Spade Work : From Plot to Plate

TPS - True Potato Seed

This experiment is very much a real time one with none of the clear vision of hindsight. I know from the bloggers' meet in Oxford that other growers including Mustard Plaster are trying to grow potatoes from true seed.

It was new to me as I'd always grown potatoes from seed potato tubers, bought in each year as I'd never been able to store my tubers in good condition for planting the following season. And we'd always been told that we couldn't guarantee that our tubers were disease free.

Anyway, introduced to the idea at the bloggers' meet, I found some interesting and informative sites which got me going on this experiment - have a look at the International Potato Centre and this post by Daughter of the Soil .  

I picked these potato berries from my crop of Cara (this year there were loads of berries on my maincrop but none on the Charlotte).

The berries were ripe, soft and sweet smelling, like the ripest bunch of grapes you've ever come across - a potential danger if you have children or pets around as the berry is packed with poisonous glycoalkaloids, 10-20 times that contained in tubers that have turned green. Don't eat them!

After scraping out the seeds I'm treating them as I would tomato seeds and have them in a jar of water to ferment for a few days. I don't know if I need to do this but it should remove any seal around the seeds that could inhibit germination. Then I'll dry them on paper and store for the winter.

About 8 weeks before the last frost I'll sow them indoors as I would tomatoes and eventually (assuming I have germination and no damping off) transplant them to the potato beds and wait and see what tubers I get. I don't think I'll get an exact replica of the parent potato, Cara, and it's likely there will be unexpected variations in tuber size, colour, taste, disease resistence etc. I suppose if some plants do better in my garden than others then I could develop stock from these - really back garden plant breeding.

Winter Sowing

It's the earliest I've done it but the window sills have been taken over by seed trays.

Even though it's winter, seed sowing has started - indoors at least. I've sown up a second set of Norli and Taiwan Sugar Peas in lengths of plastic guttering. The first lot were sown impossibly early but went into to the ground about a week ago and so far have withstood the weather.

I've several sweet pea on the go - some in an unheated greenhouse, the rest indoors to see how they do. All the seed is saved from last year - a mixed blue, white and pink collection, some all white and some 'chocolate'.

This year the tomato choice is Mortgage Lifter, Copia and Black Cherry along with lots of San Marzano. I've sown these now and I'll compare results with a later sowing in March/April. About that time I'll also sow Golden Sweet, that sweet, sweet cherry tomato, the suplus of which I'm still enjoying as pasata.

Chilli peppers- Ring o' Fire have been sown. If it fails then I've time to bring on another lot of plants.

The Charlotte, second early potatoes, are chitting nicely and I've followed these with some Home Guard, a 1942 introduction and an early potato which Alan Romans rates as "an early early which is best eaten early." As I'm only sowing a few tubers for 'new potato meals' that seems fine. I've also set out some Cara, late maincrop, which Romans says is the "red eyed tough guy for the garden and allotment." So it bodes well. And I may also get my hands on some Sarpo Axona. I tried the Sarpo Mira previously and it was blight resistant with a good yield.

If it stays dry and we get some sun next weekend I'll try and get out on the allotment to plant the shallot and onion sets and check on how the garlic is doing. If not I'll sow some celeriac for planting out in April/May and see if I can get a crop this year.

Trading Diversity

I've been silent for several weeks now and have only come up for air now that our house move  is nearly complete. So the garden and blogging have been neglected but as the pile of boxes shrinks I've been able to get out on the plot and begin the end of season tidy up.

But it's also a time for planting and this picture is just some of  the garlic sent to me by Patrick at Bifurcated Carrots.

Thirteen varieties in all it will be interesting to see how they do on the allotment and also in the vegetable plot at the new house (I'll post seperately on this). Maybe  later next year the recepients of Patrick's generosity would post their experience with the different varieties and we can see what does best, where and possibly guess at  why?

Squashes: What Do I Have

When it comes to vegetable seeds I'm like a child at the supermarket checkout eyeing up sweets.

They're there, I want them and so I couldn't resist buying yet another packet of seeds that I saw in a Brussels housewares shop last week.

It looks as if I've bought a variety pack of squashes and I presume they're edible (aren't all squashes - it's just some are tastier than others ????).

I think the labelling is in Dutch, French and German(Sierkalebassen Gemengd; Colquinte Varie; Zierkurbis Gemischt). Maybe some native speakers can help me on that.

Now the question is where to fit them in the vegetable patch as I'm less interested in them than my Butternut squash whose space is already allocated.

Maybe I'll try and negotiate space in my wife's sweet pea border.

Seed Savers Exchange

I thought that I'd finished sowing potatoes until a package arrived from Norway today with four 'Lumper' seed potatoes. Popular around the time of the Irish famine, I'm hoping for high yields and more importantly finding out what it tastes like.

So for this year my heritage/heirloom potato varieties are Forty Fold, Mr Little's Yetholm Gypsy, Edzell Blue and Lumper.

Germination Rates

It's amazing the difference a few weeks make. The soil has dried a fraction and it's warmed up. Weeds are beginning to appear and grow away. Outdoor sowing is underway.

I was a little wary of sowing Rebsie's Mr Bethell's Purple Podded pea directly in the ground on 6th March but they were showing through by 31 March and there's been about 100% germination. So the mice didn't get them; now it's the turn of the birds and slugs.

The broad bean Windsor, sown on 6th March and swapped with Patrick at  Bifurcated Carrots broke soil on 3 April and it looks as if 70% made it through so far. I've hardened of some Norli (100% germination rate) and Alderman peas (poor 50% germination rate) both varieties sown in pots on March 1st and these are now planted out followed by a direct sowing in the ground today of another row of Norli and Alderman. Let's see how they do this way.

All but one of my saved sweet pea seed has germinated. I wonder will they come true to form and produce another excellent crop of chocolatey purple flowers?

Seedlings from the mixed lettuce and rocket, sown on 20th March, are now showing - time for another sowing in a few days.

Seed Swap

A beautiful, crisp and sunny morning was made even better by the arrival of a package from Rebsie, Daughter of The Soil, thank you.

I can now look forward to trying Mr Bethell's Purple Podded pea and Kew Blue climbing french bean with 'slender and delicious pods'. And she sent me some Mr Little's Yetholm Gypsy and the promisingly named potato, Forty Fold.

If  you want to get started seed swapping check out this link to Seedy Sunday or just blog your offerings.

Autumn Catalogues, New Year Planning

Now everyone is busily picking and the produce is coming in thick and fast, the autumn catalogues start coming through the post box promising new potatoes for Christmas - ho! ho! ho! - and fresh veg throughout the year.

Here's a few thoughts on what I'll go for next year.

Charlotte potatoes (again) - incomparable taste, yield, ease of cultivation and culinary prepartion.

Cristo garlic - if I can get it, attractive purple tinge to the skin forming decent sized heads.

Long Red Surrey - a carrot which seems to thrive on the allotment's sandy soil- the sort of soil a market gardener told me needs rain everyday and a dose of shite on Sundays.

Kale Lacinto - a black kale with sword like blistered leaves which I used to get from Future Foods, no longer in business, tastier than Nero di Toscano and Cavelero Nero. Anyone know who sells it now?

Peas - haven't had them for several years but inspired by Daughter of the Soil  photographs I'll try some heritage varieties.

Broad beans - bored with shelling them I've given them a rest for a few years but I can't wait for that early season taste.

Meantime it's back to giving away surplus courgettes to unsuspecting neighbours!