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Strange Growing Potatoes

Have you ever had strange growing potatoes? I discovered these mutant looking potatoes when I dug up a patch of potatoes in my back garden this Fall. These were planted later this year and apparently didn’t get enough water.

Strange Shaped Potatoes

I researched what the cause of these strange growing potatoes and found that they were stressed. Stressed potatoes don’t grow properly. The tubers stop growing and don’t spread out causing the potatoes to grow together such as these potatoes did.

Long periods of dry, hot weather without enough rain and lack of watering is mainly the cause. There are also some other reasons that you get can strange growing potatoes as shown in this gardening article. This summer was very hot and we didn’t get much rain so this stressed out my potatoes.

When you get mutant growing potatoes like this, your harvest will be much smaller as I can attest to. While this late planting of potatoes did produce some potatoes, my overall harvest was smaller than last year. I learned a valuable lesson and will share a useful tip, water more to prevent this!

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Drying Onions

I harvested these onions that had fallen over and were ready to start curing and drying for winter storage.
Drying Onions

Once the onions fall over, you can gently dig them up and put them out to begin to dry. You want them laying out like this for at least one day. You don’t want to leave them out in the sun after that. So you can either find a shady spot or cover them with a sheet as shown.
Onions covered for drying

You want to use a sheet so the curing onions can breathe and have air circulate around them. Do not cover with plastic. After about a week or two, the tops will die off and then you can trim the onion tops.

Next photo is after the tops were cut and I placed them in this shallow box in the shade under a lean-to for them to continue to dry and cure for another month. You can now just brush off the roots as they are dry and dead.
Onions drying for storage

Check on the drying onions to make sure that any damaged onions are used right away. Store the dried onions in Continue Reading →

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Early Potatoes

Here is my first harvest from the early potatoes I planted this year. These were grown from some leftover little potatoes from last year’s crop that I planted early this spring.

First Harvest Potatoes

I was pleased how my seedling potatoes that I planted, sprouted and grew so nicely. The tops died off recently and I dug up the potatoes yesterday. It is always fun, like a game to dig and find the potatoes. This harvest of potatoes was from just two plants. I still have many more but this was from the first planting which were ready for harvest. Now I have some nice homegrown potatoes for breakfast to cook tomorrow!

A useful tip: As these are early potatoes, the skins are thin and can not be stored long. You want to use early potatoes right away as they will only store for about a week or so.

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Indoor Plant Starts

Here are my indoor plant starts for this year. The front row of cups are beef steak tomatoes that I saved the heirloom seeds from last year’s plants. I am so excited that they germinated so well. You can read more about saving tomato seeds here. The seeds were planted 12 days ago and many sprouted within just a few days.

Indoor Plant Starts 4-2024

On the back row on the left is a zucchini start. I planted two seeds in the cup but so far only one has sprouted but I had that happen last year too. Sometimes the seeds take extra time to come up.

The other two back row cups are cherry tomato plants that I started from store bought seeds.

As it is still cold at night here, these plant starts will continue to grow in my kitchen window until things warm up more. I will be transfering them into some bigger pots soon so the plants can have more room to grow. Then I will be hardening them off outside during the day until I can plant them in the garden outside.

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Saving & Drying Tomato Seeds

It is always a great idea to save and dry tomato seeds from your heirloom tomatoes. Here are a few seeds I saved earlier this Fall and am drying on a paper towel. These were some tasty and big beef steak tomatoes so I really wanted to save the seeds for next year’s garden.
Drying Tomato Seeds

After they dried out some on the paper towel, I gently moved the seeds around to continue the drying process. You want to make sure your seeds are completely dried out before storing them for future planting. Use a new paper towel if necessary to make sure the seeds dry and ready for storing.

Saving your tomato seeds is not only a way to save money on buying seeds but also is a useful idea for growing more great tasting tomatoes that you enjoyed during this year’s garden.

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Late Fall Carrots

Here are my late fall carrots that I just harvested. I had lots of late carrots I planted and have been enjoying them immensely. With the warmer weather, I was able to put up these carrots even after several frosts this year. You want to pull them before the ground freezes solid. Otherwise it is hard to get them out and you break them trying to get them out of the hard-as-concrete dirt. Trust me on this, I had that happen last year.

Late Fall Harvested Carrots

I cut them up a bit and blanched them in boiling water for about 5 minutes.

Blanched Carrots

Once the carrots are blanched, I put them in ice water to stop the cooking process. Next drain them well. Then I froze them flat in a Ziplock freezer bag for use later.

Now next time I need some carrots, I can just pull some out of the freezer bag for use in a stew, shepherd’s pie, or other recipe. It’s wonderful having homegrown carrots available all year around.

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