Potatoes in the Ground!

 (To read a compilation of all our potato blogs, go to:
Can I plant potatoes from the grocery store? and

Sprouting Potatoes, What to Do?)

Some people who are following this blog have been "chitting" potatoes to increase their storage of solar energy and make their sprouts tougher prior to planting. This post covers how to plant your potatoes. If you've got some potatoes that are eager to get in the ground, here's a simple method that yields good results. (As with all gardening techniques, there are about as many ways to plant potatoes as there are potato varieties - and that's a lot! What follows is just one way that we've found works well for us. Feel free to add comments to our web-page with your own best tips and methods.)

Potato leaves emerging from the soil

Begin by roto-tilling the soil, or loosening it up so the potatoes have light, loose soil to form in. If the ground is too firmly packed, your potatoes will tend to be smaller. If you're planting more than one row, stake the rows about 36" apart. We use wooden stakes at the end of each row and baling twine we've recycled and tied together to form a long string. This will help you plant straight rows.

Baling twine saved from hay-bales, tied together for re-use in the garden

Using a clam-shell post-hole digger, dig your holes about 8"-10" apart and about 10" deep. You have to wait until your soil is drained enough so the fence-post digger doesn't get caked up with mud. If you just can't wait, and the mud is a problem, try filling a 5-gallon bucket with water and dipping the clam-shells in it between holes. This should help keep the mud from building up.

Digging holes with a clam-shell post-hole digger

Put some fertilizer in each hole - about 2 heaping tablespoons ( a small handful). We use an all-purpose, organic mix that we get from a local supplier called "Down to Earth" in Eugene. It's OK to put it straight in the hole. It won't "burn" the potato plants. You can use a big handful of worm-compost instead of fertilizer, if you have some. It helps if you're systematic: first dig all your holes, then fertilize, then plant them all. This gives you economy of motion and, if the holes are all prepared, your potatoes won't be shocked through excessive exposure to sun and air. 

Worm compost to fertilize the growing potatoes

This year we chitted potatoes in March and April, and then layered them in leaves so they didn't become dehydrated before we put them in the ground. Because we've had such a wet spring and we've had to wait so long, many of the potatoes had begun to send out long shoots and tiny rootlets. While it is important to expose potatoes to the sun when you first chit them, that same exposure can be devastating if they have begun to form fine root-hairs. If they get dried out from direct exposure to sun and air, at this stage, it can set them back considerably from their ability to produce potatoes.  Very carefully tease the potatoes out of the leaf or straw mulch you've stored them in. The ideal time to plant your potatoes is before they've grown fragile stems and rootlets but, if nature hasn't been cooperating and they've grown too far, just be very gentle. Don't get too far ahead of yourself. Only tease out as many potatoes as you have dug holes for. Don't leave any exposed to the sun or air. Cover them if you must attend to something else for awhile. Place a seed-potato in each hole.

Note the long sprouts and fragile, skinny root-hairs

The next step is to cover and mound the potatoes. Using a flat rake, gently pull the soil back over the hole and build it up into a raised bed at least 6" above the path and a foot or so wide. This will give you foot-wide paths for mulching. The advantage of raised beds is that they are able to catch more sun, the soil heats up and drains better and plant-growth is increased.

Heavily mulching the paths feeds the soil, keeps moisture in the ground and prevents weeds from growing.

Lastly, lay down a nice, thick layer (about 6") of mulch in the paths. You can use last year's leaves (no walnut please--they're toxic to plants), or straw, or spoiled hay. For more about the heavy-mulch method that we use for gardening, you'll just have to wait till we have time to write that post! If the potato leaves poke through the ground before the risk of frost has passed in your area, be sure to loosely cover them with these mulch materials on cold nights. Potatoes are very sensitive to frost. There's not a whole lot more to do with potatoes until harvest time. If you notice the forming potatoes pushing up out of the soil, be sure to cover them with more soil or mulch to keep them from turning green (green potatoes are poisonous).

Anticipate the harvest!

Our "Chip's" Come In!

 Wood chips donated from Trees Inc.

Thanks to our local power company and the tree service they contract to for line maintenance, Trees Inc., we had a huge load of wood chips donated at the Monroe Garden site. This was enough to make a thick path from the Methodist Church's driveway back to our tool shed. Volunteer Steve Rose brought his tractor down to the site and began the process of tilling up the soil last Thursday but took a break from that to move the wood chips to where it was easier to spread them.

Chris and Steve spreading wood chips - Monroe Garden

Other big news! (which some of you haven't heard yet): An anonymous donor (an Oregon family), through the grant brokerage of Trust Management Services (TMS), has awarded our project $9,980, the full amount we asked for in a proposal we submitted in February. The grant proposal focuses on three main threads: expansion and maintenance of both the Alpine and Monroe sites; development and support of our volunteer base; and development of a program aimed at young people ages 9-18 and their families, through partnering with the local schools and other youth programs in the area.This grant gives us a strong "green light"  signal to move ahead with the Sharing Gardens. Much thanks to Evelyn Lee and Dorothy Brinckerhoff for their assistance in writing and submitting the grant and to Mary Lanthrum (TMS) for going to bat for us.

Danielle sifting soil for raspberry transplants

Speaking of "developing our volunteer base", Saturday May 9th was our first "official" volunteer day at the Alpine Park. The weather was gorgeous and we got a lot done. We now have about 1/3 of our "chitted" potatoes planted which is equal to our whole crop from last year (five 30-foot rows). The rest will go into the Monroe site.We mulched the potato paths with leaves raked last fall (thanks to Mylrea Estell and Raymond Kreth for giving us rent-credit for the raking!) We potted up two dozen raspberry plants - and there's a lot more still to be potted. And finally, Chris got the beautiful sign he painted over the winter hung at the Alpine site. A very productive morning.

Tibbi and Chris planting potatoes

A few more "thank you's" need to be mentioned: Bert and Theresa, who live on the edge of the Alpine Park, keep bringing us lawn clippings. Bert's probably in his 80's so we're especially grateful for him making the extra effort to drive his mower over to our drop-site. Alpine's own softball team, who are using the baseball diamond behind Queen-Bee Honey, are mowing that whole field today and trucking the grass clippings across the street for the garden (thanks guys). Guy Urbach has been nice enough to foot the bill for the Porta-Potty that's been stationed at Alpine park since we took over the bathroom-building as our tool shed. Once we get the new shed built we'll be able to leave the bathroom unlocked all summer.

Tibbi, Llyn and Danielle on our first official volunteer day - 2010

If you're local, and would like to be notified of volunteer days at the garden, or want some raspberry plants, send us an email. AlpineCoGarden@gmail.com Also write us if you'd like to be added or removed from our mailing list.

P.S. Does anyone out there have a running lawn-mower they'd like to donate? It would help us keep the gardens looking nice.

Got lumber?

Future site of Alpine's tool shed.

Curtis and Loren Bowman are brothers. They have lived in the Monroe/Alpine community for many years. Loren began managing the Monroe Food Bank as a volunteer almost fifteen years ago and developed it into the thriving service it is today. When he started, the Food Bank was giving food-boxes once a month to about three families. Now it serves about ten times that amount on a weekly basis. Because of the recession, the numbers of people served by this local effort continues to grow. A year or so ago, Loren stepped back from being the manager of the program and passed on the job to his brother Curtis. These are two humble and hard-working servants in our community. Just last week Loren made a donation to help the "Sharing Gardens", he donated a whole bunch of used decking material that we can use to build a tool shed at the Alpine Garden site.

Add this to the lumber already donated by Tibby and John Scott and we have more than half of what we need to build the shed. After a few hours pulling nails this weekend we ended up with a good-looking stack of lumber.

Our current lumber stash at Alpine Park

Thanks to Trust Management Services and the generous grant they just awarded us (more on this in a future blog-post) we now are well-funded through this coming year. In an effort to stretch these funds as far as they will go, we would still like to encourage everyone to contribute their "excess" materials to the project. If any of you readers have a stack of used, or new 2 x 4's that you don't see a need for, we'd be grateful to take them off your hands and put them to good use. Once we have the tool shed built in the Alpine Park we can open up the cinder-block bathroom (where we've been storing tools) for public use again.

Planting Peas - Garden's Progress

Here in the Willamette Valley we went from an absolutely beautiful run of weather in mid-to-late February which was then followed by weeks and weeks of (mostly) rain. Both garden sites are lowlands that soak up a lot of water in the winter and take awhile to drain in the spring. The Monroe plot is yet to be tilled but fortunately Chris built some raised beds in the Alpine garden just before the rains set in.

 Alpine Garden in April 2010 - Super Soggy!

We've had just enough sunny weather in the last week for the standing water to recede, and its a good thing as several flats of veggie "starts" were rapidly outgrowing their pots, and the pea plants were beginning to  intertwine their tendrils which would make it more and more difficult to separate them without damage.

 A van-load of peas, kale and lettuce to plant

Last Saturday we transplanted three flats of lettuce, three of peas and a half a flat of kale. Since these are all plants that will require regular harvesting, we planted them as close to the gate as soil-wetness would allow. In planning out a garden you must juggle so many factors: the frequency of harvest, the season you'll be harvesting (how soon that section of your garden will be open for other crops to be grown) and the particular needs of each kind of produce: light, drainage and relative fertility of the soil.

As the season gets more under way, and weather becomes more stabilized, we intend to have weekly volunteer times scheduled for each garden (Alpine: Wed's - 4-6:00 pm and Monroe: Thurs - 9-11:00 am) but now, we're just taking care of things when the weather will allow. (We're grateful to the dozen folks who have already asked to be put on our volunteer list. Let us know if you too would like to be added: alpinecogarden@gmail.com ) Last Saturday we had a window of opportunity so we took advantage of it. We were happy when Jesse Wolfe, a regular volunteer from last year, happened to be driving by and stopped to help transplant the lettuce and stake up the peas.

C

Chris and Jesse transplanting in the Alpine Garden.

Garden tip for Peas: In our region, its ideal to plant peas around Valentine's Day. This gives them the best head start for blooming in time for the longest possible harvest season. The problem is that the soil is often very wet and cold and, even if you get a good start sowing seeds directly in the soil, the March and April rains can retard their growth significantly, or the seedlings rot off at soil-level. One way to work around this is to plant your seeds, in four-inch pots, one in each corner (four seeds per pot). This gives each plant enough soil to germinate and grow to several inches in height, in the warm(er) controlled environment of the green house (or sunny windowsill). When it comes time to transplant, you plant all four plants in the same hole (don't try to separate their roots!). Plant each set of four about 8"-10" apart with bamboo stakes or other climbing trellis in between each clump of starts. The plants will go through a little stress from transplanting but once they acclimatize to their new environment they'll be well along the way to yielding a bounteous and long-term harvest!

Thank-you's: As readers know, these gardens are run entirely through donated time and materials. We continue to feel support coming from all directions of our extended community. We make an effort to acknowledge all the generous donations that come our way. Please forgive us if we have somehow overlooked your specific donation. YOU ARE APPRECIATED! Tina Johnson, one of the volunteers at the Monroe Foodbank gave us a bunch of corn, peas and bean seeds; Guy Urbach has donated a large piece of "road carpet" to use as weed barrier. Tibby and John Scott have donated a whole slew of fencing and other building materials and garden supplies. The Diamond Woods Golf Course has made their heavy-duty lawn mower available to us for periodic lawn-mowing at the Alpine Park this summer. Last weekend, Jack Jones donated much of his Saturday joyfully mowing the grass at the Alpine Park that surrounds our garden. Dorothy Brinckerhoff and Gary Watts of Alpine Pump continue to be our guardian angels in too many ways to innumerate. Thank you also to the Lion's Club who made a $100 donation to the Gardens' general fund and $100 to cover the electric bill to run the pump at the Alpine site. Evelyn Lee donated a whole bushel of sprouting potatoes and is the ongoing manager of our local list-serve--passing on these emails to the community at-large. Rann Millar of Harrisburg has been contributing his time translating our materials into Spanish to support our outreach efforts to the Latino community. And last but not least we received an anonymous donation of pots and flats and a bag of already beautifully "chitted" potatoes.

A handful of potatoes ready for planting.

With the seed potatoes we saved from last year's crop, the one's we've picked up at the produce department and those from people in the area, we figure we have at least 80 pounds! With each seed-potato able to yield up to five pounds of harvest, we're looking at a significant amount of yummy, easily stored food for those who have participated in the gardens this summer, and the Monroe Food Bank as well.

A good morning's work!

If you receive this email as a forward and would like to be added directly to our list, write to us at AlpineCoGarden@gmail.com. Our website is: "Sharing Gardens" Website

Signs of the Times

Chris finished painting both garden signs and we look forward to another break in the weather to hang them at the garden sites. Here's the one for Alpine:

And here's the one for Monroe:

Someone sent us a link to this article in the San Francisco Chronicle featuring a garden similar to our "Sharing Gardens". Its called a "Free Farm". "Free Farm article"

Llyn and Chris
www.AlpineGarden.blogspot.com/

More on "chitting" Potatoes

 (To read a compilation of all our potato blogs, go to:
Can I plant potatoes from the grocery store? and

Sprouting Potatoes, What to Do?)

 If the potatoes you are "chitting" (exposing to sunlight before planting) already have extensive sprouts, and the sturdy central sprout has many small root-hairs coming off the sides, it's important that you remove those, otherwise you'll get many tiny potatoes instead of large ones. These smaller side-sprouts also hasten the dehydration of the potato and weaken its ability to thrive.

You can rub off the rootlets with your bare hands, they snap off easily. Ideally you will end up with a potato at least the size of a hen's egg with one or more strong sprouts growing out of it.
 

Potatoes on left have too many "sproutlets." On right they have been properly stripped of all but the central sprout.

If you missed the previous post on chitting potatoes, or would like to refer back to it, it was posted on our site on Tuesday March 9. To access our site, click here.