I've started the potato harvest this week. Some of the early potatoes (blue caribe) are starting to die back and the taste if fresh potatoes is too alluring to wait any longer. I pulled three plants today (in the shady part of the bed and got a modest haul of these purple-skinned, white-fleshed potatoes. No scab so far! The late-season Russian blue are still flowering so I expect we'll have a decent staging of this harvest (rather than a glut).
As crops have been coming out, I've started re-ordering the beds for next year. After a couple of years of using areas, I've decided to move to rows. I'm just getting too old and inflexible to contort myself weeding in order to get a few extra feet of productive space!
That end, I've trimmed back the lilac and replanted some other flowers to open up the south end of the garage bed. I then harvested the south-most potatoes and started pushing soil into north-south rows (you can see this in front of the lilac--north is to the left). I think I can likely get three rows and two walkways in the narrow part of this bed, adding rows as we move north and the garden widens out. As I harvest more (e.g., the onion bed to the right of the bird bath), I will extend the rows northward. The good news so far is that the soil is amazing to work with--soft and loamy.
Operation Fruit Rescue Edmonton appears set to gear up in time for the apple season. This is very exciting as apple sauce, pie, butter and rings (not to mention cider) are in the offing. I successfully wired the garburetor so I have an apple crusher to go with my press.
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