Sunday, May 26, 2013

A World Underground

As I've said before, I'm suspicious of growing root vegetables because I just don't understand what goes on down there, where I can't see things!  I never know when to pick them, when it's been too long, etc.

Potatoes mystify me the most.  You throw in an old potato and that produces new potatoes.  But then when I pull them up, I'm never sure if the big one is the original old one or if it's a new one.  So I tend to just use the smaller ones that I know are new.

This year, I have yet another "crop" of potatoes coming up from the one potato I threw in a few years ago.  The plants are really taking up some prime real estate in the greenhouse, so I thought I'd break another rule of gardening and try to move the potato plants right now.

Lo and behold, this is what rained down when I pulled out the plant!

I roasted them last night and they were lovely!

I moved two of the plants outside to see what will happen and they aren't dead yet!  We had serious rain and cold right after I moved them, so that might actually have helped them get situated.

Another root vegetable that I'm never sure about is carrots.  I've been growing the free packets of carrots that come with my Kerrit's riding pants and they are always so strangely shaped.  I can't decide if it's my soil or the seeds themselves that have some defect.  I grew a few over the winter and I've been planting others as the spring has gone on.

I've learned that if you brush the soil away from the top, you can see how big the top is to get an idea of what the rest of the carrot might be doing.  I also thought that the amount of greenery at the top might give an idea of what is happening.  So, the other day, I was checking around my carrots and felt something enormous and I just had to pull it up.

Not kidding!  It was so big I couldn't wrap my  hand around it.  One of the "legs" had started to rot but the rest were fine.

Then I decided I better check them all.  Some had fairly good sized tops so I picked them, but then they were really small.

The horses loved the greens and I ate the carrots, so everyone was happy.

I'll figure out these carrots one of these days, just like I figured out the beets.  Sort of.

Linking up here:
http://www.lovebakesgoodcakes.com/
http://www.the-chicken-chick.com/2013/05/clever-chicks-blog-hop-36-plus.html

3 comments:

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    xoxo
    Rena

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  2. We've tried the free carrots, too, and ours always look like yours. They were so big and "woody" that I couldn't even eat them. This year, we tried buying better seeds, and we marked the calendar to harvest them when the packet said to. Hopefully, we'll have much better carrots this year.
    Those are good lookin' potatoes!

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  3. I started my first veggie garden this year. We lived in apartments before last summer so the best I could do was herbs. WELL...1 tomato bush has 3 big whoppers that are still waiting to turn red and the other 6 have only produced 1 tiny cherry tomato. I don't know what's happening. My zucchini seems to be only producing male blossoms. My basil is turning into a tree and I can't keep parsley and dill alive. I am intimidated by root veggies too. Maybe next year....

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