Little late in the garden season

I finally got outside and did some digging in the garden a couple weeks ago.  I ended up getting a storage tub and a bucket full of parsnips, carrots, celery, and potatoes.

Purple Potatoes?

When I purchased potato starters last spring, I had seen a box for purple potatoes.  I'd never even heard of such a thing but decided to plant them.  We harvested them a week or two ago and today I finally cooked some of them.

They tasted a little different from the other potatoes, but not enough for me to be able to describe it.  We'll definitely plant more next spring if I see them again.

Here are pictures from when we harvested them:  Harvesting the fall garden

This post was shared on The Homesteaders Blog Hop

The end of the garden season is near

Unfortunately the garden has been neglected over the last few weeks with me going back to work and being overwhelmed with that, their activities, and volunteering at the youngest's school.  So tonight I thought I'd go out just to grab the tomatoes that were all over the tomato plants.

Before I even made it to the tomatoes, I was pulling up some carrots.  The oldest left the gate open last week and the goats got out, and then got into my garden.  They ate the tops off at least half of the carrots so I thought I'd try to pull up what I could.

Then I pulled up one parsnip.  The tops look really good, but the parsnip was pretty small so I'm going to do some reading.   I think they don't get harvested for another month.

And then there was my celery that doesn't look like celery.

I finally made it to the tomatoes and quite a few were split open.  I'm guessing we dipped below freezing one night this week.

I figured while I was out there, we might as well knock the potato cages over and see what we could find.

Purple potatoes!  Really!  Even when we cut them open, they will be purple inside!

We hosed them off before we headed inside and I laid them out on the counter, along with a couple onions I pulled out of the pot by our door.

I suppose I should be happy to have gotten this much, but it really feels like so little.  I've been planning the garden for next year for the last month or so.  As long as each year gets bigger and better, I suppose I can't get too mad at myself.

Growing Potatoes

I decided to record the details about how I planted potatoes this year since I didn't do the traditional route and I am curious about how this method will turn out.  So far it isn't looking great.

We went the cage route this year.  With the boys help, I build 6 tall cylinder cages out of wire fencing.  I used a bale of straw to spread around the sides of the cage, poured in some soil, and then placed the potato spuds on top of the soil.  I topped it off with more soil and watered it.

It started with only about 6-12 inches of soil at the bottom and it didn't seem like it took very long to see green leaves poking up through the soil.

I decided to make have three more cylinders, but this time I used three that were already made and someone had just given them to me.  They were wider and shorter.

 The plants seemed to sprout like crazy, and now, at the end of July it's been two months since things were planted and seven out of the five cages have a lot of green growing in them.

I noticed a couple weeks ago that two of the cages looked dead.  Not only were the plants dead, but they were now completely gone.  Since I have been working in the garden a lot, I decided to knock the two cages over and see what the cages had produced up to this point.

It wasn't good.

There were only potatoes in the bottom 12 inches of each cage and although these will taste great, it really isn't what I was hoping for.

Cage One

Cage Two

Everything I read said that there should be potatoes in the entire cage, as soil is added, potatoes will grow in layers.  That definitely didn't happen with these two.

Based on what I've read, this isn't the best method and trenches are the best way to grow potatoes, with raised beds being the second best way.  I'm hoping that the wider, shorter cages will be more similar to raised beds and will have a better yield.

This blog was shared on the following blog hops (please click the name to go check out their blog hop):
Frugally Sustainable
Down Home Blog Hop
The Homesteaders Hop