My garden continues to produce bounties of beautiful fresh vegetables. Our latest harvest - potatoes!
Yesterday, before a thunderous rainstorm, my gardeners harvested the season's first batch of potatoes. Potatoes are from the perennial nightshade, Solanum tuberosum. As the world's fourth-largest food crop, following maize, wheat, and rice, potatoes are grown from “seed potatoes," which are certified disease-free and specially grown in nurseries for planting purposes. I always look forward to sharing the bounty with family and friends.
Here are some photos, enjoy.
Here at my farm, I plant potatoes every year – they’re great for baking and enjoying with my favorite caviar, and for making my mother’s famous mashed potatoes. This particular batch is an extra harvest from last year’s crop – and there are so many!
This was one of the potato beds in June, when the potato plants flowered. This happens when they are mature and have enough resources to reproduce. The flowers can be white, pink, lavender, or purple, and they attract pollinators to help the plant make more seeds. Flowering is also a sign that tubers are starting to grow underground.
And just yesterday, they looked like this. This is definitely a less attractive sight in the garden, but it is a well-anticipated one because it means the potatoes are ready.
The potatoes are ready to pick once the vines have died back – when the tubers are done growing, and the potato plants have begun to turn yellow and withered.
The best time to dig up potatoes is on a dry day once all the vines have died. Here in the Northeast, yesterday was very hot and dry before the late afternoon showers began.
To harvest potatoes, Josh uses a gardening fork. It has four tines that can pierce the ground more easily than would a shovel or a spade.
Josh drives the fork into the soil at the outside edges of the plant and then carefully lifts the plant.
Here, Ryan digs deep into the ground and feels around for potatoes – potatoes will be slightly cool to the touch.
It’s important to dig them up carefully, so as not to damage any of the tubers. All these are from one plant.
The skins of mature potatoes are thick and firmly attached to the flesh. If the skins appear thin and rub off easily, the potatoes are still too ‘new’ and should be left in the ground for a few more days.
Here’s our gardening intern Matthew after picking a few potatoes, Always be careful not to scrape, bruise or cut the tubers. Damaged tubers will rot during storage.
It’s fun to dig around the soil and find multiple potatoes waiting to be picked. They are not too deep – any potatoes will be within the first several-inches of soil.
It’s easy to see how the potatoes are connected to the plant at the root area. They’re very easy to pull off, and often come loose by themselves. Leave any green potatoes alone. When potatoes are exposed to light, they turn green, a sign the toxic substance called solanine is developing, which may cause illness if eaten in large quantities.
In the next bed – red potatoes. An entire potato plant grows from just one potato eye, although when planting, always plant a piece of potato with at least two eyes to ensure germination.
There are more than 200 varieties of potatoes sold throughout the United States. Each fit into one of seven potato type categories: russet, red, white, yellow, blue/purple, fingerling, and petite.
It doesn’t take long to fill the entire trug bucket with beautiful potatoes. And this is just one! Because potatoes grow underground, it is always a surprise to see how prolific the plants have been.
As the potatoes are picked, they’re placed into crates, separated by variety and color. They can be stored in bins, boxes, or even paper bags – just nothing airtight to prevent rotting. Another tip – never wash potatoes until right before using – washing them shortens the potato’s storage life.
After all the potatoes are picked, the beds are cleaned up, raked, and prepped for the next crop to be planted.
Meanwhile, the potatoes are stored in my carport. Don’t leave harvested potatoes in the sun as excessive heat could cause them to cook. Just brush off as much soil as possible and place them in a cool, dry place.
This was a great harvest – look at the size of one of my potatoes! I am excited to try every kind.
Colorful summertime blooms are now growing beautifully in the beds of a new cutting garden.
Earlier this year, I began developing a more formal cutting garden down by my chicken coops. It had been my vegetable garden for several years, but now that I have a giant half-acre vegetable garden closer to my home, I decided the former space would be dedicated to flowers, where varieties would be organized in sections by size, color, and bloom time. It has come through quite a transformation. Many of the flower seeds are from Johnny's Selected Seeds, Bakers Creek Heirloom Seed Company, and Vilmorin.
Enjoy these photos.
Once the ground was warm enough, the entire enclosure was cleared, cleaned, rototilled, and fed.
By spring, Fernando started creating the raised garden beds. Landscape twine was used as a guide, so every bed and footpath was perfectly straight.
After all the beds were completed, it was time to plant the flowers, which were started from seed in my greenhouse.
And now, many of the beds are bursting with blossoms.
One of the big showers right now is the zinnia, a member of the aster family and native to Mexico and Central America.
Zinnias prefer full sun and well-drained soil.
They are highly attractive to pollinators, particularly butterflies.
The leaves of the zinnia are lanceolate, ovate, or oblong in shape, dark green, with prominent veins.
Zinnias have a wide range of heights, growth habits, and flower colors. Colors include yellow, orange, white, pink, purple, lavender, red, and rust.
The best time to cut zinnias is in the morning or evening when it’s cooler and when the stems are stiff and upright.
Delphinium flowers have showy, spiky blooms on tall stems. Blue is the most common color, but delphiniums also grow in shades of pink, lavender, red, white, and yellow.
Also known as cornflower, Bachelor’s Buttons are wonderful grown en masse. Once established, Bachelor’s Buttons sprout in the same spot year after year and produce lots of seeds, which attract small birds.
This is the tall foxglove plant, Digitalis purpurea. These add lovely vertical interest to any garden. Foxglove flowers grow on stems which may reach up to six feet in height, depending on the variety. The downward-facing, tapered, tubular flowers are spotted inside with dark purple edged in white on the lower lip, which serves as a landing platform for pollinators.
This is Alcea rosea, also known as the hollyhock. These plants can reach five to eight-feet tall. The flowers are large and are borne up and down a single tall stem.
Hollyhock leaves are large with a rounded heart-shape.
I have long loved snapdragons, Antirrhinum majus, and have a bed of these growing in the garden. Snapdragons are available in most colors except blue and coordinate well with other garden bloomers.
Snapdragons are known for wispy jaw-like upper and lower petals. A single stem averages 10 to 15 of these unique blooms, grouped closely together.
The snapdragon’s alternate, lanceolate leaves are arranged in a spiral around the stem.
Scabiosa, also known as Pincushion Flower, is a versatile cut flower. With its spiky ball center and strong wiry stems, it is popularly used fresh and dried.
I also have my potted figs in this garden and this season, there are so many fruits! Figs, Ficus carica, are members of the mulberry family and are indigenous to Asiatic Turkey, northern India, and warm Mediterranean climates, where they thrive in full sun.
The fig tree has been sought out and cultivated since ancient times and is now widely grown throughout the world, both for its fruit and as an ornamental plant.
I hope your flower gardens are also doing wonderfully this year.
Part of good potted plant maintenance is knowing when it's time to repot.
Out in my Winter House courtyard is a handsome potted Pittosporum - a dense, low-maintenance evergreen with delicate bold green foliage. The specimen had been in the same pot for quite some time and was in need of a more spacious container and fresh nutrients. My head gardener, Ryan McCallister, selected a pot that was slightly larger than its original vessel with good drainage and went to work.
Here are some photos, enjoy.
Pittosporum is a tough evergreen tree in the family Pittosporaceae. It is sometimes also known as sweet pittosporum, native daphne, Australian cheesewood, Victorian box or mock orange.
One of the many tasks on our long garden “to do” list is to repot this Pittosporum. The plant is top-heavy and may fall over easily, so it is important to re-home it before the pot and the plant are damaged.
The replacement pot is about 30-percent larger. When selecting the next size, it is important not to get a pot that’s too big. Potting soil holds on to excess water, and the more soil that’s in the pot, the more water will remain – that’s good for moisture-loving plants, but not for those that prefer to be well-drained.
And always make sure there are drainage holes in the bottom of the pot. I prefer those with at least one drainage hole. It allows extra water to escape, which prevents the soil from becoming waterlogged. Drainage holes also help reduce salt buildup in the soil, since water flowing out of the hole will take the extra salt with it.
Ryan removes some of the soil from the top of the root ball.
He uses a Hori Hori to carefully go around the inside edge of the pot to loosen the root ball.
This is a Hori Hori knife. It is a Japanese gardening tool with a heavy, serrated steel blade that can be used for a variety of jobs, such as digging, cutting, weeding, planting, splitting, and transplanting. It’s one of my favorite most essential gardening tools.
Next, the pot and plant are carefully turned sideways. Notice, Ryan works on a tarp to collect any soil or debris. This makes the entire job much easier to clean up afterward.
Ryan holds the plant gently by the center stem and pulls the plant from its current vessel until it slides out completely.
The Pittosporum is now out of its pot and ready to place into its new, larger container.
Shards of broken pots are saved and used to cover the drainage holes of the new vessel and prevent soil from spilling out when the plant is watered.
Ryan pours a fresh layer of suitable potting mix into the pot. We use Scotts Miracle-Gro Potting Mix that can be used for indoor and outdoor container plants. It is designed to help plants thrive by including lava rock, which is a porous and lightweight material that provides the necessary drainage and support growth.
The root ball is scarified to stimulate growth, put in its new container and backfilled. Note how much more balanced the plant looks in its new pot.
Make sure the plant is centered and that its best side faces out.
Here, Ryan gives the Pittosporum a good drink of water. Pittosporums are not particularly thirsty plants, but do need regular watering to establish themselves and look full.
Pittosporums prefer full sun, but will also grow in part shade. In my courtyard, this plant gets six hours or more of direct sunlight.
Pittosporum has woody stems that average about eight to 12 inches in length branched with several laterals and filled with densely compacted green leaves.
Other larger potted plants in this courtyard near the Pittosporum include this pair of ponytail palms flanking the gate. The ponytail palm is drought tolerant, slow-growing, and requires very little care. It’s also called Bottle palm, Elephant’s foot tree, Elephant’s foot palm, Flask lilia, and Nolina palm.
These potted Eugenias are in the upper courtyard. Eugenia topiary, or an Australian Brush Cherry tree, Syzygium paniculatum, is an evergreen tree or shrub with shiny dark green leaves native to Australia and New Zealand.
Pittosporums can be used as hedges, clipped into shapes, or grown in large containers. It looks great in its new pot here in my sunken courtyard where I can enjoy its greenery every day.
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