Winter will be here before we know it so around the farm there is lots to do to prepare for the dormant and cold season. We spent the day yesterday working out in the garden and digging up the remainder of the potatoes I had planted this season. This was my first year growing organic potatoes and if you want a good laugh, read about one of my adventures here. It was a pretty successful go though as I did not spend anything for my seed potatoes (no potatoes are not grown from seeds, just parts of potato cut up where they have started to sprout or form an "eye")
I ended up with about 30 lbs of potatoes, we have Aidirondack Blue (purple potatoes), Red Potatoes, and Yellow Potatoes. They are delicious and will keep well into winter when stored correctly. This is actually why I had not dug them up before now though they have long since quit growing and the above ground plants have all died. The potatoes will stay good underground for a very long time with the only enemy being when the ground becomes too frozen to dig them up. I am hoping to save some good potatoes to go to seed to start this in the garden again next spring and still be self sufficient by not needing to shell out money for new seed potatoes.
I'm also pretty excited to have one of my favorite recipes again...roasted red and purple potatoes, recepie here.
I ended up with about 30 lbs of potatoes, we have Aidirondack Blue (purple potatoes), Red Potatoes, and Yellow Potatoes. They are delicious and will keep well into winter when stored correctly. This is actually why I had not dug them up before now though they have long since quit growing and the above ground plants have all died. The potatoes will stay good underground for a very long time with the only enemy being when the ground becomes too frozen to dig them up. I am hoping to save some good potatoes to go to seed to start this in the garden again next spring and still be self sufficient by not needing to shell out money for new seed potatoes.
I'm also pretty excited to have one of my favorite recipes again...roasted red and purple potatoes, recepie here.
It was kind of like a treasure hunt finding the potatoes and digging up each little hill. I still have so many things left to do to the garden before winter completely freezes the ground that it is feeling a bit overwhelming but at least the potatoes have been dug. Unfortunately there are still lots of weeds that I need to get out of the garden as we are doing "Back to Eden" Gardening which is a no-till lasagna type method. I need to pull quite a few weeds and I cannot decide if I want to layer the wood chips extra thick before wintering or not...we shall see. | 
|
While we were working in the garden there was lots of action going on around us with the kittens who are now 9 weeks old running and playing among the leaves and in the trees.
| 
|
If you will remember from earlier posts we started with 6 kittens, we found homes for 2 of them but still have 4 more that we are trying to find homes for...in the mean time they are very cute and fun to watch.
