Spud-tastic

We're heading into what is normally our wettest month, so I thought it was time to lift the potatoes so they don't rot in the ground or start sprouting everywhere.

We've already harvested some in the last few months as we wanted them for eating so I can't give a total tally, but today after clearing the 2 potato beds I have just over 10kg of spuds. Lovely!

In general they are smaller than last year - I think that's because I didn't get my watering quite right. The ruby lou and spunta seem to have produced the biggest spuds.

I'm going to leave them to 'dry' out of the sun for today, then I'm going to store them in broccoli boxes in straw and/or rice hulls this year to see how that works.

Potatoes and pots

Well, it's that time of year again - I've kept the seed potatoes as long as possible in a cool dark place, but it was time to chit them and then plant them out. This year I'm growing Kipfler, Bintje, Ruby Lou, Spunta, King Edward, Dutch Cream and Toolangi Delights. Yummo!

I'm planting in a few places. Last weekend we made a new 'hybrid' potato bed - it has about 20cm of chook litter & soil, mushroom compost and soil - gave it a good water, then planted the potatoes in. Then we laid weeping hose on top of the soil, and covered with a thick layer of pea straw (it's still frosty here for the next few weeks).

We kept the bed together with star posts, corrugated iron (from the tip), and straw bales - then a layer of square garden fencing to stop the chooks flying in and making a mess!

I still have 24 tubers to plant, but these will be going in a full no-dig bed in the main vege patch.

When we went on our usual Saturday afternoon outing to the tip (Jerry takes me to all the best places!) we found someone had thrown out a worm farm base, 5 seedling trays, 4 punnet trays, and about 40 forestry tubes, and another 20 or so assorted small seedling pots. So of course we rescued them (along with some corrugated iron and colourbond that will go on the new coop and will make garden edging and beds, and some trays from an old fridge that will be converted to seedling punnets). Result!

Potatoes and compost tumbler

Well, the first frost of the year is threatening to settle tonight, so it was time for some more harvesting. Heirloom pink, pale yellow, white and purple carrots were harvested yesterday, blanched and frozen. Another huge basket full of potatoes (about 10kg) put a dent into potato patch number 2 (but there are still more to harvest!). At least 5 of the potatoes were as big as my hand, and enough to feed 2 for dinner!




Over the weekend Jerry made me a fabulous compost tumbler using an old blue barrel we scrounged. Isn't it great? What a clever Jerry!

Latest harvest and kitchen happenings

I've just taken a heap of photos in and around the garden - head over to our flikr site to see them. Meanwhile.......

Tomatoes in the solar drier, some of the 9kg of potatoes I harvested today, and pears in the electric dehydrator


More sourdough - my first attempt at a fruit/spice sourdough loaf (not bad, but needs more fruit) and a wholemeal/white sourdough mix. YUM!

Bread and potatoes

After a few months of "life" my sourdough starter is producing fantastic tasting sourdough bread...and after much trial and error I can also get bread that won't break your toe if you drop it!!

I confess that I do let the breadmaker do most of the kneading and the initial proofing - but I enjoy the rather therapeutic punching down and final kneading...particularly after a stressful day in the office!!!

Yesterday I also cleared out one of the potato beds and sorted the potatoes into "eat now" and "store". I now have about 7 kg of potatoes in a hessian sack in the utility room, and a couple of kilos for eating in the potato draw. There are probably still about 40 potato plants to harvest in the garden too.........

potatoes and canners

Hurrah! This year we were able to harvest some home grown potatoes for Xmas lunch



And to top it all off, my new toy arrived from the US today! It's a canning unit (basically a big pressure cooker that I can use to make my own canned / bottled veges, sauces etc. Saved about $250 buying it from the US even after taking postage into account, so was pretty happy with that!

Spring has sprung

We spent the first weekend of sprint tidying up the garden, mowing the grass (first time in about 10 months that we have had enough to mow), strimming all the edges and in the vege garden, making a new raised bed (photo below right) and making up beds for the potatoes.

This year we're growing 6 varieties of potato- sapphire (purple flesh), nicola, spunta, kipfler, king Edward and Royal Blue. The last 2 we also grew last year, but the others are all new for this year. Some we are growing in tyres, and others in a semi raised bed with lots of semi decomposed star from last year. As we did last year we'll be topping up with straw as the plants get bigger.


On the harvest front some of the cabbages are coming along well, and another cauliflower was ready for picking. As for broccoli - picked another kg of sprouting heads, so must have almost 2kg in the freezer - and it keeps on going. I've left a couple of plants to go to seed too.


The podded peas are doing well, protected by their copper rings, and my tomato empire is off too a promising start - thanks to the greenhouse

All this activity is just too exhausting for some..........