How to grow Yukon Gold potatoes in pots

My favourite potato is the Yukon Gold variety that has a waxy yellow flesh with a great taste. It's from Canada, eh? Developed and released in 1980 by the guys and gals working at the Department of Agriculture, University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada, a potato throw from where my daughter grows heirloom tomatoes in her garden.

Potato haul in August

On May 1st I planted 3 seed potatoes (cut in half) with one sprout showing on each seed in a 5 gallon bucket (recycled from my neighbour's new evergreen trees)  filled with a mixture of Miracle-Gro potting mix, Triple-mix soil, farm manure and a dusting of my organic fertilizer mix. To start, I just covered the potatoes and as they continued to grow, I kept adding soil until they reached the top of the bucket. I must admit that I watered
them virtually every day due to our hot summer weather that reached +30°C - 88 °F almost every day! The plant was huge, growing 3' tall until one day in mid-August the plant leaves dropped and dried up.  Time to harvest! As I mentioned before, I grow potatoes in pots for a July-August harvest. I especially like Yukon Gold mashed potatoes with butter, salt and pepper. The golden yellow colour and buttery taste goes well with roast beef and green beans from the garden!

This photo shows a bounty of 20+ potatoes in the bottom of the black growing barrel. That's a ratio of 1.5:20 potatoes in one pot!  After adding a caption, flag, date and blogger URL it looks like a poster for Yukon Gold Potatoes! August, a great month to harvest, my friend.

Growing Beets

Carillon long shaped beets

If you like cooked or pickled beets then this variety is for you! I've been growing this long cigar shaped beauty for many summers and I have found it to be the best tasting cooked beet on the market. The variety shown is called Carillon that can grow up to 12" long but I harvest them around 6" in length. The shape is unique and not like your standard round Detroit style variety. Aside from it's shape, the taste is wonderful especially when covered with butter. Opps.... did I say butter?  You will also notice the absence of white rings while the interior is ruby red. 

When cooking, keep the root and leave about 1" of stem on the beet otherwise the natural juices will run out in the pot. Gently boil for about 30-45 minutes depending upon the size. Once cooked, run them under cold water and the skin will fall off without any effort. Now they are ready to be chopped or served full size (small ones) in your dinner plate. If you like pickled beets, chop them up in slices for easy pickling in the fall. The beet greens are also full of vitamins and can be steamed and eaten with kale. The beet greens have more iron content than Popeye's spinach including many other health benefits covered on the net. 

Carillon Beets growing with my tomatoes

Another great use of beets is to make a traditional Russian Borscht soup or search the net for alternative recipes. 

This year I planted seeds in my soil blocks and got them going before they reached the garden. It's best to keep the plants 1-2" apart in rows about a foot apart. This year I'm growing them at the foot of my tomato plants and they are doing well. The good news is, they are relatively free of bug and disease. If you want to store them, they will keep for several months at a very cool @ 32°F/0°C.  Stay healthy and grow beets my friend.

Cherokee Purple Heirloom Tomato

Cherokee Purple Heirloom

This is my first summer growing Heirloom tomato plants (non-hybrid) and this is an update on their progress. As the history pundits purport, this purple coloured tomato originated from the Cherokee Indians living in Tennessee over 100 years ago. The seeds were passed down by generations of families who loved the taste of this seed saving beauty. Thats right, you can save heirloom seeds year-to-year and get the same genetics from the previous plant.  

You cannot save seeds from hybrid tomatoes like Ultra Boy and expect to get the same plant genetics, therefore you need to purchase seeds from a grower like Stokes Seeds. 

In the early 1990's, tomato rock star Craig LeHoullier was given seeds belonging to the purple tomato plant. After growing the plant and being impressed with the quality, he named it "Cherokee Purple" and sent samples to the Southern Exposure Seed exchange and eventually became available to the general public.

It's appearance is purple with a splash of green on top, until fully ripe. The taste is sweeter and has a texture unlike your standard hybrid. The interior is plump and has fewer seeds that your average hybrid. However, some tomatoes did have a scab growth on the sides known as "cat facing" but it was easily removed before eating. In my situation, I have attributed the cat facing scab growth to cool growing conditions in June when we had one week of very cold temperatures. The cool day and night temps affected the pollination of the flower which causes scab growth. Once the spring temperatures warm up, the next set of flowers should be free of this physiological condition. See this link for greater detail.

Another observation when growing this plant is how slow it was to grow during the first 4 weeks under the grow lights. It was much smaller that the hybrids and when it hit the ground it was again slow to grow. However, it eventually caught up to the hybrids in height and the early tomatoes were hugh! This 4.5" purple beauty was too heavy for my 16 oz. kitchen scale so I can only estimate it to be 1-1/2 to 2 lbs. Go ahead and make great toasted tomato sandwiches, my friend.

Cat-facing and Blossom End Rot Tomatoes

Cat-facing

Both of these photographs are examples of Physiological conditions especially affecting large tomatoes and Brandywine is one of them.

The first photo is a condition called Cat-facing which could be caused by cool day and night temperatures around 15-18°C 60-65 °F which I believe is the cause. This tomato was one of the first to flower during a one week period of very cold weather in June. High nitrogen in the soil and over pruning could be another cause, but I have ruled them out in this case. 

With the cat face removed, the tomato was delicious! Do you see the cat face? Perhaps one of those long-haired flat faced Himalayan cats?  😄

Blossom end rot (BER)

The second photo was taken by Justin, a dedicated tomato grower, who experienced Blossom end rot (BER) on his first Brandywine tomatoes. This Physiological disorder is caused by lack of calcium within the plant. This can happen when the pH is outside the ideal range of (pH 6.2-6.5). The addition of lime will raise the pH and add calcium, however, if you believe your soil is within the pH range, then the cause may be lack of water when the plant is growing quickly. We are experiencing prolonged hot weather 29-34°C  84-93 °F therefore moisture variations or drought stress can reduce calcium uptake. One recommendation to prevent this disorder is to add calcium based agricultural gypsum and ground egg shells when planting, but nothing is guaranteed. Also, adding Epsom Salts at the planting and watering stages will help with the intake of nutrients to the plant. The good news is, BER is usually limited to the first clusters of flowers and dissipates with the following flower sets. Who would have thought, tomatoes and science together!  Garden on my friend.

How to grow tomatoes upside-down v2

Bumble Bee Sunrise Cherry Tomato

Earlier this spring I planted a Bumble Bee Sunrise Cherry tomato in a hanging pot that I got as a gift from a budding gardener.The upside down container kit composed of a pot, specialized 2 part bottom ring to feed the plant through and a top water reservoir that wick feeds the plant with water. In principle, you keep the pot full of water and it wick feeds the plant. 

This allows you to play golf or go fishing and not worry about watering every day! 😄

The plant was a little slow off the start but eventually started to grow - until 2 months when it started to wilt. I removed the top reservoir and discovered the plant to be very dry. The wick was clogged with a white substance and was no longer working. I think the substance was Epsom Salts that I occasionally use as a fertilizer. It appears, while being wick fed, it reverted back to a hard crystal. I've since removed the water reservoir and added my freshly made compost to the top.  

This summer, the temperature in Ottawa, ON, Canada has been very hot with temps averaging 29 C - 34 C so I've been watering this plant every day! An ideal temperature for growing tomatoes is between 21 C and 29 C.  If the plant gets too many hot days it will drop it's flowers or fruit similar to an apple tree in June. I've noticed that the plant produced virtually thousands of flowers but many were not converted to fruit. Flower drop can be very prevalent in hot weather or when the plant is stressed. In addition, hot nights above 21 C will also contribute to flower or fruit drop. Lack of water or a large fruit set will also cause flower drop. Who said gardening was easy!

Water fed wick

The same observation was made with my other mainstream tomato plants. The second and third generation flowers are not producing as much fruit as the first set. Or - are my expectations too high? Regardless, I expect a bumper crop of tomatoes and I have not seen any BER (Blossom end rot) so far.  Topsy-turvy my friend.