Sunday, April 29, 2012

Surprised Ouch - Cold Potato

I was so busy preoccupied with everything else yesterday. Turned out that the weather dipped into the mid 20s this early morning. Last evening I failed to place cloches on the solanums. What a miserable looking bunch those have become.

Oh, the potato freezer burn. Those poor little tops. They will of course come back nice and strong. I always knew if I chose to plant them early that I would accept the possibility of them being freezer burned back. Then wait for them to grow again. So far, it appears to me that it take a lot to kill anything with a bulb, tuber, or rhizome of sorts. While the tops look horrid there is still plenty of healthy, vibrant under growth leaves.

Now those peppers and eggplant. Not of the rhizome family sad to say.

Anyhow, yesterday we purchased general purpose non-scary 10-10-10 fertilizer. (Ingredients being poultry poo, alfalfa meal, and several mineral additions etc) All along we have been really winging all of this. Have yet to bother to soil test anything. There is an abundance of leviathan earthworms that spring from the soil. I take it as indication of overall soil health. Things grow well enough considering its heavy. Albeit double-dug, worked, cultivated, aerated like a mad man.


Freeze Burn 
Many healthy lower leaves
Freeze Burn

6 comments:

  1. So sad to see such damage :( We got hard frost too and another one on the way tonight. I covered my potatoes with straw but they still have some damage. Even my grapes are wilted from frost. Let's hope it's the last one for the year.

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    1. I really want grapes. If planted now, will the stick you buy from the box stores bother to give you anything this year or is it an asparagus thing needing 2,3,4 years.

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    2. You can plant and it would probably bloom but it's recomended to cut off any fruit for first 2 years so the vine gets stronger.

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    3. Hmmm Haaaa. IDK. I think I would prefer to just eat the fruit and have the plant figure out whether it wants to become strong like bull.

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  2. That frost wrecked havoc on a lot of my perennials, but I managed to remember to cover my veggie garden. I bet those potatoes will bounce back.

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    1. They already have. The Freeze damaged has already crusted over and the under growth leaves are getting nice and fat. The beans are coming up nicely. The wheat is happily growing up. :)

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