Sunday, May 18, 2008

Potatoes

We were finally able to get our potatoes in the ground yesterday. The weather has been a bit uncooperative lately with on and off again showers and extreme winds. We planted seven different varieties. Eramosa, Irish Cobbler, Red Norland, Superior, Yukon Gold, Fabula and Russet Burbank. We used the hillers to mark out the rows and then planted the sets into the hills.


Derek making rows with the hillers


Derek planting the potato sets


Gem eyes


Rows of sets (notice they are not that straight, oops)


Jen raking soil over the sets


Rows of potatoes

Once the potatoes were all planted we had the daunting task of laying perforated row cover over the rows. The wind picked up just as we had finished planting so the race was on to lay the plastic before the wind turned it into a big kite. This plastic will help to increase the soil temperature which will allow the sets to sprout faster and grow quicker. This is the first time we used this particular type of row cover and we're eager to see the results.


Up close shot of the perforated plastic


Plastic cover over potato rows

3 comments:

Unknown said...

You guys are nuts! Can you walk after bending over so much??? How long did it take you to do all that? Glad its you and not me!!

Jen said...

Hey there

I didn't take that long actually. We started about 8:00 and were done by 1:00. I thought it went by really quickly. Next year you can come help as I'm sure there will be more to plant

Unknown said...

When we come next it will most definately be in the summer..no more crappy snowstorm traveling for me! But I would rather come in the convenient time when everything is growing and tasty!! Like strawberry time...mmmmmmmm...strawberry jam!!!