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Post by canadamike on Jul 25, 2008 19:55:47 GMT -5
I did the scensus of my taters today including Tom's material. If anything interests anybody...you know what to do... Clones from Tom Wagner: 177 Clones from Russia: 5 all smaller despite being planted 3 weeks prior to Tom's... Potatoes from the Potato Ressource Center of Canada ( except Chieftain): Rang means row in french. It is a copy: Rang 1) HAÏDA, ROSE GOLD, ALL RED Rang 2) AC TEMAGAMI, GOLD COIN, COLUMBIA RUSSET Rang 3) MYATT'S ASHLEY, AC RUBY GOLD, GARNET CHILI, Rang 3 fin) ANGELINA MAHONEY'S BLUE Rang 4) CHIEFTAIN, BANANA Rang 5) KENNEBEC Rang 6 ) HURON, ÉPICURE, PURPLE VIKING, LA VEINE ROSE Rang 6 fin ) LUMPERS Rang 7) BEAUTY OF HEBRON, THE CUP Rang 8 ) BLISS TRIUMPH, SIBERIAN Rang 9 ) CROTTE D'OURS, CHEROKEE Rang 10 ) WHITE RURAL NEW YORKER, UP TO DATE Rang 11 ) GERMAN BUTTERBALL, CAIN'S IRISH ROCK Rang 12 ) GERMAN BUTTERBALL, EARLY ROSE TOTAL, 29 CLONES, My friend had the good idea to clean around my Tom Wagner taters with a weed eater. It takes very good care of wood sticks identifying the genetic lines  I have 3 left... the others can't be relied on of course.. He is such a nice guy, and was so proud to have...helped,  I thanked him profusely...then quietly went my way trying to find somebody to kill ... |
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Post by plantsnobin on Jul 25, 2008 21:52:11 GMT -5
ah, weed eaters. Love them, hate them. I noticed that my husband had girdled a tree, was pretty upset with him. Couple of days later, I was weed eating, hit another tree before I could stop myself, let out an 'oh shit', he heard me from the garage and says, what, did I just hear you kill a tree? They do make quick work of things, but lately I find myself not really wanting to use the gas powered stuff if I can help it. Though we did just get a new lawn mower with grass bagger. We have two acres, and it was killing me to push mow to collect the clippings. Now, with a 42 in cut I can collect lots of grass for mulch pretty quickly. It's too late for me this year to get everything mulched though, weeds are already taller than I am in some spots.
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Post by canadamike on Jul 25, 2008 23:08:06 GMT -5
With the rain we get my dear, they are at the best size to take out and make great amounts of compost. It is a trick I have developped this year after I increased the size of the garden and saw the help decrease... wait, I got it all reversed.
It is the trick that developped me ;D not the other way around. No claim to genious here...
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Post by lieven on Jul 26, 2008 7:13:09 GMT -5
Impressive tater list! I only recognize a few names, I'm ashamed to say. Today I harvested the following - all their foliage suffered /died more or less from blight:
Scarlet Red
Catriona
Bleue d'Auvergne
Cherie
Ditta
Linzer Speise
Sarpo Axona & Sarpo Mira are still growing happily: no sign of blight whatsoever. Our Belgian weather has been ideal for diseases, weeds & slugs lately: lots of rain, and high temps at the same time.
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Post by canadamike on Jul 26, 2008 8:48:24 GMT -5
That would be hard for you to recognize most of the names Lieven, and it is the same for me when I read european names. Apart from those having crossed the ocean, our taters seem to be quite different. Mind you, they might be renamed and we wouldn't know. As for the heirlooms, genetic printing by the canadian potato research center has shown that CROTTE DE MOUTON, AUSTRIAN CRESCENT GIFLI, BANANA, JOGEVA YELLOW ( and another name I can't remember) are the same clone. There is also a STRAIGHT BANANA, a selection of the said potato. So it might be hard for anybody to remember all these names and know that X is Y and it is Z too, and Q and W and... As for horizontal resistance, I will cross the street to go to Tatermater and ask our friend Tom about it and his work. I feel pretty sure he has lots to offer, and teach us about it... You might have been there, but here is an interesting read on this topic: www.growseed.org/potato.html |
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Post by canadamike on Oct 7, 2008 19:22:07 GMT -5
It's potato harvest time now. In fact, since August, I have eaten my own. The Kennebecs were productive as usual ( cleared the row), the Epicures( ate only some) , early, a pure delight, and the usual Chieftain were my early fresh taters to eat, plus a couple of many cultivars, you all know how hard it is to resit the urge of steeling new potatoes from the rows...
A little report on those picked up, about half the garden in volume, but not in number of cultivars.
They were planted in new soil, a patch of sand added on top of clay 10 years or so ago, with tons of clover that was turned down this spring.
ANGELINA MAHONEY'S BLUE. A strikingly beautiful blue/violet potato, classic ''Idaho'' potato shape, to my surprise, almost as productive as CHIEFTAIN and KENNEBEC. Almost no bursting scars (due to flooding), as opposed to the 2 aforementioned ones These 3 were VERY productive, 3-4 pounds per hill, sometimes more. I still have some more to harvest, mind you...
SKERRY BLUE: Smallish harvest of smallish tubers. Definitely not productive here, maybe 1 pound AT THE MOST of golf to squash ball size tubers. Will definitely not come back, unless the taste warrants it.
IRISH COBBLER : Average harvest of 1-1.5 pounds per hill of blocky tubers.
HAIDA : beautiful fingerlings, small to medium in size, 2-3 pound per hill. I prefer their look to the one of Austrian Crescent and Rose Finn Apple/Pink Fir Apple.
MYATT'S ASHLEY : georgous duck egg shape 4 ouncers, productive 2-3 pounds per hills.
SIBERIAN : Loads and loads of beautiful golf ball size or slightly bigger white taters with pink eyes all over the hill. Would be a good one for the ''parisian'' round potato trade. We had a company producing them here but it went under when the small taters became a popular specialty item in the grocery stores all over, selling in between 1 and 2$ a pound. Easily 2-3 pound per hill here.
EARLY ROSE : Average harvest 1-1.5 pounds per plant of red taters
TEMAGAMI: red taters, about 2 pounds per hill
HURON : white tater, average production a bit over a pound, nothing to get too excited about.
LA VEINE ROSE ( translation: The pink vein) Beautiful, ''sexy'' half way between fingerling and Idaho shape, or a fat fingerling, white skin with a pinkish hue, a true lady, quite productive 2-3 pounds per hill. Like Angelina Mahoney, quite an eye pleaser, but in a more subtle way.
ROSE GOLD: Average harvest, 1-1.5 pound per hill of a red tater.
COLUMBIA RUSSET: Average yield, 1-1.5 pound per hill, of round to oblong russeted potatoes.
PURPLE VIKING: WOW and WOW: Excellent production of 2-3 pounds per hill of bicolor purple potatoes with pink patches, and delicious too, I could not resit eating some. ABSOLUTE EYE CATCHER.
I have not yet harvested and mesured EPICURE and WHITE RURAL NEW-YORKER, but from those plant I took to eat in August, if the rest of the hills are the same, I will have a big harvest. Épicure gave me the best mashed I ever had, and WRNY some HUGE taters, the kind that put an instant smile on a gardener's face.
So, up to now, those I would very gladly put in a market stand are:
ANGELINA MAHONEY'S BLUE and PURPLE VIKING. They'll go first, I am sure it would be hard to keep up with the demand.
LA VEINE ROSE
MYATT'S ASHLEY
CHIEFTAIN
SIBERIAN : For the small new potatoes lovers
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Post by plantsnobin on Oct 8, 2008 7:47:02 GMT -5
Thank you so much for all the info you provide, it really is appreciated. Seems like you actually get around to doing all the things that many of us only 'plan' to do. Maybe a book should be in your future....
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Post by canadamike on Oct 8, 2008 11:17:11 GMT -5
Thanks for the comment, but there is much to be done before a book  I think other people do as much but are not inclined to reflect on it and/or write about it. I see it differently, I have used other people knowledge and seeds extensively and feel a moral obligation to report. To me, it is the only way we can be like a big coop, aqs if we were working on the same big fields but different crop. I consider Alan's work with corn and berries, for example, as OURS, in my mind I include myself in that collective and as long as he reports, it is the same to me that if I had done it myself, only the elbow grease is not mine, all the knowledge and the experience acquired becoming mine once I can intellectualise it. After all, many public breeders had employees doing work for them, as long as their brains were deciding what to do and could acknowledge the results, the experience was theirs all the same. So consider Alan my personnal slave doing work for me, I'll send him a penny for salary, and consider me his own, (Alan I need my salary 0) and the same goes with everybody's work that is well reported. I think this forum is good in loose exchanges and would be much better and efficient if more was shared in the way of reports, so instead of complaining and simply suggesting, I do it. But I am not satisfied with the way it is done, I'll have to formalise it a bit more in a way that is usefull to others, drab reports of weather conditions and simple tons of numbers mean nothing, I'll have to find a PROPER balance between data and commentary, AND provide pictures. I tend to think pictures are the easiest way to share valuable info along with SOME usefull data and commentary and analysis. Some intelectualisation of the results, if I can say so in your language, is probably the most useful thing with images of the veggies/fruits. That way people can wrap their brains around my work and make sense of it. |
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Post by canadamike on Oct 8, 2008 15:55:58 GMT -5
I dug up some more taters today, and I took pictures, but as I came to upload, the camera was gone...I guess Vivianne needs it. Just one comment on yesterday's report, my IRISH COBBLER were more productive than what I perceived. They were the last dug up and it was dark, I only realized today the harvest was slightly over 2 pound per hill. But I left them in the field, the weather lady promising 42 degrees or so. I lost half of them to the frost pocket they were in.
So much for the weather channel lady's accuracy... but since she is one of the hottest babe on french tv, with amazing...euhh...eyes ;D I think I'' ll stay loyal to her...
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Post by bluelacedredhead on Oct 8, 2008 21:25:50 GMT -5
Michel,
Thanks for reminding me that there might be some taters in the patch?
I planted most of the seed potatoes you sent me (TY) as well as giving some to an organic farmer that I know from work.
I haven't seen him lately to ask what sort of success he has had with them. And I had forgotten all about mine in the confusion that surrounds my life these days...
Friday if it's not still pouring rain, I will go out with the fork and find some.
It would be wonderful to have some fresh Buttery potatoes for Thanksgiving.
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Post by bluelacedredhead on Oct 8, 2008 21:36:25 GMT -5
Oh Sure, post about a Hot French WeatherWoman...Well if I see Paintman taking a sudden interest in the French channels after reading this, then I'll know who gave him the idea, |
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Post by canadamike on Oct 8, 2008 21:57:35 GMT -5
Well...since we are on the chicks subject, if you ever wondered if he was a breast man or a leg man ( little St-Hubert chicken rôtisserie joke for canadians only), you'll have your answer, we only see them from the waist up and the view is generally better in the summer, its warm in these tv studios ;D ;D |
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Post by canadamike on Oct 9, 2008 0:09:13 GMT -5
Here are some pictures of today's harvest: BEAUTY OF HEBRON, this is a picture of 6 hills. I honestly think I was a bit conservative, to say the least, in my weight estimates yesterday, as the picture will prove. I noticed this year I had that tendency to under estimate melon weights, looks the same for taters. Chieftain and Kennebec were like that one .I will solve the problem by buying another electronic balance, mine died, and I'll keep it at the farm. No way there is only 2-3 pounds per hill, or even 3-4, my highest estimates yesterdays, as the picture proves. Sorry for lying to you unintentionaly. I always feel a bit uneasy when I say things like 40 pounds of tomatoes per plant and things like that, even if I do get those numbers in a lot of cultivars, so I guess I'll have to counter that bias with pictures and a balance  LA VEINE ROSE, a beauty. 4 hills here  IRISH COBBLER, I forgot to count the hills.  ÉPICURE, a FANTASTIC tasting potato, I am not saying it because the name suggest it, it gave me the best mashed in my life. I am quite particular with them, sometimes I will dry roast them in the oven, not covering them so the skin imparts more flavor, then mash them. This one has that improved ''roasted skin'' perfume in her. Simply to die for. 4 hills here  AC BRADOR. ALL taters with AC as a prefix were bred by Agriculture Canada. This one is a delicious yellow fleshed, but it is very irregular and full of water bursting scars, due to the constant rain. The early ones I dug as new taters were beautiful and perfectly shaped oblong potatoes. They are huge, but hardly of market quality under such water stress. But for a home gardener, nice 2 pounders, even irregularly shaped, are a pleasure to eat. This is 1 hill, the cigarette pack is 3x4.5 inches. These are HUGE  One hill of WHITE RURAL NEW-YORKER. Big and delicious.  One hill of RED WARBA: VERY HEAVY PRODUCING, but a weird irregularly shaped tater. Maybe it is the year, all that water, I don't know, They are mostly red skinned with white patches, a couple are almost white ( there is a white warba, I know where it comes from now  ). This row was going from sandy loam to clayish loam to pure clay. I prefered the shape of the ones growing either in the clay loam or the straight clay. And the yield was not affected. A couple of hills gave me a surprise. When I pulled out the stems, I was left with a squirrel's nest of small taters, huge amounts of them, and no soil in sight, it was really like if some squirrel had dug a hole and filled it with tens of small golf ball size very weirdly shaped tubers. I left those right there, I could not see a use for them. I am not THAT hungry. If they prove to grow as irregularly shaped next year, there is no need for the death penalty in this world. I have a solution for our governments: have the bastards peel RED WARBA potatoes for a couple of weeks then simply provide them with a ceiling hook and 6 feet of rope... This is not a beautiful one, in this kind of summer anyway, but boy is it productive, even in pure clay. This is a picture of 1 hill. The shape of the taters in this hill is kind of better than the rest.See for yourself about this productivity thing ;D  More coming soon... |
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Post by bluelacedredhead on Oct 9, 2008 8:02:26 GMT -5
Peter Jackson cigarettes? BadBadBad...Growing your own food and still Fuming?? I quit almost 6 years ago with the help of an internet pal. You can too. Think "I can quit for New Year's 2009"...I will have the support of my friend BLRH....
Love the looks of those White Rurals. Source for those??
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Post by canadamike on Oct 9, 2008 12:46:27 GMT -5
The source is the Canadian potato ressource center in N.B.. The source for you would be in Ontario, in Rockland to be precise . Ask your organic gardening friend if he needs some, I will be pleased to send him tubers for the usual price. Only the Chieftain and the Kennebec were bought at the store. That is why I feel a resposability to distribute them as much as I can. I have distributed samples to a lot of people I think could be clients of my friends CSA. They are getting some too. The Angelina Mahoney's Blue is making a killing |
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I thanked him profusely...then quietly went my way trying to find somebody to kill ...
). This row was going from sandy loam to clayish loam to pure clay. I prefered the shape of the ones growing either in the clay loam or the straight clay. And the yield was not affected. A couple of hills gave me a surprise. When I pulled out the stems, I was left with a squirrel's nest of small taters, huge amounts of them, and no soil in sight, it was really like if some squirrel had dug a hole and filled it with tens of small golf ball size very weirdly shaped tubers. I left those right there, I could not see a use for them. I am not THAT hungry.