potatoes

Planted later

I forgot to take a picture of things like tomatoes and peppers, but their well along too ( though their in a greenhouse), so my question is, if you are in Alberta, are you about the same? is your garden further along? if so how are you doing it? inquiring minds would like to know!!

my plan is not to have the largest garden ( though I am now up to 150 potato plants), but to have the least square footage, use the least material inputs, produce the most food, with the least bit of effort, as life as a agrarian peasant does not suit me..
So any efficiency tips that work for Alberta are most welcome!!

If your ahead of me in early starting im all ears.....tell me how....

Also, I will now have a good supply of 5 types of potato's.... Dakota Pearl, Sangre, German Butterball, Sieglinde, and Yukon Gold so if anyone is near me, and has other types, and they would like to trade, pm me and we can work something out.

Your gardens look further along than mine. I started the garden boxes near the end of April and planted carrots, chard, spinach, onions and beets. They are all up nicely now, although the carrots do take longer to really get going. We are eating off of the spinach and green onions now. Have peas coming up in another garden that are about 2-3" high now. With recent rain, they should pop along nicely now. Potatoes planted there are just coming up. Have potatoes planted in cans, pots and another garden box that are doing very well. The varieties I have planted are, roku, bintje, banana fingerling, (which grow very well), and from a sample pack acquired 4 varieties with 4 each of gold rush, Dakota pearl, chieftain and norland. These last 4 are supposed to be a more scab resistant type.

As soon as it starts thawing in the spring, I cover the boxes with plastic to help get them thawing faster and as soon as they are all thawed, they get planted and the plastic goes over them to make their own little greenhouse.

Beans got planted a couple of weeks ago and are all now up. Tomatoes and peppers have just been planted outside in their pots as we don't have a greenhouse.
First pic is of beets,2nd- cans of potatoes,3- the boxes of carrots with a few leeks at one end, chard/spinach, onions, and beans.

considering the weather we have had, you are well along, I didn't recognise the name Roku for a potato, and when I punched it into the googler machine it came up with hits for everything but a potato....where is it from?

In our area we really haven't had much rain, its gone all around us. We live in a valley and we can watch everything go around on top of the hills. We have a creek at the bottom of the yard, so we have a pump and water what we need to from there and also have 7 rain barrels around the house. We did get half an inch the other night which was nice.
I bought my seed potatoes from Eagle Creek seed potatoes in Bowden. Farmgal mentioned them a couple of years ago, so I checked them out and now order from there. They carry the roku. They are a red potato.

That's where I bought my potatoes from. There are a few of us who have bought there.I just don't remember seeing Roku on their list...is it possible that you mean Roko?

I took a lot of back roads when I dove down there to pick up my potatoes and maybe 5 to 6 miles south west of the place in a little valley some farm house had the largest Vawt wind turbine I have ever seen, and on the road between Red Deer and Delburn, on the north side (when heading towards Delburn) has gone up a new huge home, with what must be 2 pallets worth of solar panels, and a wind turbine. I wanted to get a picture, but couldn't stop. I bet he must have 12 or more kw of panels. If you go to pick up potatoes again, its worth the extra drive to view it.

Sorry, yep that's what I meant @roko. Not sure why I typed the u. Didn't go pick up the potatoes, had them sent. Grew the roko last year too, they are nice.
The house on the road by Delburne we've seen almost every time we go to Red Deer. We don't always go that way, but its usually the way of choice because of that house. Its been there for awhile. It is a nice looking log house, the solar panels and turbine really catch your eye though.

Peppercorn, your definitely ahead of the game this year!!! Impressed- Lookin awesome! I'm about 2 weeks behind you. Everything coming up nicely now. I did not get the greenhouse stuff out as I'd hoped due to family issues early in the year but got the regulars planted. The group tried Roco last year and we found it didn't store as well as some our regulars Yukon gold and norland. Each family tried a variety of four types of potatoes using different techniques and at the end of the year we counted our taters and put them to storage(again using different techniques). It was an interesting trial.
Last fall some of our groups boxes were covered with straw and some were left bare. I found the boxes that were covered were much easier to prepare in spring, almost no weeds to pull, ready to put seed to soil with no further work. I want to work smarter not harder, so YES I'm definitely doing that again. I put the straw back onto the beds after the seeds sprout and that helps keep the weeds down and the moisture in. Then when my straw gets to a point were its compostable I till it into the dirt in the fall. My ducks, chickens and goats give me fantastic fertilizer every year to top everything off.
I'll add photos of the garden this year and look forward to seeing everyone else's!

Glad you chimed in, I remembered your gardens and was wondering how they were doing. Agree, working smarter has to be the goal, even if getting there is little steps. Pictures are mandatory!

well, this growing potatoes in raised beds is new to me, but I can already see a problem.
Here is a picture.

They look great, don't they? See the problem?
Try hilling the middle row...I am breaking stems off trying to get dirt built up in there. Lesson learnt, next year only two rows!
I should have seen this happening.

Hit by a freqish wind storm that blew down much of my potatoes, snapping stocks and all.

Sorry to hear Peppercorn. It's been nasty but seemingly better in my neck of the woods. 3/4" rain came down in an hour or so, so the barrels are full and I won't need to water the garden beds today.

Garden is coming along, but I'm realizing I may have planted a couple of weeks too late. I didn't have a choice because of work though; so this is an experiment and f things don't work out.

I'm really impressed by my zuccinis growing in pots and may add more next year. My pepper plans are soooo tiny even though I've started them indoor in March!

Apple trees are looking very promising, the branches are already loaded with tiny apple buds.

Sorry to hear that peppercorn. Your potato's should still grow though.
Had that freakish wind go through here last night too. Threw half of the gazebo on the roof. The plants got blown around and put down, but started standing back up today. Think we lost one tomato plant because the bucket protecting it fell over onto it.

I can say this has been a failure, my trying potatoes in the raised beds, I will still get lots of potatoes but I just planted them to dense and couldn't hill them up as much as should be done. So lesson learnt.

Live and learn.

On my side, my peppers seem to not have grown at all in 3 weeks. They are the same 2" tall plants with a couple of leaves on the sides.

Tomatoes are flowering, a few of my slicing cucumbers have just doubled in size this week alone and I now have a couple of small cukes growing. The pickling ones are still quite tiny plants and I'm thinking they have the same issues as the pepper plants; they just forgot how to grow!

Strawberries are amazing. Picking up a good basket every day and they taste AMAZING!

I have harvested maybe 7-8 zucchinis and it almost looks like the plants are done. The leaves are turning pale and wrinkled. I tool one of the pots outside the greenhouse to see if the extra heat inside (doors, windows and vents opened) might cause them more harm then good (??).

My white onions are looking terrific. Potato plants are flowering already, but it looks like the ants made a mess out of some of the leaves. I need to get myself another big bag of diatomaceous earth. Looked at Canadian Tire, home Depot and Home Hardware, but couldn't find any.

Remainder seem to be coming out as planned.