Harvesting the Dark Red Norland Potatoes

Whew! It has been a busy week. I am looking forward to this weekend and spending some quality time in the garden. There is a lot of harvesting, cleanup, and fall crop planting that needs to be accomplished.

First on the list is harvesting the mid-season potatoes:

Two varieties of potatoes were planted on May 2, 2010 in the east garden, Dark Red Norland, a mid-season variety, and Kennebec, a late season variety.

5.5-pounds Dark Red Norland seed potatoes were planted in three rows that are 8-feet long. Almost 15-pounds of new potatoes were dug a few pounds at a time beginning July 4th as needed for consuming right away. Two rows were allowed to mature. It’s been about 2-weeks since the foliage has died and I stopped watering:

I also noticed the last time I dug some potatoes that the skins were much thicker and the red color no longer rubbed off easily. They were ready to be harvested.

I decided to dig them up early this morning while it was still cool and slightly overcast. I dug them by hand so I could avoid damaging them with a shovel or digging fork:

I filled my little garden cart. It's on wheels and can be easily moved around:

I followed Laura’s method for storing potatoes at The Modern Victory Garden website. I’ve been saving boxes and shredded paperwork a little at a time for this process:

I weighing the harvest in batches as I went along and saved out the small potatoes to use for seed next year:

 
Two paper boxes of Dark Red Norland Potatoes for storing and about 5-pounds of seed potatoes were boxed up in a smaller box. These will be stored in the coolest part of the basement. Some bite sized potatoes will be roasted up for dinner tonight:

The final tally for the Dark Red Norland Potatoes for the year is 46-pounds. I can't wait to see what the Kennebec Potatoes will amount to. So far I am very pleased with the result of my first year growing potatoes.

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Harvesting the Kennebec Potatoes

By the time hurricane Earl brushed by the area last night, it had been downgraded to a tropical storm. Overnight we received 3-4 inches of rain. We really needed it.

Early yesterday morning, before the sun hit the garden and the heat rose, I dug the Kennebec potatoes.

Two varieties of potatoes were planted on May 2, 2010 in the east garden, Dark Red Norland, a mid-season variety, and Kennebec, a late season variety. The Dark Red Norland potatoes were harvested mid-August.

2.5 pounds of Kennebec seed potatoes were planted in two rows that are 8-feet long. The foliage had died back several weeks ago and I stopped watering. Without much rain, the soil was easy to dig through.

The potatoes were piled into a garden cart, which was then covered and wheeled into the shed to protect them from sunlight and rain.

I pulled the potatoes out this morning to weigh them and spread them out so they can cure a little bit before storing.

The Kennebec weighed in at 22 pounds! Combined with the Dark Red Norland potatoes I harvested 68.5 pounds of potatoes from 8 pounds of seed. I am very pleased with my first year growing potatoes.

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Harvest Monday: July 12, 2010

Each Monday, Daphne’s Dandelions hosts “Harvest Monday” where everyone can share links to their harvest for the week. It’s fun to see what everyone is harvesting from his or her gardens in different areas.

This is actually a common harvest this week. Celery, Swiss Chard, and a young Onion to add to the lettuce in the fridge from an earlier harvest to make a salad for dinner:

Cucumber and Potato harvest on Saturday:

Cucumbers were supposed to be used for a small batch of pickles, but we ended up eating most of them freshly sliced up with a little bit of salt. There will be many more to come in the next few weeks.

The Dark Red Norland Potatoes weighed in at 2 pounds. They were destined for potato salad. So Celery, young Red Onion, Dill, Parsley were also harvested for the potato salad:

4.5 oz of Basil was harvested on Friday:

Fresh basil topping was used for pizza and the rest was used to make pesto, which we enjoyed with chicken and linguine over the weekend. The rest of the pesto was frozen for later use.

A surprise small harvest of Raspberries:

I was walking into the shed to grab the weed trimmer when I spotted a flash of red. We have both raspberries and blackberries growing among the weeds behind the shed. These raspberries were near the doorway and were easy to pick. There is just enough for K to add to his breakfast cereal tomorrow morning.

Be sure to visit Daphne’s Dandelions to see what others are harvesting this week.

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Harvest Monday: July 26, 2010

Each Monday, Daphne’s Dandelions hosts “Harvest Monday” where everyone can share links to their harvest for the week. It’s fun to see what everyone is harvesting from his or her gardens in different areas.

Here in the Garden Spot, the Early Girl Tomatoes are living up to their reputation by ripening the first in the garden. The ones pictured below were allowed to ripen on the vine before harvesting:

Since the danger of Late Blight is near, all other tomatoes will be picked at first blush and placed on a windowsill inside to finish ripening. I know from my devastating Late Blight experience last year that this disease hits fast. Once you detect the tell tail signs, it will be too late to save any tomatoes. I would rather have a few ripen on a windowsill than lose them completely. I will consider them a harvest and include them in Harvest Monday photos once they are red.

Cucumbers pictured above were combined with those left over from last week’s harvest and made into Granny’s Bread & Butter Pickles.

It is a great year for blueberries. We are picking a bowlful every day and eating them by the handful, in our cereal, and as dessert topping:

Almost 5 pounds of Dark Red Norland Potatoes were harvested this week:

Again with Late Blight near, I didn’t hesitate to harvest whatever we could consume in a week. We enjoyed garlic-mashed potatoes, hash brown potatoes and onions, oven fries, and potatoes baked on the grill.

Not pictured are onions, celery, and herbs that are harvested as needed. It is so nice to run out to the garden and pick what is needed to use right away. Some cucumbers also missed their photo opportunity as I gathered them quickly to give away. I definitely overdid it with cucumber plants this year.

We are between lettuce crops now that we have cucumbers and tomatoes for salads. The last of the lettuce harvested several weeks ago and stored in the fridge was composted this week. There wasn’t much left. I am amazed at how long the lettuce stayed fresh in the refrigerator. It will be a while before the new lettuce is large enough for salads.

The melons are growing, the pole beans are flowering, and the peppers are finally forming. I am trying to keep a positive attitude, but the fact that Late Blight is in the vicinity is weighing heavily on my mind. There are 34 tomato plants and 32 feet of potatoes in the garden. All can be lost in a matter of days if Late Blight hits the garden spot.

Be sure to visit Daphne’s Dandelions to see what others are harvesting this week.

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Harvest Monday: July 19, 2010

Each Monday, Daphne’s Dandelions hosts “Harvest Monday” where everyone can share links to their harvest for the week. It’s fun to see what everyone is harvesting from his or her gardens in different areas.

This was an exciting week in the garden spot as more variety of fruits and vegetables were harvested. The warm weather has continued and with some supplemental watering, the growth has been abundant.

We will begin with a few pickling cukes and small carrots:

I pulled a couple carrots to see how they were growing. I believe these are Little Finger Carrots. They were about 4-inches long and skinny but tasted great. Hopefully they will fatten up soon.

A large bunch of cucumbers were harvested on Thursday:

I left some small cucumbers on the vine and by the following day they were also ready for picking:

The harvest of cucumbers from the two days amounted to about 6 lbs of cucumbers. I weighed them because I wanted to use them for “Granny's Favorite Bread & Butter Pickles.”

Some of the last of the Swiss Chard that was planted in the spring. There will be more planted for fall:

More young Dark Red Norland Potatoes. We are really enjoying these:

The Blueberries are beginning to ripen up. We are now harvesting a small bowl full each day:

Celery and more Cucumbers:

The first Zucchini and some small Red Onions:

The first Raspberry from the new Heritage Raspberries planted this spring:

Be sure to visit Daphne’s Dandelions to see what others are harvesting this week.

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Harvest Moday: July 19, 2010

Each Monday, Daphne’s Dandelions hosts “Harvest Monday” where everyone can share links to their harvest for the week. It’s fun to see what everyone is harvesting from his or her gardens in different areas.

This was an exciting week in the garden spot as more variety of fruits and vegetables were harvested. The warm weather has continued and with some supplemental watering, the growth has been abundant.

We will begin with a few pickling cukes and small carrots:

I pulled a couple carrots to see how they were growing. I believe these are Little Finger Carrots. They were about 4-inches long and skinny but tasted great. Hopefully they will fatten up soon.

A large bunch of cucumbers were harvested on Thursday:

I left some small cucumbers on the vine and by the following day they were also ready for picking:

The harvest of cucumbers from the two days amounted to about 6 lbs of cucumbers. I weighed them because I wanted to use them for “Granny's Favorite Bread & Butter Pickles.”

Some of the last of the Swiss Chard that was planted in the spring. There will be more planted for fall:

More young Dark Red Norland Potatoes. We are really enjoying these:

The Blueberries are beginning to ripen up. We are now harvesting a small bowl full each day:

Celery and more Cucumbers:

The first Zucchini and some small Red Onions:

The first Raspberry from the new Heritage Raspberries planted this spring:

Be sure to visit Daphne’s Dandelions to see what others are harvesting this week.

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Harvest Monday: August 9, 2010

Each Monday, Daphne’s Dandelions hosts “Harvest Monday” where everyone can share links to their harvest for the week. It’s fun to see what everyone is harvesting from his or her gardens in different areas.

The most exciting harvest this week are the tomatoes. After losing all my tomato plants to late blight last year, I may have overcompensated a bit this year in the amount of plants in the garden. Personally, I don’t like tomatoes and usually plant mostly paste varieties for making sauce and salsa. Roma and San-Marzano paste tomatoes are the varieties I am growing this year:

K loves fresh tomatoes and I wanted to plant a couple eating tomatoes for him. I had both Early Girl and Bush Boy seeds on hand. More seeds germinated than I planned and I found room in the garden for all the healthy seedlings. Seriously, is it possible to have too many tomatoes?

I made a batch of salsa with Cilantro, Onions, Peppers, and Tomatoes from the garden. I had to purchase a few Jalapeno and Bell Peppers as mine are just beginning to fruit. The picture below shows some tomatoes and the first Cayenne, Anaheim and Bell Pepper harvest of the year:

The windowsill is in constant rotation. The ripe tomatoes are washed and frozen as the new harvest is added to the windowsill:

Two gallon sized freezer bags have been filled and frozen for later processing into sauce:

Other harvest this week included more Fastbreak Melons:

Dark Red Norland Potatoes (3.375 pounds) and another Fastbreak Melon:

Some small carrots and some onions:

Three bunches of celery were harvested, sliced, and frozen for later use in soups and stuffings:

There are still a lot of cucumbers coming off the vines. I have made a couple batches of pickles and will use some for a batch of sweet relish. The rest will be given away:

This is the best year we have ever had for Blueberries. Every day we pick a bowl full and have frozen some for use future baked goods:

 This weekend, the cured garlic was also trimmed and cleaned up:

The bulbs on the left are Romanian Red which will make a return appearance in the Garden Spot. On the right are Purple Glazer. The bulbs are small and fragile. I want to try another variety.

Just a reminder, if you are planning on growing garlic, now is the time to get your order in. I purchased my garlic seed bulbs from wegrowgarlic.com last year. I noticed this year they are already sold out of many varieties.

Be sure to visit Daphne’s Dandelions to see what others are harvesting this week.

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