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Potatoes and Gardening Woes

It has rained here - a lot. I mean more than I can describe. The exact area we live gets about 65 inches per year but in the last 2 weeks we have received over 14 inches of rain. That doesn't even sound right. Even 10 miles away, they didn't get half of that. People look at us funny when we tell it.

Needless to say, the garden is on hold, I am glad to still have a semblance of a driveway, and I feel something like a fish. We did manage to get our potatoes planted on the Friday before Resurrection Day (I know some of you call it "Good Friday", but I'm not crazy about that term). Anyway, the rain washed through them and uncovered a bunch, but we covered them back up. They are up fine now. We also planted 275 strawberry plants and 25 raspberry canes. We fenced the berry patch to keep out critters.

As far as anything else, we haven't planted it yet (not even cabbage, broccoli, or peas). Oh well, every year is different - maybe I can grow them as fall crops.

We planted about 40 pounds each of Red Pontiac and Kennebec Potatoes


Just after planting - notice the lack of gulleys and washover - just before the little monsoon season!

Potato patch today, still not very dry, but I did heel them up a little last week. Notice how washed the ground is on this side of the row markers. We got 10 rows out of about 80 pounds of seed potatoes.



Our little berry patch. It has 25 raspberry plants, 4 blueberry plants, and 275 strawberry plants. I am thankful that it didn't wash away!

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  1. UnknownMay 6, 2013 at 6:44 AM

    Holy canoli, that's a lot of rain! Good thing you didn't wash away! BTW, about how many potatoes do you get from 80 pounds of seed potatoes? I also love your berry garden. Your homestead just looks absolutely yummy (and wet)! I found you on the barn hop.

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    Replies
    1. Owen Family at Far Better FarmsteadMay 6, 2013 at 9:03 AM

      Vickie,

      Thanks for stopping by! We are terrible at measuring yields from our garden, and potatoes in particular - we start by grubbing out a bunch of little new ones in July and then digging a 5 gallon bucket here and there. When the "official" harvest rolls around in the fall we have been eating them already for 3 months or so! I would estimate we get 12:1 here, so the 80 pounds of seed will make about 1000 pounds of potatoes. Sounds like a lot but there are 6 of us - less than 1/2 pound per day per person.

      Delete
  2. sheoneMay 18, 2013 at 11:52 AM

    First You got a great blog .I will be interested in more similar topics. i see you got really very useful topics , i will be always checking your blog thanks. lawnz.org.uk

    ReplyDelete

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