Mountain Biking: Rubber side down- And Now, Back to Your Local News…Since the weather’s getting better, I’m sure we’re all totally jonesing to get onto the trails, but in general, they’re a mess. It’s a bummer to see nice singletracks get trashed and widened, so like all of you, I’m grinding my teeth in annoyance while I try to be patient. The good news is that you [...] […]
- Downieville, Take ThreeOkay, well, things went pretty haywire in race promotion after the registration debacle. The organizer received so many hateful emails and comments about the mishap that it made him wonder if he should even bother putting the race on. I can’t blame him, really. In his shoes I might do the same thing. It sounds [...] […]
- And Now, Back to Your Local News…
- Edgy Veggie
Urban potato crop in a bin on a balcony
I’m an accidental organic potato farmer, and you can be too. Even if your only outdoor space is a balcony. Even if, like me, you happen to be a rather inexperienced, ineffective home gardener plagued by pests. Sure, I had a lot of hot peppers and a few tomatoes and herbs, but what I really had was a bumper crop of pests, including earwigs, slugs and a tenacious 11-year-old Bichon Frise with a taste for organic kale and corn. Want to know how a small white dog could pull ears off a 4-foot corn stalk? So do I.
A potato bin in action
But we harvested this week, just ahead of the frost, and to my surprise: My otherwise mediocre home garden yielded nearly 40 pounds of perfect potatoes. Surprisingly large, with picture-perfect roundness and smooth skin, and creamy interiors that taste amazing even without cream or butter.
The secret is inexpensive “potato bins,” great seed and the tenets of potato farming: Not too much fuss, no daily watering, and letting the stalks wither and die before harvest. Wither and die? I can do that! I did that to my entire garden all summer long!
Potato bins are fabric containers sold by Gardener’s Supply Co. We used Certified Rose Gold Seed from Wood Prairie Farm in Maine; they sell you chunks of old potato you just plop in the dirt.
The bins can go anywhere — even on a small apartment porch. We had purchased four, and put them high on a table in our sunny western-facing back yard (out of reach of the aforementioned white dog.) You pour in a little dirt and organic compound until stalks sprout several inches high; then pile up more dirt and compound. Water the bushes when they droop; the fabric takes care of excess water and rain by allowing it to drain away.
Once the bins were topped — there was no more room for more dirt and the bushes were tall and large — we more or less ignored them. We watered them. Let them flower. After about three months, we let them wither and die.
Then: We rooted around with our bare hands (a shovel would damage the potato skin) and pulled out potato after potato. Most were about the size of a tennis ball; some were the size of both my fists, together.
We’ve got dozens of simple potato recipes at the ready; none will be as easy as growing our own potato crop at home.
— Erika Stutzman
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