Harvesting Potatoes

If you tickle the earth with a hoe she laughs with a harvest.

-Douglas Jerrold

Friday we harvested the potatoes we planted on February 5th.  ?The bed was an experiment...I needed somewhere to put all the straw and manure from the goat stalls.  We had been spreading it around the fruit trees in the orchard but after awhile I needed somewhere else to put it so I started layering the goat bedding in a large pile with horse manure in a partly sunny spot.  Kind of like sheet mulching but not as intentional.  After a couple of months of doing this the bed was looking really nice so I made the border with hog fencing and stakes, then in went some potatoes (4lbs.).  California White and Russet Norkotah to be exact.  I am amazed at how well the potatoes like the manure. 

potato patch in the beginning, just emerging

The leafy tops of the plants grew together to create a living mulch so we only had to water every couple of weeks (it also rained so much!)
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growing really lush greens

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I was worried that all the nitrogen from the horse manure would produce super growth in the green tops of the plants but not so much in the underground parts.  We were more than pleasantly surprised when we dug under the soil!

first look into into the soil

I learned that in our soil, the California White grew much larger than the Russet and produced more as well.  Also learned we can plant much closer together next time.  There was a lot of empty space. 

newly harvested potato patch, Im sure we missed some 

Pam Pierce of Golden Gate Gardening says after harvesting put unwashed potatoes in a warm, dry place for a few hours then brush off most of the dirt and store in a dark, dry, cool place (about 60 degrees F) for 2 weeks.  After this curing period move them to a dark, humid, cooler (40 degrees F) spot with good air circulation.

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feels like about 60 lbs

  

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On Water Harvesting and Carbon Farming

One of the challenges with the landscape here is the fact that we are farming on a hillside which, over the years, has laid victim to over grazing and erosion. It only takes a moment to stand back and look at the current state and where things are headed to know something needs to be done.  Retaining walls will not maintain the natural contour of the land. Terracing sounds nice but not quite in the budget.

So taking our first steps toward improving the soil integrity and preventing erosion on our property, we have begun the process of digging swales or long trenches that follow the keylines on the contours of the land.  (To get a better understanding of how this works, you can watch the youtube below from Harvesting Rainwater the Permaculture Way by Geoff Lawton.)  Swales catch the rain water and allow it to soak into the soil instead of running off down the hillside (causing more dreaded erosion).  Being beginning permaculture students, this may all be a big experiment, but after much thought and planning about how to irrigate our garden crops and keep our hillside intact, this seems like the best idea.  So on we go digging...next will be a few ponds to feed the swales...it seems there may be a grand scheme in the works.   

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