These are the 50 plus new plants rescued from the existing patches and heavily mulched with the comfrey. One plant at Lowe’s stuffed in a little box with minimal roots and no way to moisten them! $4.99 to $5.99 each. 3 hrs work netted me over $300 worth of well rooted plants.
I finished putting a row of comfrey along the entire perimeter of the raspberries. Grow your own mulch They stand out better now that they are mulched.
I didn’t have enough comfrey for the taters, so I just hilled them and buried them with leaves. Oak leaves would be better because they are acidic, but use what you have. NEVER lime potatoes, they love acidic soil. I average a pound of potatoes per foot of row. These 3 50’ rows will yield 150 pounds, enough for the 2 of us all winter. We just finished the last of our potatoes last week.
The grapes are also doing well. My wife trained a very long vine along the ground and pinned them down at every other node (the vines root at every node) and grew these short arms up (at every other node or so, to space them out) to bear the fruit. Seems to be working well. A Russian friend of mine grows grapes from a short vine with 4-5" arms up a stake. He lived in Georgia along the Black Sea coast area. First time I’d seen this method. He had great yields.
Pepe
Nice plants! l just finished the potato hilling yesterday ( l have about 10x12m of it) and was wondering if l wuld mulch it or not. Last year l just hilled them and leave them bee. When the potatoes riped they were overgrown by weeds so l just mowed the weeds and dig out the potatoes. Had about 300 kg of it on a 10x5 m place so i dont know if mulch wuld realy help that much. l have lots of leaves thugh…
Hi Kristijan,
I have about one foot of sandy loam on top of 11-12 feet of pure sand sitting on blue clay. How do I know this soil profile? I have a dug well. It dries out deep here in a hurry so I build soil tilth and mulch heavily to get a decent crop. I also use soaker hose a lot. I can pump about 400-500 gals a day and the level fills in overnight. Fortunate to have such a good supply. Power goes out totally, I can drop a bucket in and have walking water to the house. Warm enough, we can just walk down the hill to the river to bathe. Potatoes prefer cool soil, so mulch helps with that, too. It also keeps the weeds down quite well. If you have heavy soil you may not need to mulch to retain moisture, but it helps with the weeds.
That is a great yield for the size of the patch. I grown a bunch of varieties, but have settled into Kennebec (Maine) , Red Norland (North Dakota) and Green Mountain (Vermont).
If your soil is heavy (claylike) tilling in organic material will help loosen it up.
Pepe
Hi Kristijan,
My dad loved potatoes, we had them everyday as I recall. Every once in a while we get to ride out to uncle Pete’s farm and get some eggs and potatoes. I’m pretty close to potatoes every day, I love them, too and some call it too much work. What a feeling of freedom, hand planting and harvesting of potatoes.
Pepe
I took a ride to Rouses Point, NY at the northern end of Lake Champlain, NY on the Canadian border, this am to check out the cattails. They are growing but not yet near flowering, perhaps a week or two yet. I’ll watch them. If you’re in warmer sections they may be flowering already, keep a eye on them. I did notice that the wild grapes are flowering like crazy.
Pepe
Took my granddaughter fishing this morning. Cattails are growing here but just reeds so far be a while here. Lots of raspberry blossoms this year but birds usually get them before they get ripe here.
Hi Jim,
I don’t know if you got a chance to watch all of my vid in comment 28, but at 3:39 he describes how he collects the entire unripened flower top instead of just the pollen. He states the nutritional values, impressive. Something I’ll try, just remember that it will be early, before the pollen occurs. Kind of neat to taste fresh “corn” this early. Pepe
For those of you who have some plants/shrubs/trees that you want to have more of without the high price, check out this vid. Listen well to this guy, he’s got a lot of critical info about rooting cuttings. Also, this is the right time to do it.
Pepe
Click and hold the right mouse on the comment # you see and scroll up to comment 40
They grow 3’ to 10’ tall and flower in late summer to early fall. You can’t miss the bright yellow sunflower like flowers. Mark the spot so you can find and dig the roots is spring.
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