Despite a little snow, this is one of the most exciting weekends on our entire spring planting schedule.
After months of growing under cover,
it will finally be warm enough tomorrow to remove cold frames and low tunnels from our cool weather crops.
I'll also start venting the hoop house.
After tonight, there are no more freezing temperatures in our extended forecast,
and even if it does dip below freezing
it shouldn't get cold enough to harm our cool weather crops.
But that will have to wait until tomorrow.
Today I'm going to plant our second crop of potatoes using a no-dig approach.
We planted the first crop 2 weeks ago under cover in this compost bin.
Much to my surprise, these potatoes have already started to poke through the soil.
We’ll keep the cover on for a few more weeks to bring about an early harvest,
but will be careful to vent if the soil temp gets above 60 to 65 degrees Fahrenheit,
which is the optimal range for tuber formation.
With our early season potatoes progressing nicely under cover,
it is now time to start potatoes without cover.
We typically start seed potatoes without protection about 3 weeks before the last frost.
Our last frost is less than 3 weeks away,
so now is the perfect time to plant these Purple Viking Seed Potatoes.
We grew Purple Vikings for the first time last year and fell in love with them.
Their striking purple skin, fluffy smooth texture, and buttery taste
make them one of our favorite potatoes.
Some of the seed potatoes we ordered this year were quite large,
so a few days ago I cut those that were much larger than a golf ball into halves or thirds,
with at least a couple eyes on each piece.
Then I laid them out on paper to dry at room temperature before planting.
Because the soil is inches below the top of the bed,
I can easily use my preferred no dig method
where I lay the potatoes out on the soil surface,
cover them with a little vermicompost and sand,
and then mulch the bed with leaves.
Straw would probably be a better mulch
but we don't have a free local resource for straw.
I lay the seed potatoes out on the soil about 8 to 10 inches apart
with the side with the most eyes facing up.
I then cover them with a thin layer of coarse sand and vermicompost.
Potatoes prefer well drained soil and the sand will help with that.
The vermicompost provides nutrients, beneficial microbes, and plant growth hormones.
There are also red wigglers in the castings that will help break down the mulch that I’ll apply next.
I cover the potatoes with a few inches of leaves that we collected last autumn.
When the plants are 8 to 12 inches above the mulch,
we’ll add more vermicompost, sand, and leaves to make sure the tubers remain completely covered.
We don’t want them to be exposed to the sun because that can result in green and possibly poisonous potatoes.
If all goes well, we should see potato plants poking up through the mulch within a few weeks.
I won't water the potatoes today because we're expecting rain tomorrow.
That's all the potatoes I'll plant today, but 3 weeks from now I'll plant Purple Majesty and Red Gold potatoes
in grow bags for an even later harvest.
We like to spread our plantings out over the coarse of several weeks
so that we have more of a continuous harvest rather than a large single harvest.
That's all I have to do today in the garden, so I'll be back tomorrow to remove the cold frames and low tunnels
and to start venting the hoop house.
Well, it's Sunday now and hopefully we saw the last of our freezing temperatures last night.
Now it's time to get out in the rain and remove all the cold frames and low tunnels from our cool weather crops
and start venting the hoop house. I'll start with the hoop house.
To begin venting the hoop house, I first remove the 1x2’s that secure the plastic to
the bottom of the southern side wall.
I then remove one 1x2 from each end wall.
This allows me to open the side wall as shown here.
I’ll use spring clamps to secure the plastic both when vented and when closed.
Over the next few weeks, I’ll gradually open the hoop house by removing more 1x2’s
before removing the top covering completely around the last frost.
Now the hoop house is vented it's time to do something I've been looking forward to since March sixth
when I started planting cool weather crops outside of the hoop house.
It's time to remove all of the cold frames and low tunnels.
Though I thoroughly enjoy extending the growing season with cold frames and low tunnels,
I have to admit that I always look forward to removing the covers.
Yes, it’s partly because I’ll have less work to do.
Mother nature will take care of most of the watering for us now,
and we won’t have to make trips out to the garden early in the morning to open cold frames
or in the evening to close them.
But I really look forward to this time of year because I know the garden is to about to explode with growth,
and it will be only a matter of weeks before we’re transplanting tomatoes and peppers
and spring planting will be complete.
To learn more about our spring planting schedule please see this link or the link in the description.
This playlist includes an overview of our entire spring schedule
plus videos for each planting.
Please join me next week when I plant two of our favorite summer crops - squash and cucumbers.
Well, that’s all for now. Thank you very much for watching,
and until next time remember you can change the world one yard at a time.