The Illicit Tuber Trade

I'm not sure exactly how to say this best to avoid retribution and underhanded attack by certain parties in our vicinity, but honesty and full disclosure of the facts is probably best. And the truth needs to be known.

We have an underground market in Jerusalem Artichokes (see photo on right) and Potatoes. Probably other roots, too, like Salsify and Parsnips, maybe garlic seasonally. But tubers are definitely the big targets. The crimes, which are mostly simple and petty, boil down to theft and stockpiling. Market manipulation? Maybe... But the truly insidious side is that the business goes on, unseen, even in daytime hours.

Who are the culprits? Oh, we can be almost positive on this count. Voles, they do their deed and depart. While sometimes incredibly destructive, like certain vegans, they flee the scene leaving evidence of their crime. Mice and voles, both, are bad. But it's in their nature. They can't do anything about that. Ravens, sparrows, and the like: well, they're just free-wheeling and don't understand the implications of their actions.

We're talking about gophers, here. Infrequently even seen above ground, let alone in daylight, these animals have been plotting all along. We thought they, too, were tunneling to our crops out of need, which we would have understood. But that wasn't enough. They have used their complex tunnel system to transport the above-mentioned tubers as far as 60 feet in the garden, stashing them in hideouts indiscoverable except by chance.

We thought it was gardener error when a bunch of Jerusalem Artichokes came up in the raspberry bed. And when Margo, while preparing a bed, unearthed a pile of potatoes, all 1 1/2-2" in diameter, we thought they came from the same bed, in which potatoes had been growing not two feet away. But those potatoes had been red. These were yellow. The closest planting of yellow potatoes had been two beds away, at least.
One and one-half to two inches in diameter. Big enough to matter, small enough for easy transport through a gopher hole. The implications finally started to sink in.
This Spring Margo unearthed a similar pile of Jerusalem Artichokes. There is only one bed in the whole garden in which we are growing Jerusalem Artichokes, and it was not that one.
And, finally, the day before yesterday I was surveying the scene of the bramble removal, which was carried out three weeks ago. The blackberries have started sprouting up from their mangled stumps, it's true. But something else was sprouting up, too. Outside the garden, where once was a solid bramble (the perfect cover), are now growing potatoes and Jerusalem Artichokes.

Greenhouse Re-Upholstery

I guess the fact that I am about to complain about our greenhouse speaks to the privileged life we lead here at the Golden Rule Garden, but those who have seen it will agree – it is almost worse than no greenhouse at all. See Exhibit A above: the original skin, fiberglass. No doubt wonderfully durable and transparent for the first couple of years, but you can see to what level it has sunk. Yes, technically it does let in light, but probably around 50%, and that is abysmal for a greenhouse. Does anyone know the word “leggy” as applied to plants? Here is Exhibit B: seedlings which, though given plenty of water and excellent flat soil, could still arguably be described as “languishing” in their relatively dark dungeon. Exhibit C, parts one and two, are full-grown amaranth plants inside and outside the greenhouse. As you can see by the little reddish blotches towards the top of the sea of green, the ones inside are reaching for the sun, putting all their energy into nearly eight-foot stalks with tiny seedheads. The ones outside are short in comparison, maybe 4.5 feet, but have great, full seedheads. I rest my case. The defense might add that the greenhouse does provide enough warmth for the lemon trees to survive and that swiss chard sure seems to thrive, but I, the prosecution, would interject that, yes, the chard does fine until the aphids get tired of their first love, the fava beans.

But let’s not bicker about it. The truth is that our greenhouse is not ideal, but we must make the best of it. And the best of it is the south end, where a few years ago a seedling room was created. Set against the southwest corner, interior walls and lowered ceiling were framed and covered in plastic to retain heat, and the floor was covered in hardware cloth to keep miscellaneous varmints out. It works great to collect and retain heat, even in January, but does a poor job in the sunlight department.
The point is that we want strong, correctly proportioned seedlings, not weak, leggy wastrels. That’s where a little motivation and all the wood, plastic, and screws one could wish for come in. We have been thinking about taking the roof off the whole dang structure and covering it in plastic, but that seems to be a long way off. The real urgency was the seedlings, and so I got permission to take drastic measures on the west side of the south end.
Step one was to, well, take a picture for posterity, of course! But then to remove all of the fiberglass. I’ll let you know, for those who haven’t experienced it yet, that deteriorating fiberglass leaves shiny little fibers all over your hands. I guess the resin breaks down and stops holding it together. Anyway, I got the gloves out after I realized that fact. This was the simple and fun part, first because it got a lot hotter after about 10 am (on the south side of a big structure), second because it’s always a lot more fun taking things apart than putting them back together. So the second photo in the series is the naked seed room.
The upper section of fiberglass didn’t need to be removed, but I wanted to tuck the plastic sheeting under it, so I climbed up above the seed room inside and screwed in scrap wood to prop the upper section out from the wall. You can see that in the third photo. Also subtly present in this photo is the absence of the sliding door rail, which, though heavy and unwieldy, was completely in the way and had to be removed temporarily. So did the windows.
The third photo also showcases the first layer of plastic. I stretched it as tightly as possible simply for the sake of being neat and tidy since it will not be subjected to the stresses of wind like the outside layer. While one layer would be enough to protect the seedlings from birds, heavy rain, and fierce winds, it would not insulate nearly as well as two. Kind of a primitive double-paned energy star window, but we’re short on caulking and argon, so we went with the easy way.

I put the first layer of plastic directly on the frame of the greenhouse, then screwed 1x2” boards over it as the spacers between plastic. Nails would have worked as well and been cheaper, but I don’t know how long this greenhouse is going to last. I don’t want folks to be cursing my contribution when it comes time to disassemble.

The last photo shows the final product. The second layer was stretched as tight as possible, and ¼” boards were nailed along the studs. This way any flapping in the breeze will be kept to a minimum, and the thing will last longer. All the finishing boards are redwood, which is kind of a treat. Too expensive in many areas to be practical, these specific boards are reused from a recently renovated building that is over sixty years old. Redwood is local to us, and can be farmed responsibly, though due to the age of these boards it is possible they are from old-growth trees. Redwood is known for its slow deterioration, to which these particular boards attest.
An important point here: this project does not express our walk of sustainability, just so nobody thinks I'm completely ignorant of this point. Plastic and fiberglass are not, as of this writing, supplies which can be created without a lot of toxic processes. And, clearly, they are not made to fill their purpose for more that five or ten years, after which time they will be junk. We will need to be much more insightful to devise sustainable tools for season extension.
I’m not a great finisher, so this project was a real trial for me. The bulk of it was simple to execute, but the final touches of trimming, tucking, filling gaps and fine-tuning were a bit much. Thus the homage to those, like my friend Bobbi, who have a flair for sharp re-upholstery.
In the end we have a seed room that will be worth the effort others have already put into it, because now the fortress lets in light!

A Few Loose Ends

It being springtime I thought I might tidy up a bit, tie up some projects and things to which I have referred but not followed up on. Above and on the right we have the Lemon tree that won "The Most Butchered" award a couple of months ago. It's not dead! As you can see, fitting for Easter and Spring and all that, what once was clearly "non-viable" is now sprouting out of every conceivable spot. Whew! Sigh of relief from Dan.

We cut and ashed some more potatoes this Monday, and by Thursday our last bed was ready to plant. So now we're all ready to sit back and watch them go. Oh, yeah, and weed them a ton. One of the beds had a compost pile on it previously, which makes for amazing growth, but also happy weeds. Here's a picture of new apprentice Ed ashing a potato slice.
One of the books into which Margo has passionately delved is Healing with Whole Foods, a 700+ page beast of nutrition theory and food-based medicine. She recommends it heartily. It is in Ecology Action's library, but we soon bought our own copy. Back to the point, one of the many ideas it presents is eating for seasons. Spring is for pungent herbs, sprouted things, and a bunch of other foods I won't turn down. So we are now tossing sprouted barley on top of our customary morning oatmeal. Sounds odd, I know, but it is quite tasty and spring-like.
Also on the food front, I want to share a couple of Margo's forays. I note in many of the blogs I read that recipes and food experiences are prime content. (I think that shows I'm paying attention to the right blogs). I'm not so great with recipes myself, but I'll gladly share what I know of Margo's.
First is a granola bar recipe from a farming friend east of here. She told Margo about it, and seemed to indicate that the oats used should be whole, not rolled. The bars were delicious and intriguingly, almost disturbingly chewy from the whole oats. Upon speaking to her later, our friend said something along the lines of "You used whole oats, huh? Wow, I never thought of trying that..." So we experimented without even knowing it.
The second one I've been waiting to share is the squash pie. Margo does experiment fearlessly in foods, consistently veering far from the known territory clearly mapped for us all in Joy of Cooking. Standing on that solid terrain she plots and theorizes, then suddenly striking out in surety she claims new ground. Usually it turns out to be a land proverbially flowing with milk and honey (I bet you vegans just love that phrase), though occasionally it is a mosquito-infested swampland that is left further unexplored. In the case of the squash pie I think it was generally a good experience. What stood out most in this pie was its lack of dairy and eggs. In fact, I do believe that this pie came entirely from the garden, with the exception of spices. Margo read somewhere that flax seeds work great as an egg substitute and tried them out in this pie. As you can see it was both solid and tasty.
Look forward to more of this kind of thing, but address Margo for the specifics.
Lastly, we are one cat less in the garden now. Marcello is no longer with us. I am not writing euphemistically here; Ellen took him off to a shelter on Wednesday where someone who wants a strange cat can choose him. His tendency to attack people when they weren't looking was lots of fun for us who know him, but for visitors and especially children that behavior is less entertaining. So, in honor of him, Marcello gets the final say in this post.

This Spud's for You, Part II

This is going to look kind of strange coming in line before Part I, but we'll go for it.

The pizza dough is rising, the flats have been watered, and I am ready to proceed. I believe our potatoes are ready to go in? Good... So we turn to the soil.

Our bed preparation for potatoes varies depending on how loose the soil already is. In the Golden Rule Garden, where the soil structure is mostly excellent, we often only do a single-dig (that's ~12" down with a digging fork) though sometimes we do double-dig the beds (24" down with spade and fork). Since potatoes are roots, they perform especially poorly in compact, rocky soil.

We don't do trenching and hilling here, just planting. We used to use a bulb planter, but that is a lot of up-and-down, and sometimes does not put them far enough under. (The funny thing about potatoes is that the tubers grow up from the original material. The seed potato is planted, the shoot comes up, and the potatoes develop along this shoot. This is why hilling and many other stranger procedures are popular - the plant grows, you bury it, it grows more, you bury it, and it grows more, all the while producing potatoes. Then when it is done growing you have to dig as deep as the original material to harvest all your potatoes.)

Anyway, how about a picture?These are the tools we use when planting potatoes: first the digging board, which helps distribute the planter's weight to avoid compacting the soil. Next, the spacing board at the top of the bed. This board is as long as the bed is wide, and is marked at 9" intervals, which are offset on the other side of the board. You would notice, upon drawing a line between the markings, that they formed equilateral triangles. This is no coincidence. With the intensive spacing used in Grow Biointensive (also referred to as "offset" or "hexagonal" spacing) all plants in the bed are equidistant from their direct neighbors. Ok, I'll get back to the planting board in a minute.

Next up is the shovel. Specifically a trenching spade. I used to call it a tree spade until I learned that a tree spade is actually the hydraulic truck-mounted hunk of steel that can dig up and move full-grown trees. So don't use one of those, use a trenching spade instead. The glory of this tool is its long, curved blade (to which the angle of the photo doesn't do justice).

Last of all is the little stick you see there next to the spade, which is a 6" spacing stick. How to Grow More Vegetables recommends that potatoes go six inches down, and the stick is to measure the depth if you want. Deeper than 6" is good, too.

We go about the whole process like this:

Start at one end, lay the planting board where the first row goes, and plunge the spade in. Pull slightly back and up, and put the potato in the hole the spade made. Pull the spade out, and the hole caves in. Nice! Plant the rest of the row in the same way, and when that is all done, flip the planting board over. The markings on the far side should indicate where the previous row's potatoes were planted, and the markings on the near side indicate where the next row should go. So do that row, flip the board towards you, plant that row, repeat... And if you are working with another person it becomes even easier. One stands with the spade, one squats with the potatoes. Works real good.

We cover the bed with a shade net then to protect the soil until the potatoes come up, and then we raise the shade net on sticks to protect the potato foliage. Some of the really hot days can scorch them back, so we figure any added bit of protection is worth it.

The other quirky thing we do is, with stakes and string, trellis the foliage of the plants. This keeps the plants vertical, out of the way of the path and each other. Additionally, you know the tubers are ready to harvest when the plant dies back and flops over (see left), so by holding them up we hope to keep the plants going just a bit longer...
When they eventually do kack, it's time to see what you've got! This is what Margo enjoys the most about root vegetables: it is always a surprise, and you can never be quite sure what you have until you dig. We use a potato fork, which is a lot like a digging fork except that the tines are wider - good for lifting potatoes instead of stabbing them. I'm sure later in the season I'll have a lot to say about this process. For now I'll note that we go through each bed at least twice when harvesting, and still find potatoes popping up the next year.
How to Grow More Vegetables lists an intermediate yield for potatoes of 200 lb per 100 sq. ft. One of our beds last year did that well, and we are counting on better this year. The gophers can surely only eat so much, right? If we do get intermediate yields, or better, for our crop it will mean 1,500 lb of happiness! That's what I'm talking about!
I guess I could say a bit here about storage. There are some potatoes that store better than others, and so you should have an idea of what you are growing them for. And if you want to be able to store your potatoes from harvest all the way to planting the next year, well, that will take really knowing your varieties together with some of your own experience. There are always some bitter (and smelly) failures, but success is oh, so succulent! Especially with some salt, a little roasted garlic, a bit of mayonnaise...

This Spud's for You, Part I

Margo and I love potatoes in almost every way. In addition to boiled, baked, fried, toasted, and the inevitable mixed-with-garlic, we like to plant and harvest them.

Let me stress this one point about potatoes: they are easy. If I can grow them with any amount of success, you can as well. While there are many creative ways to cultivate our originally South American friends, this post will outline the method we use in Grow Biointensive, with a few elements we include for this area's hot summers.

Let us begin with varieties... As the wonderfully informative and pictorial (though depressingly-titled) Fatal Harvest points out in the chapter "Monoculture vs. Diversity," there are upwards of 5,000 varieties of potato in the world today. Only four of these are grown on the major commercial scale, but since we're all small potatoes (ha ha) we have many more choices open to us. This year we stopped by one of our local nurseries to find they had organic seed potatoes, which was great. (The only two reasons I can think of to buy seed potatoes to plant as opposed to grocery store potatoes are 1) the aforementioned possibilities of choice and 2) the disease-free guarantee that seed potato vendors can give you. None of us want potato diseases imported from Maine or somewhere.)
So we got Purple Majesty, Yellow Finn (on the left), All Red, Jacqueline Lee, Red Desiree, Red La Soda, Red Norland, and the ubiquitous Yukon Gold and Russet Burbank. And these are not getting put in tiny allotments, either. We'll be growing around 750 sq. ft. of potatoes. That's seven and a half beds that measure 5'x20'. We'll be rollin' in the potatoes by October, woo hoo! Yeah!
I think I'm getting ahead of myself.
If your local garden supply store doesn't supply seed potatoes (or has poor selection) you can always order them from one of many dependable suppliers. For great diversity we usually go to Ronniger's catalog. There are lots of others. Remember to plan ahead on this point.
How to Grow More Vegetables says it will take 25 to 30 lb of potatoes to plant 100 sq. ft. It gives a range because the actual weight depends on the specific potatoes you are going to plant. Massive potatoes can be cut into smaller pieces to plant, assuming there are enough "eyes" - I'm going to assume we all know what those are. That said, you can't carve a peanut-sized piece off around a viable eye, plant it, and expect it to grow. We go by the policy that plant-able potatoes should weigh at least 2 ounces.
If your supplier is being kind to you, they will give you "single-drop" potatoes, which are small enough that they can be tossed in the hole a bulb-planter makes. If your supplier is being naughty, they will sell you huge potatoes, by the pound, with only two eyes, both on the same end so as to make cutting impossible. Most likely you will get a mixture. Unless you get to choose, in which case you will choose excellent-looking, perfectly-sized potatoes.
If the previous two paragraphs don't make much sense to you, ignore them and plant whatever you want. This shouldn't be made into rocket science. But always pay attention to what you do, because it will give you a chance to learn something.
Now you have your potatoes... This part is easy: Set them out a month before you want to plant them. Not in direct sunlight, and not where they will freeze. How about on your dining room table? Or beside it? Ok, how about in front of the sofa? (These pictures indicate the lengths to which our addiction leads us - they are not simply the same trays being moved around). Put them wherever you want. The point is to get them to sprout.
Once they have sprouted, determine whether any can be cut in one or more pieces. Cutting should happen three or so days before planting, and you should have a can of wood ash at the ready when you do it. Each cut face should get coated with some. This will help keep the potato from getting disease, I think, but Margo will let me know for sure when she checks this out.
Now your potatoes are ready to go, and it is time to get down and dirty in the garden!
...but now it's time for me to make tonight's pizza dough, and so Part II will follow shortly.

Past Accomplishments

Margo has instructed me to write about planting potatoes, and I will, but later this week. I think an accounting of how the past couple of weeks went is in order first.

We have had visits from prospective members of the Golden Rule Garden gang, a visit from my brother, a trip to Hidden Villa Ranch to present to the Multinational Exchange for Sustainable Agriculture (MESA) orientation of new stewards, and a trip to go surfin' and campin' down around Santa Cruz (I'm the one in front of the blue board). Plus a whole lot of gardening, weeding, and things I'll tell you about momentarily.

Since last post, Spring Equinox, where I declared the trees were budding and asparagus sprouting prematurely, we have had at least five, maybe more like seven nights below freezing. Most of those well into hard-frost territory. The Asian pear and Plum trees go right on, as if they didn't notice. That means we'll be getting out the spun polyester soon to protect them.

We had, on the west end of the garden, a large blackberry/grape vine bramble. It stretched about twenty feet along the fence and stood around eight feet tall for most of that. Let me first stress this most important of all facts: it did not produce many berries, nor did it produce any grapes whatsoever. It shaded the bed next to the fence starting around 3:00pm, which could be good or bad depending on the crop. It leaned heavily on the fence, which is a plastic deer-barrier fence and not in any way structural. And it provided an excellent habitat for a number of birds. We thought this last part was great, until the Red Fife wheat we planted nearby began to be decimated. And then the sugar snap peas, then the kale, then the mustard. You have probably noticed that the bramble has been referred to here in the past tense, and that is what this paragraph is really about. Ellen has been talking for a while about getting the backhoe in to rip the bramble out, but last year it was shading the delicate crops so nicely that we asked her to put that off a bit. This year is different, and since my brother was visiting with his excellent trail-maintenance skills we did it last week. Now it acts as a nice, but mobile, habitat. I'm guessing it will ambulate (with persuasion from a golf cart) to a better location in the next few days. Besides, it isn't like there aren't blackberry brambles ALL OVER the place here anyway. That one taking over the greenhouse, for instance...
The final point I'll reference now is the reconstruction of old flats... Flats are great for using space wisely in the garden - seeds are planted in 3" deep flats and stay there until the seedlings are of a size to transplant. That way whatever is already growing in the beds can grow some more before being pulled out for the new crop. The downside of flats, as with most other things, is that they eventually break. This is the corner of our greenhouse where we store such flats. (They don't know that the wood burning stove around which they are stacked is out of service - it keeps them honest.)
Out of this pile, so far, have arisen fifteen solid and usable flats. Eight of these were cobbled together from pieces of broken flats, and the other seven incorporated some brand new material with the old pieces. Here are three of the flats, which constitute the two most popular flat dimensions at the Golden Rule Garden. The two on the left are referred to as "half flats," because they are approximately half the width of the full flats cited in How to Grow More Vegetables. Their interior dimensions are 15.5"X 10", and they are much easier to deal with when full of wet soil. The flat on the right is a "long flat," and is 2'X 9". It is heavier, but since it is long you can keep its center of gravity closer to you.
I'll end with a digital print of my flat-concocting diagrams. The medium is graphite on 1/8" redwood board. It is the first of its series...