Gardening questions

[taxlady]

Does anyone on my flist know much about growing potatoes? I am growing two potato plants in hopes of having new potatoes. One of them is now well over a metre tall. The other one would be, but it broke in a recent rain storm and is only about three quarters of a metre tall now. They are both flowering. When do I look for baby potatoes? I don't want big potatoes. I want little, bitty, yummy, new potatoes.

How about snow peas? My seed envelope says that they take 68 days to mature and that they like cool weather. They can be planted in early spring or late summer. If I planted them the 1st of August, they would mature in early October. Does that sound reasonable. What is a good time to be planting these in Greater Montreal? Is there a range of time that is good for the fall planting, so I can have them mature at different times? Do I want them to mature at different times?

Comments

[mousme.livejournal.com]

Jan and I have been growing potatoes this year. I believe you can start "exploring" for baby potatoes a couple of weeks after they've flowered. I'd recommend sending Jan an email: she's been more on top of the produce... err... production this year than I have.

[ai731.livejournal.com]

Well, a couple of weeks after they flowered, the potatoes were the size of a large marble. Now they've gone to seed (actually, they did this at least 3 weeks ago - the seeds are these big green balls, very cool) and the potatoes are the size of golf balls. I'm leaving mine for another 3 weeks or so before I pull them up, I think. If you have 'hilled' or 'ridged' up your potatoes, then you can gently dig into the side of a hill until you find a potato, and then gently dig around it to find out how big it is, and then cover it back up if it's still smaller than you want.

As for the peas, August 1st would probably be a very good time to plant them for fall eating. I planted mine in early spring, but our resident groundhog ate the tops off the plants, so I only ever got a half-dozen peas. If you plant a bunch and pick the peas as they grow, more will grow until the plants get killed by hard frost, so I wouldn't worry too much about them all maturing at the same time.

[taxlady.livejournal.com]

My potato flowers have a 3/4 cm green centre protruding. Is that what you are talking about?

Yes, I did mound my potatoes, this time. I might not have mounded them enough.

Thanks for the info on the peas. I was worried that Aug 1 would be too warm. I know about picking them as they grow. A friend of mine, from when I lived in the country, got so good at growing snow peas that she had to pick them twice a day, so they wouldn't turn into uninteresting, large peas and stop growing new pods.

[taxlady.livejournal.com]

Have you tried putting onion rings in the garden to keep away the rodents? There are lots of squirrels here and they dig and eat anything. They stay away when I put sliced onion on the soil. It has to be replenished every few days as the rings dry out.

[ai731.livejournal.com]

My potato flowers have a 3/4 cm green centre protruding. Is that what you are talking about?

If the flowers were fertilized, that green center will eventually turn into a big round dangly ball, the size of a marble. If I have time today I'll take pictures of mine to show you what I mean. If you potatoes still have flowers on the plants, then you probably need to wait at least a couple more weeks before digging the new potatoes.

[taxlady.livejournal.com]

Those seed pods sound fun. If I get any, I will definitely take photos. I have seen potato flowers before, but I don't remember the green part. Maybe that means that this time they did get fertilized.