Potato Growing Tips

My potato crop was a little light this year, so I thought I'd give myself a potato growing refresher:

• Rotate planting location on a 3 year cycle (you need 3 sites if you want to plant potatoes every year).
• Allow your seed potatoes to sprout ("chitting") by keeping them in a warm, dry and dark place for a few days, before planting.
• Cut seed potatoes into small pieces, ensuring that each piece has at least one eye (sprout).
  
• Plant as soon as the soil can be worked, but warmer than 45F/8C.
• Plant in loose soil, not too damp (good drainage), slightly acidic.
• Potatoes like full sun.
• Plant 3 inches deep and 12 inches apart.
• Water early in the day so that the leaves have time to dry before the evening (if the plants stay wet they can be subject to rot).
• Once plants have flowered and the blossoms have died, that's a sign that there are potatoes ready to harvest. Simply dig through the soil with your hands until you find them.
• FYI - potato greens are highly toxic, and should never be eaten. The same is true of green potato skin. If you dig up some spuds that are still partially green, either cut away all the green before you eat them, or dispose of them.

Upon reviewing the above, I think what I can do next year to improve my harvest is to change my planting location. I have a very sunny spot that would be perfect! At the moment I have cucumbers and zucchini growing there, but our family eats far more potatoes. Next year that will be my new potato spot :)

Growing New Plants From Old, Without Buying New Stock

My Father-In-Law bought marigold seeds once, years ago. He plants them every year in our garden but he uses seeds from his own previously grown flowers. He showed me today how he gets the seeds from the flowers - it was far more simple than I had thought.

Marigold Seeds:

• take an old, drying marigold blossom, and remove the outside petals.
• pull the seeds out from inside the base of the flower.
• Once you remove the seeds, leave them out to dry before putting them away for use next season.

My Father-In-Law usually plants his in June (we're in Zone 8). He even showed us an ice cream bucket full of seeds he has stashed from last year.

He has also grown tomato plants from seeds taken from a store bought tomato, by simply removing them from the fruit and inserting them in the soil, without drying them or doing any other prep first. I haven't tried that yet, but I plan to!

Potatoes are one of the easiest foods to grow from your grocery cart - I've done this many times myself. You simply select a few potatoes with eyes sprouting, cut them in pieces ensuring that each piece has at least one eye, and bury them in the soil. They can take over your garden though, so watch out ;) They also can come back year after year, if any potatoes are not harvested and left in the soil.

One day I was turning the soil in my compost pile and I found an avocado pit that I had composted which had sprouted a new plant. I transferred it to my garden and watched it grow, only to have it die over the winter. I wonder now if I had brought it indoors, would it have survived?

What about you - what's your experience with growing new food and flowers from old?

Clip art courtesy of www.artvex.com

Planting Zones Explained

Planting Zones are weather regions determined by the lowest recorded temperatures for that area. They are used in gardening to rate plant and climate compatibility.

A numbered scale is used: the lower the number, the colder the region and the hardier the plant required. Knowing which zone you are in enables you to select plants that will thrive in your garden, rather than struggle in an incompatible climate.

Here is a link to a website that talks about planting zones. If you scroll down the page, there is a handy chart that summarizes the zones by temperature:
http://www.lawn-and-gardening-tips.com/planting-zones.html

Here are more helpful links as well:

http://atlas.nrcan.gc.ca/site/english/maps/environment/forest/forestcanada/planthardi
http://www.veseys.com/ca/en/learn/reference/hardinesszones