Potato harvest in yard -- north of the broccoli

Today was part deux of reclaiming the central part of the yard for the dogs!  So I pulled the rest of the potatoes -- these ones being from north of the broccoli.  The plants had long since flopped, but were very green, so I'm sure if I had left them in longer, the smaller ones would have kept growing, but that was not the priority this year.

A good harvest from that patch!  Many nice big ones!  These were Kennebecs.  They did at least as well as, maybe even better than, the AC Chaleurs.  So, I will definitely grow both of these varieties again in future.

Re-reading my note from the spring -- I had done the following experiment:  "The experiment is that in each type's northerm-most row, I added 1 Tbsp alfalfa (in addition to the above amendments)."  Well, ha!  I completely forgot about that, and have no idea how the northern-most rows did.  Oh well! :D

Results of carrot experiment = [EDIT: FLOP!!!!! README] success! (and no freezing needed) -- and part b of round 2 carrots started

EDITED ON MAY 20TH 2024:  Actually, this was a total flop -- although they germinated beautifully on the plate, it looks like none have "taken" in the garden.  I've repeated this several times in recent days and so far all a flop.  I won't do this again -- too bad, because they germinate sooooo quickly this way.  Next year it will be burlap method all the way!  Though  maybe I'll try an experiment with doing 48 hours of plate, then when they go into the garden, covering with burlap.... Hmm....  worth a try!

Here was my original note when I wrote this on May 15th:

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Wow!  The carrots I "sowed" on plates which went into baggies indoors 5 days ago germinated!  I'm sure they mostly germinated yesterday even (given the length of several of them already), but I hadn't checked.

The plate that had spent 24 hours in the freezer was about a day behind the plate that never went into the freezer.  I'm convinced that the freezer step serves no purpose and just wastes a day.

Today I put them all into the carrot bed, NOT by carefully transplanting one by one, but by sort of gently dispersing them around (after I re-loosed the soil).

Didn't have enough to cover the whole area, so started more in the same way today, but without the freezing of course.

Results of experiment with beets round 2: Indoor starts a clear winner

Wow, the beets I started inside 6 days ago have now mostly germinated and popped up a cm or two or three, whereas the beets I started outside 6 days ago and are under row cover are mostly nowhere to be seen.

Today I transplanted the indoor beets.  The ones that had multiple split apart easily, so I split them up.  We'll see how they take.