The Littlest Potato

A recipe for one.

Not long ago Meg & I looked at our Potato Cage  and we saw a little root poking out... and there it was...

The Littlest Potato

We stuck it back in its place, gave it some encouraging words and waited... staring at the dirt gets boring after a while so we went and did some other things. 

Slightly less little potato

This stubborn potato fought again toward the surface so we plucked it, cooked it and ate it. 

Here is our recipe for one potato. It probably isn't a good recipe for a dinner party. 

First be sure to clean the potato thoroughly. It worked very hard at growing and deserves a proper death. Certainly don't yell "Get in my belly !"  at it. It's very rude. 

Boil for 10 minutes ( or until done ) 

Drain and Slice your potato

Add 1/32 of a tablespoon of butter and 22% of a pinch of parsley.

6 grains of salt and a 1/4 grind of pepper. 

Enjoy!

Radish Greens Soup

We picked our first prize from the garden last week and after proudly munching on it raw in the garden ( with huge grins ) we dashed to the kitchen to make something from it.

What we picked was our radishes and what we made was Radish Greens Soup. A subtle yet hearty Italian inspired soup great for any day.

Radish Greens Soup

• 1 tablespoon of olive oil
• 1 cup chopped leeks
• 3 medium potatoes chopped
• 3 bunches of radish greens
• 5 cups of veggie or chicken stock
• 1/2 cup of cream
• 1 tablespoon of butter 
• 5 tablespoons of grated Parmesan

In a large saucepan saute the leeks and radish greens in the olive oil for a few minutes ( until soft ). Stir in the potatoes and toss over medium heat for five minutes. Add the stock and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer and let cook for 20 minutes.

Partially puree the soup in a blender and return to sauce pan. Stir in the cream, butter and parm. Garnish with julienne of raw radish and enjoy. 

The Great Potato Nipple

Today we made some modifications to The Great Potato Experiment. It seems we missed a few small details in our slightly less than careful planning of our potato cage.

It seems obvious to us now, but we weren't getting enough water to the lower layers of taters... so after great debate and discussion we made what I am calling The Potato Nipple & for the record Meghan refuses to refer to it that way.

The problem was that the cage was 3 feet high and we needed water to make it at least 2 feet down so that it would soak the rest of the way down. 4 dollars in PVC pipe & fittings later we had it solved.
Here is how we did it.

The plants toward the top are doing much better than the one toward the bottom. So we wet the soil and hammered a 1 inch schedule 40 piece of PVC down the middle of the cage to create a cavity.

Once the wet soil had settled ( about 3 hours ) we pulled the pipe out & drilled several ( alot ! ) of 3/16 holes in the lover half of the pipe, put a cap on one end and a 1 inch couple on the other ( for stability )

We reinserted the pipe into the cavity ( holes drilled & cap on ) and put an inverted bottle on top filled with water ( not whiskey ) to create a slow drip system.

Happy Taters 

All of that being said, what we should have done is put a perforated pipe down the center of the cage when we initially planted, designated a hose ( or similar re-purposed drip system ) for watering. Either way we are still looking at a harvest of over 100 potatoes on a footprint of less than 3 feet. We got to be creative on an already creative idea and we are going to yield a lot of food.

The Great Potato Experiment

Over the winter as we planned our garden we often modified our ideas through several versions until we agreed on the best way to build or layout whatever was on the docket that day. Nothing was more debated or went through more evolution than our potato plan.

We love potatoes and eat them all the time so obviously we wanted them in the garden but there are so any different growing mediums out there that we couldn't decide which one was for us.

Since our first priority in all projects is to re-purpose and reuse otherwise useless materials our initial inclination was to use old car tires stacked to contain our spuds.

We read about this idea in a great book The Urban Homestead. This book is full of great tips and ideas but ultimately we didn't choose this method because of fears of what might leech from the tires into our soil. This fear might not be completely founded but regardless was a concern for us. 

The second idea that we considered was to just put them in their own raised bed and grow them one plant at a time. An idea that obviously as worked just fine for a few million years but that doesn't mean it is good enough for us. 

The trouble with this age old method of tater production is that it just didn't seem efficient enough to us. We love the idea of the tires and stacking up plant on top of plant and really wanted that increased yield without the side effects. 

And that is when my wife had a brilliant idea. 

The TUBER CAGE!!

The plan was to take a six foot long section of hardware cloth or welded wire that was three feet tall, pull it into a circle three feet in diameter ( had to use pi to figure that one out , Happy Pi day! ) and fill it with layer after layer of potatoes and that is what we did. 

Check out the pics of the process and we will keep posted as to their progress. 

The spudded potatoes

The hope is the plants will grow out the side toward the sun

Cross your fingers. 

Click HERE for an update on our experiment.