Spring Planting

We had some rain roll in over the weekend so I decided to get some planting done.  Things are getting busy around here so I wanted to get this early planting out of the way.  We are not out of danger of frost yet, but there are some things that can tolerate the early spring cold.  I planted some of the same things last year but am trying a few new things also.

Last year I mentioned I wanted to try growing potatoes, but we never got around to getting the planters built.  Since we have the beds for the rest of the garden ready to go, I put Brent to work on the potato beds.

 Cutting the boards

The idea behind the potato towers, is that you can grow a large amount of potatoes in a small space.  Since a potato is a tuber, it will shoot off potatoes where there is dirt and room to grow.  We found these plans and used them as a base for building them.  Potatoes can be grown just about anywhere.  Some people use tires, others garbage cans or buckets.  They can be grown in the ground and in towers like ours.

Three potato towers

We had enough lumber for three towers so I decided to experiment and plant three varieties and see which grew the best in this environment.  Many websites say that you can grow 100 lbs of potatoes in this type of set-up.  I plan on weighing them at harvest and see what yield we actually get.  I planted Little Reds in the first tower, Idaho Russets in the second, and Yukon Golds in the last one.  It will be interesting to see which variety does the best.

Idaho Russett potatoes

After I placed the 12 pieces of potato with eyes that were sprouting into the tower, I covered them with dirt.  Once they are about 6-12 inches tall, I will fill in dirt until there is 3-6 inches of leaves above ground and we will add another board.  This will be repeated until there are 6 layers.  Some people wait and do a harvest at the end of the season, or you can harvest throughout the season as well by removing the bottom board and harvesting some potatoes and then putting the dirt back in.  I have had little luck storing the big bags of potatoes we get in the fall so I think I will do the harvest as you go method.

Along with the potatoes, I planted some sugar pod peas this year.  I only planted one row because I will probably be the only one eating them, but I wanted to try something different.  I planted a different variety of carrots and radishes than I did last year.  The carrots from last year failed to grow very big.  I think they were a different variety than what was supposed to be in the package.  Then, like last year, I planted lettuce and scallions.  I will have to wait until May to plant anything else.  We still will get frost and there is still snow on Schafer Butte so I cant plant anything that will not tolerate the cold.

I'm excited for this year's growing season.  Everything did so well last year and I am hoping it will do good this year as well.

The girls enjoying the dirt from the grass we dug up