Raised Bed Vegetable Garden with Stone Borders

It's taken me all summer to get to it but I'm finally taking the first steps toward changing the vegetable garden to the parterre layout. I had some of the blocks sitting around for months now and others I borrowed from our patio sidewalk expansion which I just haven't had time to get to this summer.  Using the stone for the border is more expensive than wood but will last much longer.  

For a comparison take the $2.50 cost per foot of these stone blocks and compare it with a piece of lumber somewhere around $5-6 for a 10 foot piece.  That comes to about $0.50-$0.60 per foot which makes the stone about 5 times more expensive.  The big advantage is that it won't ever rot and it looks pretty good!

So far I only have one small portion of the raised bed vegetable garden put together.  Even it still needs several more blocks placed to complete the beds.   These beds are going to be planted ASAP with some more winter greens.  Pak choy sounds good and maybe more spinach.

Ever tried potatoes in the fall?  This one was a volunteer in a large nursery pot I was using for a weeding bucket.  I'm tempted to wrap the top area where you see the metal stakes in plastic to create a little greenhouse effect. I'm theorizing here but I might just be able to get some potatoes by December.  We'll see!  The neat thing about potatoes in a pot is that when they are ready all you need to do is dump the pot to get the potatoes.

How's your vegetable garden growing?

Small Potatoes - YUM!

I had a very productive weekend! It's been a while since I spent so much time outdoors and despite the heat, the sun, the sweat, and big case of farmer's tan a bunch of chores were accomplished. One surprise though was my potatoes. The potato bed was overrun with Bermuda grass as I mentioned the other day but even before that my potatoes had seemingly succumbed to a blight. A month ago I had given my potatoes up for lost. Lost they were, until I pulled Bermuda rhizome after rhizome out of the bed and amazingly potatoes began popping up! It wasn't a great harvest by any means but it did brighten my spirits a bit.

The potatoes were small things mostly, definitely not fit for baking in most cases, so I had to come up with a way to use them. Often people boil potatoes this small and serve them with butter but I had another idea. It was inspired by a friend who cooked some small garden potatoes a few weeks ago for us. It was so simple and delicious that I had to take my small potato opportunity to try it myself.

I took the potatoes and tossed them in a bowl then coated them lightly with oil. Then I sprinkled them with pepper and sea salt. Any potatoes that were a little larger than bite size were cut in half. Finally I sauteed them until tender in an iron skillet.

Sometimes simple is the best way to do things!

Planting Potatoes

Potatoes are one easy vegetable that everyone should try.  There are a quite a few kind of potatoes that are delicious on the dinner plant that have developed over the years.  In our garden this year we're growing Yukon Gold, red potatoes, and Adirondack Blue potatoes.  The blue potatoes are new to our garden this year.  Yukon Gold is one of our favorites and has a nice buttery flavor good for baking or general cooking needs.  The red potatoes are great for potato salads or roasting.  I'm not sure yet what the blue potatoes are going to be good for yet, but any potato is a good potato!

There are a few ways to grow potatoes.  They do well in large pots, potato bags, raised beds, and in the ground.  The method you choose all depends on how you want your garden to grow.

Here's how I usually plant our potatoes:

• First I dig holes for each seed potato about 6-8 inches deep.  If the ground is well drained this works well, if not dig a more shallow hole and mound up (more on mounding in a minute).

• Then I added a little bone meal to each hole.  I didn't measure exactly but was probably less than an ounce per hole.  Bone meal has high levels of phosphorus which aids in root growth and general plant health.
  
• Then my daughter dropped one potato into each hole.

  Planting Tip
  Cut the potatoes into two or more pieces each with an eye to make more potato plants.

    
  
• I filled up the holes and mounded them up.  
• Now I'm waiting until the potato sprouts through the soil.  Once the plant emerges form the mound I'll begin mulch all around it with grass clippings.  I use grass clippings since they are readily available but you can use straw too.  As the plant grows higher continue to mulch around it.  Potatoes will form underneath the mulch and soil.  Adding the mulch will hold water in the soil, keep it cooler, and make the soil easier to dig when the potatoes are ready to harvest.
• Potatoes can be harvested after the plant has died back.  You can get some new potatoes (the small tasty ones) if you harvest from the outside of the potato mound around flowering time.

Potatoes can also be grown in pots or in potato bags.  The advantage to these methods is you simply dump the pot over when the potato plant is ready for harvest!

Our favorite use for potatoes is probably the skillet roasted potatoes with herbs.  We saute some onions and garlic in olive oil with the cubed potatoes and add chopped sage, rosemary, and time.  Delicious!

Have you planted your potatoes yet?