All Eyes are Upon You (part 1)

With the rising temperatures comes the time to start thinking about what to plant in the garden this year.  Today, I made my annual trip to Bidwell's for some seed potatoes, lettuce and radish seeds, and red onion sets.

Red potatoes are one of our family favorites since we can do so many things with them.  There is nothing better then a freshly dug red potato, washed, dried with a paper towel, lightly coated in olive oil and salt, wrapped in foil, and cooked on a charcoal fire.  DROOL!!

 

The choice of mixed mesclun and buttercrunch lettuce seeds are so that our fresh garden salads have wonderful flavor!  Throw in some thinly sliced radish for added crunch.

75 red onions should be enough for our garden, but I'm personally hoping that our neighbor trades a few of his yellow onion sets for some of our reds.

In order to plant the potatoes in the garden you don't have to wait until the temperatures are at a warm temperature.  We have found that as soon as you can till the soil, the potatoes are ready to be planted.  Today I'll walk you through what it takes to get the potatoes ready for their trip to the garden.  The tools you will need are a sheet or foil pan for each type of potato you will be cutting, a sharp paring knife, and a cutting board. 

Yes, I realize that in the picture above, there's a large white plastic platter...improvise, you'll get the item back in a day or so and since the platter was just sitting on the shelf I figured hey, why not!  Next, you'll notice that the potatoes look pretty much like the ones you buy from the grocery store.

From left to right there are Yukon Gold (yellow colored flesh), Red Pontiac, and Kennebec (also know as russets).  Do you notice all of the eyes on the potatoes??  Here...how about a closer look...

All of those divots in the potatoes, some are easier to see than others, are called the eyes of the potatoes and play a crucial role when you're cutting them into pieces for planting.  To have the best results, each piece of potato needs to have a minimum of 2 to 3 eyes for each piece.  I'll be you're thinking that the larger potatoes will give you more pieces, well I found out tonight that this isn't always the case.  With some of the smaller potatoes, I was able to get a minimum of 3 pieces.  The same thing happened with most of the larger potatoes.  As I was cutting our potatoes into pieces tonight, I thought back to growing up in Indiana and watching my Dad cut pounds and pounds of potatoes into pieces.  He had several 5 gallon buckets lined up for the pieces.  I could sit for hours and watch him cut those potatoes.  It may sound silly, but it was like watching an painter working on a masterpiece!

Make sure to cut your potatoes and allow them to air dry overnight.  Tomorrow we will be planting the potatoes, and I'll post more pics and information on next steps.  Stay tuned!

Wishing a blessed evening to you.  May God bless you and yours abundantly!