Hello thee, Growing pains! When you say "Purple", do you mean Purple Sprouting Broccoli? This is a purple-coloured broccoli that sends up florets, or little shoots with heads on them from in-between the leaf emerges from the stalk. It is quite delicious. About your spuds--What kind of potatos did you plant? There are many, many types abd they are divided in to three main catagories: early, medium and late, which refers to the time of season that they are ment be harvested. There are sub-divisaions of these main categories as well. it is certainly possible that you dug them up too soon. The way it works with spuds is thus-- you plant a seed potato in the ground. This seed potato then produces stems that grow upwards and form leaves above ground. It also produces two types of "roots". One type is called "stems" and the tubers form at the ends of these. The other type are known as "true roots" which take up moisture and elements(nutrition) from the soil. If you had late middle or simply late potatoes and you harvested them now, then it would have been premature, as the tubers would not have begun to form yet. The first thing that you ought to do is try and find out what type of potatos you have in the ground there. Then we can find out when they are supposed to be harvested. A rule of thumb is to watch for the plants to bloom. After the blooming you can theoreticaly begin harvesting, although I personally wait a little longer, if the weather conditions are fair and not rainy. Good to hear that you planted more beans. I am crazy about beans....
Sjoerd, I planted the Pontiac Red just as I did last year. I waited untill the flowers died and the stems began to turn brown. There are several tiny potatoes and several medium sized. The medium sized potatoes had eyes or tubers about 6 inches long or more. I wondered what they are for as we didn't have those on last year's potatoes. We dug them last year when they began turning brown and falling over. I think its the weather, but could be wrong as my daughter has lovely potatoes from store bought which had sprouted eyes.
Well GrowingPains--the Pontiac Red is classified as an "early main"...so that is all according to Hoyle. It sounds as if you have lifted your potatos at the correct time, in terms of how the foliage was looking. What a mystery this is, especially with your daughter's doing so well. You know, if the harvested spuds had already begun to "chit" in the ground, I would conclude that you have left them in too long. That sort of miscalculation can happen when there has been extended periods of extreme heat and/or dryness. I keep digging underneath my potatos and checking for moisture level and condition of the new spuds being formed. I feel like I have to do this this year because of the peculiar weather conditions. I have been digging under my spuds more and more for the past 2-3 years to visually keep an eye on their progress. Sadly, I can no longer rely on the "timing" of years past, if you know what I mean. I think that my potatos will be on the smallish size and perhaps fewer than last year. I am growing some "tried and tested" types and some new ones this year...but I fear that it is going to be a bad year to test. We shall see. Many folks over here and in your country are having non-optimal crops this season already. I do think that it is down to the weather. I am trying to feed and give water in an adjusted way this year in the hope of forcing my will upon Mother Nature. hahaha. Not a wish that has a good prognosis, I suspect. You might try a totally different type of potato next year called, "Eersteling". That may give you better results if the weather does weird again next season. Just because I am curious,do you think that you could take a pic of those sprouting spuds of yours? I would like to see them...also the condition of the skin. If you have time, that is.
