We harvested our first new potatoes!

[greeneyedsadie]

I'm on the central coast of California (I don't know what growing zone that is, sorry ETA: Zone 10a?) and we are growing them in wine barrels from our local vineyards. They started dying a few days ago and we googled and found out that you harvest them when they die, so we dug up three plants and look we have potatoes!

Comments

[squid_ink]

can't say for sure... but radishes are cool weather crops. I grow them in the spring and fall and I'm on the border of zone 5 and 6.

[greeneyedsadie]

I live next to the sea, and the temperatures are in the 50s to 70s during the day most of the year. We might hit the 80s maybe 10 days out of the entire year.

I think we planted too many and didn't thin and they had nowhere to grow.

[squid_ink]

that does not sound like zone 10 to me. Not even close. You may want to edit your post to reflect your average temps.

[greeneyedsadie]

On wikipedia it based the zone on the minimum temp, which is the lowest temp it can get, right? The lowest temperature we get is about 30 at night during the winters. It had San Francisco as zone 10a and that's almost exactly the same. I was so confused trying to figure that out.

[singeaddams]

Yum! Potatoes sounds like an easy crop to grow. When I get more room I'll have to try them.

[greeneyedsadie]

They were super easy. We grow them in a wine barrel.

[matrixx]

Something I read on the USDA website last year that I found awesome:

Carefully remove the potatoes from the root system of the plant and then replant it again. In the fall (assuming it's gotten water/food) it will grow again and you'll get a second harvest! I did it last year and my second harvest was even better than the first. Amazing!

[greeneyedsadie]

Thank you for that tip! We already rudely yanked the ones out of the ground, but we might do the replant with our next crop and get a third crop.

[leeneh]

This!

And, if the soil is soft, you can also just dig carefully with your hand or a small garden fork (not sure what they're called in English) near the base of the plant, feel around for the biggest tubers, and then leave the smallest ones to grow a bit more and the plant to keep producing new ones. I plant mine in straw, to make this harvesting method even easier. I've had 12*** at the most. Sometimes there are still potatoes left to harvest after the plants are completely dead in the late fall.

Edit: ***That is 12 plants, not 12 potatoes!

[bonanzajelybean]

I'm zone 8, and I've had crappy luck with radishes, too. This year they barely made it past "skinny root" phase before going to seed :S I've tried four different varieties, they all do the same thing for me. I've asked in this community before about this problem, I didn't really get any ideas back. Since radishes aren't a big deal for me, I've simply decided to not grow radishes anymore and make more room for things that grow well in my garden. *shrugs*

[greeneyedsadie]

That's exactly what happened! This was our first year trying them and my mother loves them, but we can always get beautiful radishes at the farmers market.

[virginiadear]

Radishes should be planted in the spring while it's still cool, and as soon as the soil can be worked, or they can be sown for a fall crop by calculating backward from your average first killing frost date. If you have very mild winters, your radishes might do better for you as winter crops. They do need to be thinned, definitely. (The thinnings can be eaten out of hand after a quick rinse under the tap, or tossed into a salad. One gardener sautees hers.) Spacing depends on the type of radish (some are quite large and require a lot of room.)
Varieties such as "Scarlet Globe," "Cherry Belle," and "White Tip Sparkler" are quick to mature, so successive sowings 10 to 14 days apart for as long as the radishes go on producing

[greeneyedsadie]

We're pretty cool most of the year, but we had them in direct sun and that's probably what did it. And we didn't think them. Thanks!

[virginiadear]

You can probably grown them year-round, then, especially the faster-maturing varieties. Lucky you! :-)