Tuesday, February 26, 2008

A hoe, a claw and a rake : Part II


The potager is completely cleared, the soil has been turned and amendments have been incorporated. We're ready to sow our peas! While cleaning the bed we had to pick out lots of rocks, small and not so small thanks to the plumbing work done last winter. Wing Nut found some very interesting little rocks.


Hey, those aren't rocks at all! They're purple potatoes from my little experiment last summer. They were spuds that went a little too long unused and sprouted in our wire hanging basket. I thought the little violet colored sprouts were so beautiful, I threw them in a container and threw dirt on top. We so did not follow Steve Solomon's advice in Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades, usually our bible when it comes to growing things we've never grown before. These were store bought spuds and not the garden center's certified ones. I didn't hill them up. I watered at the wrong time. It also never occurred to me to check the pot in the fall, so certain was I that there would be no potatoes in there. So imagine our surprise and glee when we dumped out the pot that you see sitting in the potager in the photo from our post "A hoe, a claw and a rake : Part I" and found about 2 dozen purple spuds that looked to be quite edible.

4 comments:

Kerri said...

You've done such a beautiful job with that plot! I'll look forward to seeing a beautifully blooming garden there come summer.
Those potatoes look great! Isn't it fun to find those kind of surprises?
I'm happy to hear you've had success with tomatoes too in spite of the naysayers. I like your attitude :)
It's been fun 'getting to know you' a bit this morning.

Ewa said...

Thank you for stopping by and leaving a comment on my blog.
I just red your post - isn't it fun, that garden always have surprises for us?

Katarina said...

Thanks for visitng my blog and leaving a comment there1 It made me find your blog - and a very nice blog it is!
I just love the story behind your purple potatoes - I hope they taste as nice as they look! /Katarina at Roses and stuff

Vic Phelps said...

Greetings from Columbia City!
Nice blog!
I love the purple potato story as it applies to my garden. I also planted some old story bought potatoes last year and like your experience they mostly failed. This spring I recycled that soil in several spots around my garden but I didn't recognize the little tubers that formed last year and now I have potatoes growing EVERYWHERE! Are potatoes considered an "invasive" plant? They sure are in my yard!

Keep on blogging!