Vegetables
Potatoes!
This is why I didn’t plant potatoes last week. That would be snow on my flowering pear blossoms! Luckily this is Utah, and Spring snow doesn’t usually last very long (unless you remember two years ago when it snowed until the end of May…we still shudder at the memory). So I finally got around to planting my potatoes, and it makes me really happy! Potatoes are one of our favorite things to grow in our garden.
Potatoes are easy to grow, you just have to know a couple of things. Start with “seed potatoes” which are potatoes grown specifically for planting. Don’t plant potatoes you buy from the grocery store, they can carry disease and are usually treated with a chemical to inhibit sprouting. If I’m going to go to all the trouble of planting, watering, weeding, and caring about my little potato plants, I’m not going to plant something that might be diseased or might now grow well! I just don’t have time or energy for that. The potatoes we’re growing this year are Red Pontiacs and Cal Whites. We’ve also grown All Blues (which are really yummy and expensive to buy from the grocery store) and delicious Yukon Golds.
Regular seed potatoes are 79 cents per pound at Western Gardens. Fingerlings are $2.49 per pound.
The next step in potato planting is to cut the seed potatoes into pieces. Cut them about 1 1/2 inches thick, and make sure each piece has at least two “eyes” which should be just beginning to sprout. Then they need to heal for a couple of days in a cool area (about 55 degrees) with good ventilation.
Prepare your garden beds. Or in my case, clear out the weeds from last year. And the ones from this year. My favorite part about weeding the beds the other day was how enthusiastic my boys (ages 7 & 4) were about it! One of them made up a song about killing weeds, and they were entertained for at least an hour. Who knew it could be that easy?! When my 7 year old came home from school yesterday, he didn’t ask to play basketball, he asked to dig weeds! So I let him. It was glorious.
Next you need to amend your soil. It’s easy. All I did was call my husband, ask him to bring home some compost, watch him put the compost where I wanted it, and then watch him mix it in with the soil. See, nothing to it! We love Bumper Crop compost, once you try it you’ll never use anything else! Western Gardens carries it for $11.99 per bag, but if you buy 3 you get 1 free!
Once your soil is ready, dig a shallow trench and place your potatoes about a foot apart. Cover them with 4-6 inches of soil and give them some water. Potatoes like full sun, but they’ll tolerate a little bit of shade. Then just wait for them to grow! Once the plants get about a foot high, I’ll show you what to do with them next so you don’t get any green tubers!
When you cut your seed potatoes, be sure to get two eyes on each piece. If your potato is the size of a golf ball of smaller, it doesn’t need to be cut.
This is what they looked like right after I cut them.
This is what my potatoes looked like two days after I cut them.
The sprouts look kind of cool!
When we were preparing our planting beds, we found a couple of potatoes that we missed last year. One didn’t survive my 4 year old helper, but I stuck the other one back in the ground!
Bumper Crop is awesome stuff!
Two things that make me happy in April: Planting potatoes, obviously, and the fact that we had a few days of flip flop and shorts weather!
Stick your potatoes in your trench in about a foot apart. {The dirt on the right was mixed with the compost, we hadn’t mixed the dirt on the left yet}
Cover them up, water them, and then (if you have automatic sprinklers), just ignore them for a while! It will take about 100 days until they’re ready to harvest. But it’s worth the wait. Promise.
This was quite possibly my favorite part of planting potatoes! Watching a 4 year old boy discover his first worm of the year. Perfect.
Quick Gardening Tips
Three of the simplest things you can do for success in your garden this year are: mulching, weeding, and keeping the pests out. Here are a few hints to help you this Spring.
Mulching: To keep down weeds, conserve moisture, and keep fruit crops clean. Use a six inch layer of straw or other organic material (shredded leaves, grass clippings, etc.) between rows of vegetables. You can also lay strips of black plastic between plants.
Weeding: Hoe between crops regularly to control weeds and give your vegetables the best chance for success. Weeds take nutrients from the soil (and thus away from your veggies), and weed roots can crowd out, or even become entangled with your veggie roots.
Pests: A 2 foot chicken wire fence will keep out most four-legged pests, but watch closely for insect pests. If you do have a problem with pests, no matter how many legs, stop by one of our locations for advice from one of our garden experts.
What is YOUR favorite gardening tip?
Stuff to do with Zucchini
Add this to the list of things to do with Zucchini besides leaving it on neighbor’s doors steps in the middle of the night. This is a new recipe that I tried this year and enjoyed. It helps me get over the winter blues to think about planting the garden, but more to the point thinking about the food that I can eat that comes out of my garden!
Oven “Fried” Zucchini
1 large zucchini
1 egg
1 Tbsp milk
1-1/2 cups potato flakes
2 T butter (1T softened, 1 T melted)
seasoning salt
cayenne pepper
Cover a baking sheet with foil and smear with softened butter. Slice zucchini into 1/2 inch rounds. Combine egg and milk in a shallow bowl. Put potato flakes in a separate shallow bowl. Dip zucchini slices in egg/milk mixture, then coat with potato flakes. Place on baking sheet, sprinkle with seasoning salt and lightly with cayenne pepper. Drizzle with melted butter. Bake at 425 for about 15 minutes, or until coating is golden brown. Serve hot.
Tomato Diseases and Insect Problems
Everyone loves tomatoes. I think homegrown tomatoes are so popular because they taste so much better than anything you can buy in the grocery store. However there are some things you need to watch out for to make sure you have a bumper crop. Here are just a few:
- Aphids are small, soft-bodied insects that suck the liquid sap from the leaves. They may be clear, white, green, red, or brown. Use permethrin, neem oil, or malathion as needed.
- Fusarium Wilt turns the lower leaves yellow as they wilt and die. IT spreads to the upper shoots and will eventually kill the whole plant. If you slice the stem near the soil line lenghtwise and the internal tissue is dark brown/grey, there is nothing you can do but destroy the plant and fumigate the soil for next year. There isn’t any chemical treatment you can apply.
- Tomato Leaf Roll affects older, lower leaves that roll upward until the margins touch or overlap. The leaves feel leathery but remain green. You won’t notice any other symptoms. This is a temporary condition resulting from excessively wet soil. Once the soil dries, the symptoms will gradually disappear.
Stop by Western Gardens and learn more about growing healthy and delicious tomatoes. Also, visit us on Facebook for daily updates and specials.
Is It Time to Harvest?
If you’re like me, once those delicious-looking vegetables start to grow, I can’t help myself, I want a taste. However, as important as taste-testing is, there are some “rules of thumb” to help you determine the best time to harvest. Most veggies are harvested right before they reach full maturity. That’s when they tasted the best and have the most pleasant texture. Here are a few examples.:
- Asparagus: Begin harvesting when the spears are 6-8 inches tall and about as thick as your pinkie. Snap them off at ground level and new spears will start to grow. My grandmother planted asparagus along the ditch beside the farmhouse. There’s nothing better than fresh asparagus.
- Beans: Pick the beans before you see them start to bulge. They should snap easily in two. Make sure and check every day, it doesn’t take long for beans to go from delicious to tough.
- Carrots: Carrots are hard to judge for sure. The top of the carrot will show at the soil line so you can gauge whether or not the diameter looks right, but you’ll have to test by pulling a couple to be sure.
- Tomatoes: Tomatoes are best when they are fully colored and slightly soft to the touch. Gently twist and pull from the vine.
- Radishes: Because they mature quickly, as soon as you see the shoulders of the bulbs popping out of the soil line, it’s time to harvest. If you wait too long, they will become tough and go to seed.
Although there are a lot of very popular vegetables we didn’t talk about, you can always stop by Western Gardens and talk to one of our expert gardeners. We’re always happy to offer advice and recommendations that will help you yield a fruitful harvest and enjoy fresh vegetables at your dinner table all summer long. You can also visit us on Facebook for daily updates and specials.
Starting a Vegetable Garden
Everyone enjoys fresh vegetables. You might be surprised to know how much you can produce in a relatively small vegetable garden. My father-in-law enjoys fresh carrots, chard, spinach, tomatoes, cucumbers, and even a few potatoes all summer—produced on a very small garden. Here are a few pointers:
- Don’t bite off more than you can chew: Starting a new garden is a lot like starting a new exercise program. At first you might be a little tired, sore, and tempted to quit. If you’re new to gardening, start off with something small, no more than 8′ x 10′ or smaller. You can always expand later.
- Pick a spot for your garden that gets a lot of sun all day: Once you’ve picked your spot, it’s time to get to work tilling the soil. Rent, borrow, or even buy a small tiller to work up the soil and sod (that’s right, you don’t even have to remove the sod). Digging out all the sod will create a recess in the soil, resulting in poor drainage.
- Determine the type of soil you’re working with: If it’s sandy (like mine) or has a lot of clay, you’ll need to bring in some topsoil to get you started right. You can also use compost as a second choice. (If you’re using compost, you’ll need to apply it in the spring and the fall for a couple of seasons before it will start to improve the soil.)
Now you’re ready to plant! Easy-to-grow crops like onions, peas, beets, rutabaga, and zucchini are a great place to start (especially for small gardens). If you’d like advice on the best vegetables to start with in your garden, you can always stop by Western Gardens and talk to one of our helpful gardeners. They are always ready to help you with pest control suggestions, fertilizer recommendations, and their opinions for the best time to plant. Also, visit us on Facebook for daily updates and specials.
Everybody Loves Tomatoes
This time of year a lot of folks come into the nursery with questions about which type of tomatoes would be the best to plant in their gardens. Believe it or not, there are a lot of great tomato varieties that do very well in Utah—sometimes the choice is just a matter of personal preference.
The other day, someone asked about the best heirloom tomatoes for Utah. We suggested that either Moonglow or Brandywine would be great. Over the years I’ve experimenting with and found a couple that I really like.
One year I planted Early Girls and was eating tomatoes weeks before my neighbors. There’s nothing as good as a sliced tomato alongside your favorite BBQ steak (especially when everyone else is still going to the grocery store for them).
Stop by Western Gardens and we’d be happy to share with you our personal favorites and help you decide. When you stop by, mention the blog and take $5 off of any $20 purchase.