Holy Po-na-noes!

I mean potatoes, but you know what I mean.

We picked our potatoes last week, right before our garden was covered in snow. It was a family affair- at least for a little while. Although it was about 11:00 in the morning there was no sun on the garden yet and it was freez-ing! Kiley lasted for about 10 minutes until she had to go and warm up, Kalin was a trooper and picked til the end. She was excited as I was to "dig for treasure" aka the potatoes.

We planted 10 lbs of red seed potatoes and got 25 lbs. I was impressed at the average size of these guys!
We planted 10 lbs of Yukon Gold potatoes and picked 50 lbs out of our garden. Their average size was what I would call spectacular- if you can really call the size of a potato "spectacular." The majority of what we dug up was as big as, if not bigger, than what we would buy here in town.

It was a great harvest. We are excited to have our own home grown potatoes for the winter!

Note: Don't Question Mom's Flower Knowledge

I have been attending a "Gardening Symposium" class for the past few days and have learned a thing or two about planing in this here little town. Just a thing, or two, or notebook full.....

So a few weeks ago I posted about some flowers that I was very proud of in my yard that I grew from seed. I named them: Pansy, Morning Glory.... remember this?


My Mom saw the pictures and said, "I saw the pictures of your flowers and they are so pretty!"

I of course said thank you and was stoked that they turned out so well.

She then said, "Um, are you sure the Morning Glory is not a Nasturtium? It kind of looks like a Nasturtium to me....."

Cough, cough "Of course I am Mom! I labeled the pot with Duck Tape 'MORNING GLORY. It's got to be a Morning Glory!'"

I should have known better than to question my mother's flower knowledge. My mother who has been gardening much, much longer than me. I shouldn't, I won't, I can't ever again.

A few weeks ago I said that this was a Morning Glory, when in fact it is a Nasturtium. I learned that today in my Gardening class. I should have just learned that from my Mom.... I stand corrected, thank you Mom.

Holy Potatoes

I've cheated a little this year. I couldn't wait until after the first frost to dig up our potatoes, I've been too curious to see how those suckers are growing down under. I first dug up a few that I just threw in the ground, under my bedroom window.... but when that was disappointing (just one tiny potato per plant) I had to go and see what was in the garden.

Graelin was visiting and he told me, "No I've never picked 'ponanoes' before", so of course Kiley, Grae and Kalin had to help dig up the 'ponanoes' in the garden. The pictures say it all! The last plant the kids dug up held the biggest potato we've ever grown! I was so impressed I had to show my neighbor, and since then I've shown just about everyone who I thought would be even remotely interested in my potato growing skills.

I wish all the potatoes were as big as the big dog, but you know I am just not going to complain. I have bragging rights to at least one monster potato from my garden and pictures to prove it!

We also had to pick some carrots, and although they aren't in any way big I am impressed. We've never even been able to grow any carrots that were big enough to eat, and these were just the right munching size. Yummy!

Yes, you may call me Farmer Clouse.

Onions

Sis and I went and picked some onions from the garden the other day.

"Onions mom? This one? No? This one? "

You can imagine her going from a potato plant to the lettuce to the carrots... until she finally got the right one. Then she yanked it up as fast as she could.The bulb onions we planted this year are far bigger than any onion we have ever gotten in the past. We are pretty excited to actually have some onions growing!

We have been harvesting quite the Alaska "cold weather" crop in the last few weeks. We've been harvesting broccoli, made some salad with our home grown lettuce and even dug up some potatoes for a moose stew tonight. Yum! This is why we garden. We reap what we sow.

How Does Your Garden Grow?

Broccoli

Radish Bunch- picked and given to Uncle Joe

Bulb Onions

Despite the colder weather this summer our garden seems to be thriving! We got home from vacation and immediately checked on the garden, I was pretty stoked with the results. Just about everything we planted is growing in some capacity- potatoes, radishes, carrots, onions, lettuce and broccoli. I think our strawberries are done for the season, but at least we got a few berries out of them before we left.

The onions from seed look a little bleh, and the carrots don't look like they are going to really grow to any edible size. But we have 63 potato plants (red and Yukon gold) growing and with potatoes selling here in Dillingham for $9 for a 5 lb bag that is a lot of potatoes!

These beds that have carrots, potatoes and radishes in them. I can't tell much of a difference in growth yet compared to these plants and those in the garden, except in the carrot size. The carrots in our main garden didn't even grow! We'll compare the amount of potatoes when it is time to dig them up.

One of our biggest potato plants

With all of this green stuff growing in our garden, we sure do feel like farmers, or I do anyway. I feel pretty productive.... Jon finished our greenhouse the other day, and it is a little late in the season to really put a lot in there now, but watch out for next year!

Radishes!

I've never been more excited to see plants growing! Our radishes popped up about three days ago and they look gorgeous. Jon noticed them first when he was checking the carrots in our raised beds. I planted a few radishes about a third down every row of carrot to "mark" the rows, plus a long row in the main garden.

Kiley asked me, "Mom what's a radish?" I told her they were delicious and she was going to love them.... we'll see how much she likes them about the time we come home from Colorado.

You Reap What You Sow.....

Some serious lettuce growing in our garden

Jon tilled the garden a good six times, if not more

It has been a labor of love on our garden this year. Tilling and fertilizing and spreading lime and tilling some more. Pulling sticks and rocks and weeds..... building three raised garden beds and planting a strawberry garden. A week of love dedicated to the dirt in our yard.

This is the second year we have attempted a garden, last year we planted one but it was later in the summer. We got a pretty good harvest of broccoli, lettuce and potatoes. Not a single strawberry plant grew so I got some real starters out of Anchorage. Kiley just ate a fresh strawberry out of our garden today. We are trying some new things with covering our raised beds with plastic with hopes that it will trap the ficklel Alaska heat and speed up the growing process.

This year it was a lot easier to put the garden in with the help of the beautiful red rototiller (aka Betty) from GB and Papa Paul for Jon's birthday. Thank you! Kiley was a great digger and helped me plant potatoes and lettuce, Kalin decided that sowing onions and carrots were more her style. Overall we planted lettuce, broccoli, radishes, carrots, onions and potatoes.


We're crossing our fingers that all this love will produce some serious vegetables. We will reap what we sow!

Carrots, radishes, potatoes and onions are planted in the raised beds.

Kalin likes to run between the rows in bare feet!