretty.    

Potato Towers - Harvest

Remember the potato towers we built in the Spring?     I planted 8-10 potatoes in the bottom of each of them and then as the vines grew up, I covered them with layers of hay and sand.  I never let more than 6-8 inches of stem show until they got to the top.   

In fact, I was careful to keep up with them all season until the plants reached the tops.   I watered them well.    The soil compacted some and was at about 48 inches when we emptied them.  



Tower #1, the one on the outside, didn't get as much water from the sprinkler as the other one, so I watered it extra a couple of times [and ignored it the rest of the time]  and it was much moister than the other.    Even when I neglected it.   Just a couple of good soakings with the hose were enough to go a long way.

We emptied Tower #1 first.   All of the hay went to the chickens to turn over, get the bugs out of and convert to compost.   The whole tower was good and moist all the way through.

There were two vines that stayed green all season.  The rest died out.     That's not good.    I didn't expect to get any potatoes from those plants. 

In fact, we didn't find any potatoes from any of the plants until way down in the tower.     At about 24 inches from the floor, we hit pay dirt. 

We were pleased to find a few potatoes where most of the vines had originally been planted.   And a few is better than none.

The plants in Tower #2, the inside tower, all died.     I didn't expect to find a single potato in the whole tower, but we emptied it anyway.    It was drier than the first one, but not too dry. 

What we did find was a snake. [Not in the pic.]  Thank heaven when he saw it,  Eric was using the pitchfork to lift stuff out instead of his hands, which we had done off and on during the whole process. 

At that point, I took over and got the snake out with the pitchfork and held it down. It was a water snake - aggressive, but not poisonous.   It was mad - and promptly curled up and started attacking the pitchfork.  Eric got a board and held it down while I got a shovel and between the two of us and the sharp end of the shovel, we quickly dispatched it.   

TIP:   Wear heavy gloves and use a pitchfork when emptying these things!  

We dug through the final layers carefully and pulled up quite a few little potatoes.   Just a few more than what I planted to begin with, so it wasn't a total loss, though the project was disappointing.

After we got all the potatoes, we turned the soil over very well and we'll leave it for next year.

Here is our final harvest from both towers in a 1 gallon bucket.  The potatoes had very thin skins so we ate them pretty quickly and they were very delicious.    K2 loved them and can't wait for us to plant more.  New potatoes are her favorite food.

What went wrong this year?   Even with all the hay, the soil felt heavy.   And there were lots of pill bugs.  Maybe if the towers were planted with vermiculite and just a bit of fine sand, it would have worked better?    Not sure.  

Next year, we'll plant them again, only go only as high as 36 inches.   The soil will compact to around 30 inches and maybe that will be light enough to get us a lot more potatoes.     Plus, it will be short enough for K2 to do some early digging for the new potatoes that she loves so much. 

Another option is to plant sweet potatoes in the towers.   The sweets like to grow long and downward and at 30 inches or so the towers are deep enough to give us some  nice sweet potatoes.   Then we can wrap the tops of the 2x4 corners and keep the cats from using it as a litter box.   We'll keep you posted.  

UPDATE:   After two seasons of trying these, we've decided they are a FAIL.   It's not a good way to grow potatoes here.   We have friends who tried them, too with zero success.