SEEDLINGS: I confess - I'm afraid. I'm afraid that I started my seeds too late, for one thing. And, I used the wrong medium to start the seeds - it's been almost 3 weeks and NADA! The seeds are NOT coming up. I'm going to buy some more dirt and put together the seed tray from scratch. I just hope I still have some seeds for some of the varieties of tomatoes I wanted from last year.
GARDEN PREP: This is the only thing I've properly managed. The garden is all broken up - a friend with a contracting business loaned me a couple of his workers on a rainy day when they couldn't do their regular work. Best $84 I have spent all year. Today, someone is going to finish up the job and break up the dirt clods so it's nice and soft and I can actually plant seeds.
GROWING THINGS: Last Saturday, more greens went in - more parsley, lettuces, arugula and cilantro.
After a couple months of inactivity, the potato condo is showing promise - there are big green vines coming out some sides and shorter vines on top. I'll get some good pictures and get them up soon.
COOKING: Since I am on a diet, haven't been cooking a ton - though I have been eating a lot of banh mi from Little Saigon Express ($4 for a tofu sandwich with daikon & pickled carrots!). I recently passed along a frozen quart bag of persimmon pulp to a friend so she could try her hand at making persimmon jam. Mostly I have been eating lots of kale and greens - and brought home some avocados and strawberries from Gilroy to make salad with local arugula and peppercress for dinner this week.
I did pull a pretty good April Fool's prank last night, though...
Showing posts with label potato condo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label potato condo. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Potato Condo!
POTATO CONDO - second best idea I heard of in 2008, right up there with the Diva Cup. After doing some research, and last summer happening to find some wire mesh on the side of the road in the Berkeley Hills with my friend Jon, I finally put together my potato condo today.
The basic concept is to create a vertical garden instead of using square footage on the ground. The advantage is that the dirt can be re-used somewhere else, heading off the development of potato-specific diseases, you can harvest potatoes very easily, and once the vines are done, you just knock that condo over, shake and disconnect the seam and (with some very strong friends) sift the dirt away from the potatoes.
Now, most directions for a potato condo involve wood and attaching slats to the sides, adding dirt as the vines grow and removing slats from the bottom to free the potatoes. Some instructions are for stacking old tires. That just seems like a lot of extra work to me.
Somewhere, in my research, I saw these great instructions for using wire mesh for the potato condo by creating a tube by bending the edges over each other, then cutting hand-size holes around the tube to stick in the potatoes.
Good, in theory. In practice, my experience has been to realize I need a much better pair of wire snippers. My hands got sore. Also, wearing long sleeves might be advisable since I ended up with so many scratches on my arms that I look like I came out of the losing end of bathing a herd of cats. Also, I need to use smaller mesh - this mesh is stiff and holds up well but actual chicken wire would probably be easier to cut and hold the dirt in.
The biggest problem has been keeping the dirt IN the potato condo. It just wants to go out. It's not wet enough and I'm afraid it's going to dry out too fast. Next time - I'll water down the dirt in the bag or in the pots so that it is nice and sopping wet before I heave it into the potato condo.
Also, in retrospect, I should have made it bigger around and shorter - I think my potato condo is Jenn-size. Don't just do it - do it BIG!
The basic concept is to create a vertical garden instead of using square footage on the ground. The advantage is that the dirt can be re-used somewhere else, heading off the development of potato-specific diseases, you can harvest potatoes very easily, and once the vines are done, you just knock that condo over, shake and disconnect the seam and (with some very strong friends) sift the dirt away from the potatoes.
Now, most directions for a potato condo involve wood and attaching slats to the sides, adding dirt as the vines grow and removing slats from the bottom to free the potatoes. Some instructions are for stacking old tires. That just seems like a lot of extra work to me.
Somewhere, in my research, I saw these great instructions for using wire mesh for the potato condo by creating a tube by bending the edges over each other, then cutting hand-size holes around the tube to stick in the potatoes.
Good, in theory. In practice, my experience has been to realize I need a much better pair of wire snippers. My hands got sore. Also, wearing long sleeves might be advisable since I ended up with so many scratches on my arms that I look like I came out of the losing end of bathing a herd of cats. Also, I need to use smaller mesh - this mesh is stiff and holds up well but actual chicken wire would probably be easier to cut and hold the dirt in.
The biggest problem has been keeping the dirt IN the potato condo. It just wants to go out. It's not wet enough and I'm afraid it's going to dry out too fast. Next time - I'll water down the dirt in the bag or in the pots so that it is nice and sopping wet before I heave it into the potato condo.
Also, in retrospect, I should have made it bigger around and shorter - I think my potato condo is Jenn-size. Don't just do it - do it BIG!
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