Final Potato Harvest!

So I have managed to get all my potatoes dug up, take a look:


These particular ones are "German Butterball" they are an heirloom variety, and I do have to say that I really did prefer them to the ones that we planted from our winter sprouters. Also I liked them more from the "local" seed potatoes as the heirlooms produced much more as you can see in the vid. Now I am going to walk you through my "experiment" process with this again. For those of you who want to know about it.



This is what we had started with a, about one inch layer of composted goat manure on some cleared ground. The area was about 5ftX10ft. We planted first our "over winter sprouters" in the first "row" (if you want to call it that). That was a mix of russets and fingerling potatoes that we bought over the winter from both of the discount grocery stores we shop at.

Then we both ordered the Butterball seed potatoes and bought some local seed potatoes as we didn't know how well any of them would produce. Also as I have never grown potatoes before it was a trial in many ways for me. I now understand why I have heard people say that "anyone can grow potatoes". They are very simple to grow and I barely watered them





I hope you can see what's in this image, it's one of the "sprouter" potatoes coming out of the ground. Now I learned that it takes quite some time for them to "get moving", so if you have never grown potatoes; don't worry they'll come up.













Here is where we started putting straw down to cover the base of the plants. I waited for them to produce a good amount of leaves before I started doing this, as I did not want to smother the plant.













This is after I stopped layering the straw over the base of the plants, the potatoes made such a nice "mini forest" at this point. They were also very lush and I still was not watering them at this point. I only watered them once we started getting a week or more without rain.

I am wondering to some extent if I had watered more would the potatoes have gotten bigger? Also all around the "pile" Lamb's quarter started growing, so we had some extra food growing. Yeah for Nature's bounty!







This is from my first harvest in the "pile" as you can see the ground is a lovely dark color under the straw. The straw right before the ground level has turned black and is "slimy" to an extent. A good "earthy" smell started coming up when I was digging through this.

I will say digging up potatoes is like going on a treasure hunt...









...as you can see:

These were from my first harvest, and it is all we got from the store seed potatoes and the sprouters. Now, this does show that over wintered sprouters can be grown, they might not grow as much as "seed" potatoes; but some will produce. You can also see we got some russets and some golds.

That was about 5 Cups worth of potatoes we got in the first "half" of the "pile".









Of Course these are from the second half off my "pile", as you saw in the vid. I am very happy with how well the Butterball's did. I will be buying them again next year, I am thinking of keeping an eye out for winter sprouters again so we have some early potatoes. I am also planning on watering more regularly next year and see if they get bigger due to it.

I also learned that a thick layer of straw will help your topsoil, as it is really making the ground under where my "pile" was a nice and pretty section of dirt. We are going to apply this knowledge to the rest of my current garden space and our future large garden space. The plan when the "cleared" area gets the downed trees cut up and the brush removed we will cover the future garden space with either straw or hay.

Then we will leave it until the following spring, and it should get nice and dark below the straw from the local earth "movers" working their way through it. Also the fungus's that grow beneath the top layer. It is an interesting process to watch, the straw frost drops any seed it had and then we get grass growing. A bit of water and mushrooms grow, bit more water and mold will start forming in mats.

Insects start moving in making little paths in the straw to let more air and water pass. Earthworms start chewing up the lower bits of the straw leaving behind casings. Eventually all this together will make it into compost. It's almost like making your own leaf mold to some extent. I can't wait till I check out what has happened to it by next spring!



That's it for now,

Be Well, Be Safe and Blessed Be...

Volcanic Period?

Now I know I haven't posted in a bit here but I have been watching something through youtube that I would like to get people's attention about. I am going to put up a bunch of video's then I'm going to say something about this.



















Now, I hope you have watched all these video's and saw that this youtube person is using all verifiable info on his reports. Now I watch this guy fairly regularly as he does severe weather reports and has a very good rate of being accurate.. about 99% of the time. He is using the same radar(s) as weather men and doing a better job with it.

Now I have and so does Silver a free program on our computers called earthquake 3D, it shows earthquakes as they happen and you can see them up to 7 days in a row. I don't know how many people can recall it, but when I was younger I remember when there would be a 6.anything it would be all over the news. How often do you hear about earthquakes now? Only when they cause major damage right? Well we seem to be having lots of earthquakes world wide lately and some reach up to a 6. Also a few youtubers have noted that the USGS data tends to CHANGE over the course of the day if you keep your eye on the info through out the day. Quakes are removed, they get downgraded.

Now put that with what is shown in those vids and tell me what you think? Do we have a geologically active period coming to us? I do wonder as I don't think I've ever seen or heard of the sheer amount of quakes occurring world wide that even I see on the earthquake 3D program.

Oh, and a side comment about volcano's.... I personally think that "extinct" should -NEVER- be used when talking about a volcano. Want to know about extinct volcano's, talk to the dead people of Pompeii.... A volcano is never truly extinct, just dormant.