Potatoes are in the ground.
90 feet of Kennebec. 45 feet of Red Pontiac. 135 feet of potatoes pulled from storage that had not sprouted very much and were sound. Varieties not known but some were probably Russet Burbank.
I was aiming for 200 feet of row and ended up with 270, which is half as much as last year. They are in a very good spot and if I do my part with fertilizer, weed control, Colorado Potato Beetle control and irrigation when needed, they should do well.
AND....the tulips are blooming.
Liberty apple trees are in full bloom. 187 Growing Degree Days base-50. By comparison, 2023 was 149, 2022 was 118, 2021 was 205 and 2020 was 72 GDDb50 on this date.
Question...What would Liberty be grafted to? Goats got out and killed the tree last year but I have suckers coming up. Hoping its a decent enough crab apple to make vinegar
ReplyDeleteLiberty might have been grafted to almost anything.
DeleteM-26 and MM-111 are not great apples but they are (supposedly) edible.
MM-106 is a beautiful green apple that tastes worst than soap.
The Geneva rootstock tend to be small crabapples of less than in inch in diameter.
How close are you to Eaton Rapids? It is getting a little bit late for grafting but budding season starts about the third week of June around here.
Thanks, we are in SE Indiana, I think the MM-106 sounds familiar when we planted. With goats ya win some and you loose some..
DeleteHoly crap that’s a lot of potatoes. How do you dig them? We put in a couple of short rows for a few years, about 15’. We ended up digging by hand, to not damage the potatoes. Took us about 2 hours, more or less, and lots of pains the next day.
ReplyDeleteSouthern NH
A shovel by hand.
DeleteFunny, Mrs ERJ never complained about pain the next morning. Maybe I should ask her. She is not the complaining type.
As I recall, we tried potato rake, spading fork, and shovel. We ended up loosening the dirt with a shovel, sometimes a trowel, and I would be on my knees, digging with my fingers. My knees and back complained about such treatment.
DeleteI now plant in about 8 or 10 large containers, and just dump them over to harvest. I usually do a short row with any leftovers sprouts I have. We don’t get many, 20 or 25 lbs, but taters are still available cheap enough for now.
SNH
How did you determine how many potatoes to put in?
ReplyDelete