death of the potatoes

This was the gruesome crime scene.  The potatoes finally gave up and died.  They hadn't even flowered yet.  Cause of death - Bug problem? Blight? Not enough sunlight? Uneven moisture?  I don't know.

We have yet to have potatoes grown to the flowering stage.  Last year we grew them in containers.  They were all green and happy one day, but the next day half of the leaves were eaten by some bug.  We are no experts in potato growing, and we haven't had luck with it, either.

Yesterday we dug the bed to see what we could salvage, and these were what we found.  Not too bad.  We planted them from a bag of sprouted store-bought potatoes, and we got more than we put in.  All is not lost.

I also coped with this tragedy by cooking.  I wanted a simple dish that would allow me to really taste the potatoes, so I made a potato omelet.

I scrubbed the skins, sliced and seasoned the potatoes with salt, pepper, and dried thyme, and set it aside for 10 - 15 minutes.  After 15 minutes, I put a good amount of vegetable oil in a frying pan and set it on low heat.  I poured beaten eggs over the seasoned potato slices, lifting the slices to make sure they were coated.  Then, I put the potato-egg mixture into the frying pan and covered the pot.  I did flip the omelet half way through, but it was not easy.  I suppose it would have cooked all the way through without the flipping since it was on low heat and covered.

The taste?  It was really good.  There is really nothing like fresh home-grown potatoes.  I wish I could describe it better.  They have a true potato taste and the texture is nice and firm.

Next time, I'll add another egg so the omelet would hold its form better and maybe some of our newly-harvested garlics.

how's it growin'? (mid-june 2011 part 2)

These are our four pumpkin plants.  The variety is a Japanese hybrid called Delica.  They are growing very well and taking over the neighboring beds.  We are considering growing pumpkins on trellis next year.

These pumpkins were set out early this year (early April).  The weather has been cooler and wetter than usual.  As a precaution, I sprayed diluted milk on the plants last week to prevent powdery mildew.  It was my first time doing it.  We'll see how well it works.

This is the biggest pumpkin on the plants right now.  I need to look up when to pick pumpkins.  We grew acorn squash last year, and we planted them pretty late.  We just harvested all the acorn squashes when the plants were killed by powdery mildew.

These are the three tomato plants I transplanted in mid-April.  We are only growing four heirloom varieties this year (black krim, beefsteak, green zebra, and aunt Ruby's German green), two plants each.

zebra green

aunt ruby's german green

black krim

beefsteak

There are plenty of green tomatoes right now.  The plants will provide us with a lot more than we can eat.  I can't wait to pick our first ripe tomato.

Edamame (soybean) is not  an "economical" crop in terms of the space and time they take and the output they give.  I insist on growing them every year because they are so much better than the frozen ones at stores.  We never grow enough to freeze.  Most of the time, we cook them right after they are picked.

These are butterbean edamame.  They are grown from seeds we saved last year.  We also sowed another variety, beer friend, in another bed.  The germination rate for beer friend was really low (4 out of 21 seeds).  The seeds were purchased from Kitazawa.  All of the other seeds we purchased from Kitazawa germinated well, though.  We re-sowed some more butterbean seeds instead.

Of course not everything is dainty and sweet in the garden.  Meet the potatoes.  They are sad looking and full of holes.  Some of them are yellowing and dying.  They didn't get enough water for a period of time and where they are doesn't get full sun.  Perhaps these are the reasons they are not growing well.  They don't look like they have blight.

Potatoes weren't part of the plan this year.  We planted them because we had a bag of sprouted supermarket potatoes.  The way I look at it is that any potatoes we get out of them are bonuses (or so I tell myself).

I won't make my "report" any lengthier.  I'll try to show our other plants next time.