So, as I'm sure you've noticed, I've been MIA since the beginning of the month. Firstly, I didn't have anything to blog about on this blog, and secondly, if you follow my tweets, then you know I've been out of town since the 5th.
Luckily everything survived the cold-ish weather. Trust me, I was fuh-reak-ing out when I landed in Boston and found out there was a freeze watch in effect for Austin. And I had debated long and hard about whether to bring the plumeria plant into the house or leave it outside. I opted for a sorta compromise and left it outside but right next to the sliding glass door (hoping that it would keep it warm enough at night).
Upon returning, everything looked good. I was quite surprised that the avocado tree was not all wilty and in need of a good soaking. The potatoes, however, did look worse for the wear. A lot worse. As in "little mushy brown sticks" worse. Now then, this wasn't that much of a surprise since the plants had been turning yellow and starting to look like they were going to give up the ghost, so I went ahead and let nature take it's course. I'm guessing that it was a combination of not enough light and too much water that did them in as the plants didn't look diseased.
Anyhow, if you go back through time, you can see that I planted them at the beginning of September. This indicates that there was slightly over 60 days from when I planted to when I harvested. All of the varieties should have been in the ground for at least 90 days.
BUT!
Even though the potatoes are small (quite a few are smaller than a dime), I did end up harvesting about 20 potatoes. I do not know if the box helped at all (in fact I don't think it did since all of the potatoes were at about the same level as the original seed potato (indicating that the potatoes are not ones that really need 3' of mulch on top of them to get a good harvest)).
Anyhow, I will try this again in the spring planting season (aka January).
3 comments:
Will you order your potatoes and the same type/quanity from the same place you ordered from. I know you ended up getting your potatoes earlier that you had expected.
If you're asking whether I'd order from Ronniger's again, the answer is "yes" if you're asking if I'll order from them in order to plant potatoes at the beginning of January, I'm not sure. However, this is mostly because Ronnigers is located in Colorado and they can only ship seed potatoes a couple times during the winter and so getting your order can be anywhere from 1 to 3 weeks. So in other words, if you want to get seed potatoes for spring gardening from Ronnigers, you should probably order them sometime around December 1.
If you plant for spring you should plant in the week of Valentines. That was when my Dad planted in south Austin and he always had good luck with his. A lot of nurseries have whole potatoes for spring planting but never in the fall.
The garlic I got from you is all up and looking good. Lyn says thanks.
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