Finally!  I have had a successful harvest in this difficult year.

On Monday, I left work a little early to head over to the farm and dig my potato plants.  They had been hit relatively hard by blight, so I was expecting a pretty sorry harvest, but I pulled up what was the most satisfiying, exciting haul I’ve ever had as a gardener. 

This was the first time that I’ve ever grown potatoes, so I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect, but when I stuck my fork into the ground and gave it a heave, I literally whooped with joy as several big, perfect fingerling potatoes came rolling out of the loose dirt.  When I scrabbled around a little bit more, I pulled out a good many more, several overflowing handfulls- and that from only one plant!  I was expecting to dig them all, but I ended up digging up less than half because I had so many that I couldn’t carry them all home!   If anyone was watching me, they probably would have though I lost my mind.  There I was on my hands and knees gleefully digging through the soil grinning like and idiot the whole time.  It was great!  (And thank goodness my garden is on an isolated hillside with no neighbors!)

I grew two varieties- Russian Bananna and French Fingerling.  The Russian Banannas were all very large potatoes (for fingerlings) and entirely mature.  I got between 5 and 6 per plant.  The French Fingerlings varied wildly by size.  Many of them were quite large, but there were still a lot of little baby potatoes on the plants as well.  I wonder if I had left the foliage up longer if they would have grown more?  Or is it just normal to have lots of little ones?

I don’t have  a scale, but I estimate that I probably dug between 15 and 17 Lbs. of potatoes out of the garden, and I’m hoping as many more are still waiting to be dug up.  I can’t believe how wonderful these were to grow.  And honestly, I planted them a little late and shallow and was pretty remiss about hilling.  I guess those first couple months of loads of water and cool weather was good for them?  Who knows…but I will always grow potatoes again.  What a satisfying harvest!

(Oh yes, and they are delicious!)

Wow…another post about a pest, of sorts.  Though this, like blight, is actually another plant disease.

Here at my house my roommates and I have a small, messy garden.  I say messy because we crammed a lot of plants into a small space and they are doing aggressively well.  Certainly not a terrible problem to have, but everyday I have to go out and yell at the cucumbers to stop climbing up the tomato plants and for the Zucchini to stop shading the eggplants with its massive leaves.

The two squash plants (aforementioned Zucchini of an unnamed variety and Zephyr summer squash) are two of the most impressive, productive squash plants I’ve ever seen.  They are keeping the three of us- though one doesn’t cook, so I guess the two of us- in enough squash to choke a hog.  I love it!

But just moments ago I went outside to pick some and I noticed that the plants are absolutely covered with powdery mildew!  It came out of nowhere!  I didn’t notice it yesterday (hell, even this morning in my ritual glimpse I didn’t see anything!) so it’s come on quick and dirty.  Yikes!

I’ve never dealt with this before.  Will it spread to the other plants that are around it?  The tomatoes are literally touching the squash plants- are they in danger of catching it too?  I’m not sure what to do?  Anyone ever had a problem with powdery mildew in the past?

Well, it’s happened.  My potatoes have been struck all to hell by late blight.

I’ve been watching them with consternation for a few weeks now…hoping hoping hoping that those little brown spots I was seeing weren’t blight.  Silly me.  I should have chopped them all down right then.

I went out of town last weekend, so almost a week went by without a stop to the garden.  On Thursday I sped by after work (note to self:  keep some better shoes in your car…traipsing up a hill that is a foot deep in thick weeds in your heels is a terrible, terrible idea) and saw that my potatoes were wrecked.  Oddly enough, it seemed to be creeping up the patch.  I have two long rows, and the vines at one end were rotted and blackened while the ones at the other ends were still green and strong, just showing lots of spots. I figured it would hit them all at once…guess not.

I’ve read a couple of sources online that say if you cut down your vines, not leaving any green, and let the potatoes sit for at least two weeks in the ground, you can dig up the tubers and it will lessen the chance that the blight actually gets on the potatoes. So today I went by the farm and cut them all down, leaving only little nubs sticking up so I know where the plants were growing.  I stuffed all the vines in a old feed bag and gave it to the farm managers.  They are going to see that they get incinerated.

Shockingly, none of the tomatoes at the farm seem to have even a touch of it (they don’t grow any potatoes, so that isn’t an issue).  Almost every farm around us is reporting that they are getting hit hard- many of them have lost their entire crops.  But today we picked a few handfuls of early cherry and plum tomatoes off of perfectly green, healthy plants.  My little plot is on an isolated hillside with a forest between it and any other plants of the nightshade family.  Keep your fingers crossed.  I could personally care less about the whole tomato crop being wiped out, but it would break the hearts of most of the people who belong to the CSA, so I’ll hope for the best.

Pitifully small and shockingly late, I had my first harvest yesterday.  I picked two small 8-ball zuchinnis which were promptly sauteed in a little olive oil and happily eaten.   They were excellent- I do love that variety so very much.

Things are finally turning into summer around here, though we are still having 60s in the evenings (even got down to 50-something last week!).  Cool weather isn’t so bad as long as we are seeing sun, and we’ve had some beautiful sunny days recently.  Hopefully that will crank everything into high-growing gear.  My cukes and eggplants are shockingly tiny, and I have only three little sad okra plants that are barely hanging on.  I fully expect them to die at any moment.

The only thing that’s been loving this weather are my potatoes, which are doing great.  (Well, at least I think so- I’ve never grown them before!)  So far I’ve been lucky to avoid late blight, which is taking a toll on lots of people right now, even some of my neighbors.   I did have to pull off a few leaves which were getting eaten down by Colorado Potato Beetle larvae.  I’ve heard that some other farms around us are having pretty bad infestations, so I feel pretty lucky that what I’ve seen in mild.  I’m told that nothing they are attracted to has been growing up on my hill in a few years, so maybe that’s why, but I don’t really care, honestly!   I’m just happy not to see many of them, not in the least because they are the nastiest looking bugs ever.  I literally did the heebie-jeebie dance after I pulled of a few leaves.  I don’t get grossed out by bugs very often, but yikes. 

For those of you that have been suffering through this bleak summer, I hope everything is growing well for you!

Phelan linked to this great service, The Farmer’s Garden, on her blog and it looks awesome.  It’s a way to see if there are any farms or gardens around you that have surplus they are selling or bartering.  Sadly, there isn’t anything within 100 miles of me yet, but this seems like the kind of thing that will only work if lots of people use it.  So sign up!  Tell your friends!

June 21 is the Summer Solstice- the longest day of the year and surely-SURELY- the official harbinger of summer, right?  Well, Massachusetts doesn’t seem to have gotten the message this year.  This is, by far, one of the gloomiest Junes I have ever experienced.  I don’t think we’ve had more than one day where it has been over 70 degrees.  The sun has been shy but the rain hasn’t.  I feel like I’m in Scotland.  Everything is damp and cool, including the soil in my garden.  I lost about half of my Okra plants- not sure if they weather had anything to do with it, but they looked great last weekend.  Everything seems to be growing slowly, slowly, slowly. 

I’m just so eager for blazing hot weather and sun for days, though I’m certain as soon as that happens I’ll start complaining about that, too!

I swear!  I know I’ve been terribly, terribly remiss about posting here, but that’s all going to change right now. 

The little plot at my CSA is coming along very nicely.  I’ve got almost everything planted.

Here’s what I’ve put in over the last few weeks:

2 Varieties of fingerling potatoes (Russian Bananna and French Fingerling)- These are both doing excellent!  Lush, thick foliage and growing incredibly quickly.  I’ve already mounded them once.  I also planted some marigolds along with them because I’m terrified of Colorado Potato Beetles.  I’ve been diligently checking the leaves for eggs, but so far haven’t found any.  Maybe I’ll get lucky!

Alisa Craig Exhbition onion plants- don’t know how many I planted- maybe 70 or so?  Quite a few of them didn’t survive, but I think I’ve still got around 50 going

King Richard Leeks- Spent some time rescuing these from the weeds today.  They are still small.  I’ve heard leeks are difficult to grow but I hope I’ll get lucky with these.  I just adore leeks so very much.

8 Ball Zuchini- 3 plants

Eggplants (can’t remember the variety)- 3 plants

Flat Leaf Parsley- 2 plants

Dill- 4 plants

And today I planted:

12 Okra plants – Annie Oakley-  These are NOT the okra that I started.  Those fell to the double whammy of terrible germination and then 4 days of me out of town and now water- dead as they could be.  But yesterday a friend of mine surprised me with a gift of Okra!  She had seen them at a gardening center near her and remember my plight, so she got them for me.  How exciting!  Perhaps I will have Okra after all!

Corn- Don’t know the variety- these came from the seed swap that I talked about a few months ago.  I only planted a tiny stand of 16 kernels in a 4X4 patter for better polination.  We’ll see how they do.

Speckeled Glory Butterbeans- only had 12 seeds (these were a welcome gift from a friend of mine in South Carolina) so I planted them all.  I hope they do well.  Butterbeans would be a delightful treat.

Cannelinni beans- 16 seeds.  These are also from the seed swap.  We’ll see how they do.

I still have plans to put in my pole beans, but so far I haven’t done anything about the support for them.  I better hurry up, though!  Already June 8th.

I planted my first crop of the year today, and it’s an experiment:  Okra!

I LOVE Okra.  Well, I should say that I love fried Okra.  There aren’t really many other ways that I like it, though a few pieces in a little gumbo never hurt me.  You can occasionally find it up here, but it is outrageously expensive.

Now this certainly isn’t Africa- Okra’s homeland- and it isn’t Alabama (which is a heck of a lot closer to Africa than Massachusetts!), but I’m going to try my hardest to grow some this year.  Any of you New Englanders ever try growing it?  Was it a failure?

I started three varieties today- Alabama and Cowhorn, two heirloom varieties that were sent to me last year by my dear friend Liz who works at a historic site in South Carolina with a big heirloom garden (she sent me lots of other goodies too, and I can’t wait to get them planted!) and also a mystery variety that I got in Howling Hill’s seed swap.   HH, do you know what variety they were?  I think I was the first stop off of your seed swap this year, so they must have come from you!

So they are sitting pretty in my window sill- we’ll see how they do.  I may have even planted them too early.  Daddy tells me that he direct sows his in May (which means it is already steadily in the 80s and 90s but here it is still coolish).  I did save seeds of each variety in case it doesn’t work but I do hope it does.  Even if I can get one big handful of freshly fried Okra, I’ll consider it a success!

Hooray!  I confirmed this weekend that I will have a garden!  My CSA is letting me have a plot for myself, so I’m thrilled to be able to have something to post about again.

The location is at the top of a hill, so the drainage will be excellent.  I haven’t actually been out to dig around in the soil yet, so I’m not sure what the quality is, but last year it was an area used for peas and squash, so it can certainly support life.  The location is full sun, but I’m concerned about how early it will be up for planting.  There isn’t a windbreak or anything in the vicinity.  Has anyone ever grown on the top of a bare hill before?  Anythign you noticed about grown in a location like that?

 It’s supposed to rain today, but I’m going to go over soon and take some pictures so I can do all of my planning with you.

Yay! 

Now, if only I can find some potatos and onion seedlings!  They all seem to be sold out everwhere!

This is very, very exciting!!

From the good people at Kitchen Gardeners International and Eat The View:

“Obamas to Plant White House Vegetable Garden”
On Friday, March 20th, 2009, 23 third graders will join First Lady Michelle Obama on the South Lawn of the White House to break ground on an 1100 square foot kitchen garden that will provide food for family dinners and formal dinners. 
 
According to the New York Times:

The Obamas’ garden will have 55 varieties of vegetables grown from organic seedlings started at the executive mansion’s greenhouses.
 
And better still:
 
Almost the entire Obama family, including the president, will pull weeds, “whether they like it or not,” Mrs. Obama said laughing.
 
Ok, you can stop pinching yourself: you aren’t dreaming this and an off batch of sauerkraut hasn’t caused a rare case of lacto-fermentation-hallucination.
 
THEY ARE REALLY GOING TO DIG THIS GARDEN!
 
AND WE HELPED MAKE THIS DAY POSSIBLE!
 
Those of you who have been part of the KGI community for a while know that this is a long-term project of ours, started in February 2008.  It was back in the middle of the presidential primary season when 99.9999% of the population was focused on who the next president was going to be.  We were the .0001% of the population that was thinking about what his or her family was going to eat and where it would be grown. 
 
It’s been quite a ride for KGI as an organization and for me personally since then.  For those of you who are new and weren’t with us for the trip, we had some fun along the way. We started following a hopeful little web project called OnDayOne.org in February 2008, read about ourselves in the New York Times in April, began putting our names on a White House Food Garden petition in June, hummed along to This Lawn is Your Lawn in July 2008, read about ourselves in the International Herald Tribune in July, placed bids on the White House Lawn which we had put up for sale on eBay in August, watched with wonder as two young guys inspired by our work set off in a funky bus to take the edible White House idea across the country and back, chuckled our way through September watching the Garden of Eatin’, read Michael Pollan’s “Farmer-in-Chief” article with great interest in October which also spoke of a new garden at the White House, voted “This Lawn is Your Lawn” onto national TV through the Climate Matters video contest in October, got swept up in the energy of the November elections, leafed our way through the Washington Post in January, pushed hard to get out the vote in the OnDayOne.org contest later that month (and won that too beating out 4000 other ideas), began inviting more people to sign our petition on our campaign site and on Facebook also in January, spoke with and e-mailed various members of Michelle Obama’s staff in February (me, in this case, but maybe you did too? They said they were hearing from a lot of people.), and here we are in March 2009 reading the headline above and vicariously walking our way through the delicious garden paths of the future South Lawn.

 
What more can I say besides thank you for all your support and patience with this project.  Many individuals made this great day possible: – Alice Waters, Michael Pollan, John Adams, Eleanor Roosevelt, Barack and Michelle Obama – but we can feel pride in being the community that pulled together and made a difference. 
 
So let’s celebrate that.  The seeding or the weeding can wait.  Tomorrow’s about savoring a moment that was a long time in the making.

_______________________________

By the way, I totally miss you guys!  I may have some gardening news soon!