The drought broke with a week of cool and wet that has lingered, pulling our first true April weather into May. This week starts a warming trend. The garden has loved rain and relief from the heat and will be ready now, I think, to take advantage of the coming week's warmth.
Weather and obligations have kept me from doing much in the garden. Tizzy and I went down last night and I planted carrot seeds (Little Fingers and Scarlet Nantes,) while she planted out some herb sets (chamomile and parsley)
Since my last post I have also put out sets of Cauliflower (Violet Queen) and Leek (American Flag) I have been lax in recording planting dates in the house, so I can't say when my sets were started. In the past two weeks I started a French baby leek from seed and Swiss chard seeds in recycled containers, the leek probably two weeks ago and the chard last week.
I promised to talk of potatoes. Last summer I went to an event sponsored by NOFA-NY where organic vegetable variety trials were evaluated. There were taste tests involved, I sampled nearly 50 potatoes, 30 tomatoes and 20 different open pollinated melons. The potato I liked the best was Caribe, with bright purple skin and equally bright white flesh. To round out my order from Fedco this spring I ordered Keuka Gold, a selection from Cornell meant to rival Yukon Gold's appeal, but to be a better producer. YK is renowned among growers as having a terrible yield. Farmers there spoke well of Keuka, though several were vehement in their dislike of YK, saying its taste and texture were sub-par. They all bowed to Martha Stewart, though and the power of the market place, YK is the potato with the strongest brand recognition. They grow what sells. I also ordered some fingerlings (Rose Finn) This marks my beginnings as a potato farmer, which I promise to continue to discuss, because I have already made some errors and the tubers are not even in the ground yet. Later though, I have to go earn my daily bread.
