Some Potato Information, Weeding Thoughts & Other Stuff

I managed to remember to bring my camera this morning, but forgot to take pictures. Sorry about that. Okay, on with the news. . .

There's a lot here, but I'd encourage you to read the whole thing. There are some great opportunities coming up.

Potatoes

Well, I sure didn't need to water the garden this morning. That's great! The rain over the past couple of days is very welcome. As a result, I was able to spend this morning just weeding. I managed to clear out half of the potato/onion bed.

The potatoes are now a little mounded, that is there some soil piled up around the plant. You need to mound the potato plants to keep the potatoes themselves from turning green. Also, when you bury the stem, it promotes new root growth and leads to something we want. . . more potatoes.

I'm not sure if you're aware or not, but green potatoes contain solanine, a toxin found in the nightshade family, of which potatoes are a member. It's not very harmful in small quantities, but it can make you nauseous will give you a wicked headache. If you eat a lot of it, it's much worse. Check out the link to see the grim details. If you buy potatoes that have green spots generally it's best to cut those spots off or not use that potato (compost it). Anyway, by mounding up the soil around the potato plant you prevent the potatoes themselves from being exposed to the sun, which leads to increased solanine levels. Solanine is produced as an anti-fungal/anti-pest agent in the plant to kill off any fungus or bugs that might grow in the sunlight. Good for the plant, bad for us. That's probably way more than anyone wanted or needed to know.

Since our soil is pretty heavy, I'd like to try something I haven't done before. Next week, let's take a couple bales of straw and mound the potatoes in the straw. Apparently, the straw provides enough cover to keep the potatoes from turning green, plus it's so much easier to harvest the potatoes from straw. If anyone has a couple extra bales of straw they'd like to donate please let me know. Otherwise I'll pick some up on my way to the garden next week.

Weeding Thoughts

So, yeah, the weeds, mostly crab grass and bermuda grass, are out of control. Next year we can plan on doing some heavy mulching, but in the mean time, we've got to get them out of there. While, they were okay when I couldn't make it into the garden to water for the first few weeks of summer, they're going to rob our plants of the nutrients they need. Plus, the weeds are starting to go to seed, meaning they'll be back again and again and again.

Anytime anyone wants to head out and pull weeds would be greatly appreciated. I know some folks have been out there doing it, but we need more! It can actually be quite pleasant to do in the morning or late afternoon. It's quiet, there's often a nice breeze and is a good time to review your day. I was out for about three hours this morning and got half of a bed done. We really could knock this out with a couple people working for three or four hours. Only one of the beds is bad, the other three just need some maintenance weeding.

Other Stuff

1) We're hosting a group of volunteers during the last week of July. They should be with us for about four hours each day. Of course, I'l have them help out with the weeding, but this might also be a good time to build a shed. I've gotten an initial okay to getting some funds from the PTO, we just need a plan. I've looked around, but the plans I've found look like they'll be way over budget. Any ideas or thoughts on this would be great. I'm not looking for anything complicated, just a place to keep our hose reel, a wheel barrow and our tools.

2) Wendy Puddy, one of our Cale parents, has been working with some UVA students on a garden plan for us. We're going to meet up some time next week to take a look. I'm really looking forward to seeing what they've come up with.

3) Next year, we're going to be an official club!!! Fantastic! That should really open the group up to kids from all the classes. Of course, the down side is that I'm thinking we're going to end up with a huge club. If there are any teachers or parents that would like to make a commitment to a once a week afternoon garden club, again, please let me know. The more the merrier.

4) I think we need to have a garden harvest party. We're not getting a lot from the garden this year, but we've had a great start! We'll have enough for several batches of pesto, so zucchini bread, maybe some dilly beans and potato salad. How's September 18th sound for everyone? I'm thinking I'll get some musician friends, we'll grill, check out the garden, eat some stuff we've grown, and maybe have an epic game of Ultimate.

That's all for now. I hope to see everyone out in the garden soon.