Sunrise

Sunrise
Early Spring Sunrise Snow on the Silo

Monday, November 22, 2010

The 2010 Potato Experiment and Thanksgiving Preparations


Today started out warm, if a bit wet, but that rapidly changed to cold and windy just after noon.
Apparently we are about to hit a week of frigid weather so I'm glad I had gotten around to digging my second crop potatoes from my tree trunk experiment yesterday. I have a hollowed out section of tree trunk that I have been using as a planter. Doesn't look like much, but it's whats in the soil that counts! It drys out rather early in the season since it acts like a raised bed, so very early March this past spring I put in a few potato eyes and harvested a super early crop of tubers. So then it's mid-summer and I have an empty planter and just happened to have a few leftover well sprouted eyes so I amended the soil with a load of organic matter and planted them.
The result is a nice little harvest of fall potatoes, much better results then expected.
There were a large number of nodes along the roots, so I am sure had there been a longer growing season the results would have been even better.
I added a bunch of compost and rabbit litter to the already rich soil and my plans are to plant again just as soon as the soil in the trunk is thawed next spring and then plan a second crop of fingerling's. I think I can plant them a bit more thickly as well, to optimize my space. I'm also going to utilized the three or four additional trunk sections I have since this worked out so well. See, even if you have only a container garden, you could get a double harvest of potatoes from a very small space.Thanksgiving is just a few days off, the turkey is thawing and I purchased the cranberries and oranges for the sauce today, so everything is good to go. I plan on brining the bird and roasting it on top of the wood stove. I really liked the results from the brine last year and hope things go as well again. I have never roasted a bird on the stove so I am keeping fingers crossed. I'm planning just a simple menu.

11 pound brined bird
Deviled eggs
Green bean casserole
Squash
Rolls
Garlic mashed potatoes
Gravy
Dressing
Cranberry-orange sauce
Pecan pie

Hope everyone enjoys their holiday weekend, good luck to the Friday shoppers, you are much braver than I!

A gratuitous photo of my pre-schooler!
HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL!

1 comment:

  1. YAY for Rabbit "black magic" hehe.

    Happy Thanksgiving!

    ReplyDelete