Starting White Potatoes, Onions and Carrots #VegetableGardening #SpringPrep #Gardening #SeedStarting

Starting White Potatoes, Onions and Carrots #VegetableGardening #SpringPrep #Gardening #SeedStarting

Gif From Google Spring 2016. I do not own the rights to it. 

"Damn, Michael! Back at it again with another spring gardening post. Damn, man!" Yes, apparently that got very famous, very quickly for, you know... purposes unknown. But as always, thankfully my timing is impeccable as I am exploiting it a full month after it went viral and the kid wound up on Ellen. Not gonna hate! Cheers to you, Daniel and your friend who is amazed by your shoes. If only all of this stuff existed when I was in school. Sigh.

Speaking of education, here's another post on spring gardening preparation (#SpringPrep). OK, admittedly, this should probably be part of your fall or even winter gardening prep, but for those of us who either garden until the ground freezes or just don't have the time to keep up with the garden during the cold bleak winter, or forget where we put certain things like tubers, this is a great way to make sure that you get to grow some potatoes, everybody's favorite food... except diabetics who shouldn't load up on complex starchy sugary foods. I'm so serious. Like, cut down... now!

For everyone else, feel free to start your potatoes immediately. A little tater background: white potatoes are part of the nightshade family. They share genes with tomatoes, peppers and eggplants (I'm probably missing one there, but can't think of it right now). For those with limited space, a plant exists which combines tomatoes with potatoes, growing the maters on top and taters in the ground. While that would be good for people with small gardens or even doing container gardening, I have no experience with these plants and can't speak to their efficiency at producing an adequate potato crop. Why? Well, let me initiate you.

White potatoes, unlike sweet potatoes, do not vine. Instead, they grow up into what is called a tower plant (made that up, but it's apt). A tower plant benefits from a process called hilling (totally not made up, but sounds too simple). Hilling is when you build up the soil around the plant as it grows. For example, the plant grows to a height of six inches. Instead of continuing to let it grow and grow, you will hill up good, loose, workable soil around the stem and some (not all) of the leaves to about one inch from the top. This will cause the newly buried five inches of plant to send out more roots which ultimately can turn into potatoes as that is what they are, roots or tubers of a plant.

These Are Not The Potatoes We Are Looking For

I should note here that white potatoes, unlike sweet potatoes (pictured left) not only enjoy cooler weather, but require it to continue growth. They will continue growing until it gets far too hot for them around 80-85 degrees in the summer. They also take a long time to grow, the normal duration for full baking potatoes clocks in around 120 days. This, again, is why now is a good time to start them, or even earlier (zone 5 or 6 here people; Northeast Ohio; always check your zone for last frost dates). As I tried to allude to earlier, a common practice for many gardeners is to plant the potatoes in the late fall/winter garden, and have them go dormant during winter's coldness. This works well especially if you're not going to till the ground in the spring. The buried tubers can survive below zero temperatures in some cases and will still produce viable plants come spring. However, for the first time gardener who knew nothing of winter prep, or who doesn't have an already prepared garden bed, this method works best and you don't risk the potatoes rotting away in the ground. Not to mention, you don't waste a potato.

So, with all of that explained, here are the instructions. Note that this process takes quite a while to prepare in any case.

POTATO PLANT STARTING
You will need:
A potato with plant stemming already forming on it as explained in step one (see picture below).

Good, clean water. It can be from the tap, but let it sit out a day so some of the chemicals can die back.

I Am Not An Aquafina Spokesperson. I Already Drank The Water Inside And Reused The Bottle For Tap Water

Seed-starting potting mix (regular potting soil may do fine also, but make sure it is something loomy and light)

A knife or scissors, though you can do this all with your hand. I use my hand in the video but a knife in the pictures. Again, younglings just getting into gardening should do fine using their hands and fingers.

One small cup or container to grow in. (For more info on this, see a later post on how to prepare for step two after seed germination).

A fluorescent light that you can get very close to the plants. We're talking inches from them.

Bad Picture And the Plants Got In The Way, But You Also See The Closeness You Want To Achieve

Step one.

Those Strange Growths Are Called Eye Stems or Eyes

Gather a potato that you enjoy eating. While you can purchase them from the store, you must take care to either buy organic or check if there is any growth inhibitor sprayed on them. A good way to test this is to look into a bag and see if any of the spuds have what are called eyes, or the little white or green protrusions on the potato that are damaged or browned-out. This is the tuber trying to produce a plant. This is what we will be working with. Sometimes these can take a few weeks to grow to a good size on the potatoes, however, a good practice to make the process go faster is to put the potatoes into a clear bag in a place that will be partially exposed to the sun on a daily basis. Contrary to some opinion, this won't smother the root. Instead, it acts as a greenhouse bag similar to how I do the seeds. No water needed as the potato will draw moisture from the air.

This Is The Third Potato. I'd Recommend Letting The Eyes Grow Bigger

Step two.

Once the eyes are big enough (see the size above) you want to pull them off. Another good gauge for sizing the eyes is to look at the sides and see if there are rings of white nodules or bumps circling around the entire eye. These bumps turn into roots. Also, it is a good idea to make sure that the tips have shown some signs of greening or have closed leaves. In the video below, you can clearly see that the tips of the spuds look like a closed flower right before it blooms.

Step three.

Pick these eyes off, making sure not to squeeze it too hard. You can also cut it off, though I find that gently twisting it off works best. You don't want any of the potato left on the end, unlike other methods.

Step four.

Then, all you do is take that, make sure that the green or leafy-forming part is facing up, and you stick that little stem into a good seed-starting mix and water it. Put it under a fluorescent light as close as you can get it, and watch it grow. Try to give it at least eight hours a day. You want it to be no less than two inches tall when you transplant. That's right, they don't have to be very tall before you plant them. The great thing about winter plants is that you can start hardening them off almost immediately.

Very Small, But It Works. It'll Explode With Roots In A Matter Of Three Days If Healthy

What is hardening off, you ask? Getting a plant used to the rough outside weather. This is done by putting the plant outside for small increments of time each day. Start with two hours, then three the next day, increasing by one hour every two days until they show little to no stress (droopiness, dying leaves, etc.). You only need to do this for one week with potatoes as they should be hilled immediately when going into the ground. But that is another post.

A note, I know the title mentions carrots and onions, too. I really only tacked that on because I forgot to mention that onions are also a good winter crop, though they are one of the few winter crops that do well throughout the summer. With another long growing season at 120 days, they take a very long time to mature, and aren't often grown by home growers. But if you want to grow those, you should start them and carrots the same way as the bag method. Get a paper towel, wet it, throw the seeds on there, slip the towel into a plastic bag and put it in a warm place around 70 degrees and wait until they germinate. Carrots grow well with onions as the pungency of the onions keeps away certain insects and can deter certain animals, though not all. Stay tuned for the post-germination transfer of all the seeds into a growing medium coming in the next day or so.

What do you think? Will you try to grow your own potatoes? Do you have the space for it? Was there anything you didn't understand simply about the process of starting the potatoes? Again, getting them in the ground and further care will be covered in a future post, so stay tuned. Oh, and yes you can still eat the potato after you've gotten the eyes off, just avoid any green which should be very close to the surface if any has built up in the potato at all. Click the #SeedStarting link in the title to find the post on seed-starting as a whole. Any other questions about the starting process, let me know in the comments below (hint: click the no comments button if you see no comments).

Check out my new 5-star comedy novel, Yep, I'm Totally Stalking My Ex-Boyfriend. #AhStalking

If you’re looking for a scare, check the YA novel #AFuriousWind, the New Adult novel #DARKER, #BrandNewHome or  the bizarre horror novella #ThePowerOfTen. For those interested in something a little more dramatic, check out #TheWriter. The full first season is out NOW exclusively on Amazon. If you like fast action/crime check out #ADangerousLow. The sequel A New Low will be out in a few months. Join us on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to and follow my blog with that Google+ button to the right.

Until next time, "Spuds MacKenzie was just a cheap rip-off imitation of me." ~ Mr. Potato Head.

For Shame! For delicious shame!

P.S. Wow! So much wrong with that. First off, Mr. Potato Head, Spuds MacKenzie was a dog. Had nothing to do with potatoes. And second off, I sincerely question your validity as a spokesperson and role model for our children. You and your wife are shown eating--no, cannibalizing bag after bag of Lay's potato chips. What will you do next? Start eating french fries? Hmph! Indignant!

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The Birds Are Chirping, The Gnats Are... Gnatting (?) And The Republicans Are Cannibalizing Each Other. Yay, It's Planting Season! #Gardening #SeedStarting #Vegetables

The Birds Are Chirping, The Gnats Are... Gnatting (?) And The Republicans Are Cannibalizing Each Other. Yay, It's Planting Season! #Gardening #SeedStarting #Vegetables

Photo courtesy of Google 

It's Spring... almost. OK, it's not officially spring yet, however, much of the northern US has felt an unseasonably warm winter for the last two weeks and it doesn't appear to be going away. In any case, whether the weather was warm or not (do I get bonus points in this blogging thing for psuedo-alliteration there?), now is the perfect time to think ahead to the spring, summer, fall growing seasons. So get off your butts, put those #TrumpRally protest signs away, make sure you don't accidentally congratulate Nancy Reagan for something she really didn't do and grab your seeds. It's seed-starting season (seriously, the alliteration points. Is that a thing or...)!!

For those new to the blog, I'd like to first take this moment to welcome you. You're wondering why there's a post about gardening on an entertainment blog. Well, kickback because it's a short story that I'm gonna make excruciatingly long. It began back way long ago, about less than a year or so... And then I discovered funny stuff is, like, totally amazing... But who knows if they can actually grow tubers in space, you know what I mean? Plus, what would the chemical makeup of those potatoes be? Hell, some sweet potatoes come out purple just from having been grown in Asian countries. I'm just sayin'... So I say to the guy, "Well, Jimmy cracked corn but I don't care." Ha! Right. Get it? Because his name was James, which has a nickname of Jimmy? Technically, he only goes by James, but I still thought it was funny. Anyway, I said all of that to say this: this blog is about all forms of entertainment, including entertaining (wait for it) guests, or just yourself. And what do you do when you are entertaining guests but make them stuff to eat? And somebody's gotta grow your food, right? You're not one of those weird Air-i-ans, are you? Lately, everybody's been talking about the Air-i-ans that survive on air alone, or those Air-i-ans that think they're the master race and I guess they have a grand wizard or somethin'--I don't know. Magic has always been confusing to me. But even if you were one of those people, you gotta eat at some point. Why not try your hand at growing your own food, especially for health reasons.

So, where do we start? Well, this is for newbies to the home gardening culture. Debate still rages on whether you should start all your plants from seed or buy them from your local big box store. To opine, I say do what's comfortable for you when easing into this thing. My 1st year I didn't buy anything, planted some seeds out in the ground and grew one small tomato plant that produced two tomatoes. One never ripened and ants ate the other one--picture not included. Year two I ran out and bought myself a chocolate cherry tomato plant, perfected my ability to grow from seed and have been saving seeds from the cherry tomato ever since. Scroll way down or check the gardening tag and you'll see I've added a lot of new produce to the garden since, all grown from seeds or tubers. This will be a tutorial on how to grow from seed, so if you aren't doing that and don't care, that's fine. Still read it. Why? I don't know. Do you have anything else to do... or read? I should point out at this time that I am an author. Check my books out on amazon, links below. If you want to learn how to do seeds, then this is the place for you.

SEED STARTING

OK, before we begin to throw seeds around and start stuff all willynilly, we need to figure out what we want to grow and what is best started in our garden. Below is a picture of my garden pre-winter cleanup.

As you can see I have the big compost pile sitting near the center there. Then the rest of it just looks like a big muddy, leafy mess. Even the side opposite the patio path looks heinous. Good! It just came out of a long winter with temperatures that varied wildly from 70 (in Northern Ohio) to 12. By the time I'm done with the cleanup, it'll look suitable for growing and a little showing off. What's important to note is that the design and the space allocated to the veggies is all pre-planned before planting anything. The long stretch of garden separated by the path is where my winter or cold-hardy plants tend to go as they are out of the way. Just across from them at the part that looks like an arrow is also where more of my cold-hardy plants go. What are the cold-hardy plants I'm growing, you ask? Or, Michael, more importantly, "what plants that I want to plant are cold-hardy?" Simple. 

They are:

Nearly all lettuces: Iceberg, Romaines, any other loose-leafs.

Cruciferous plants: Broccoli, Brussel sprouts, Cauliflower, Cabbage, Collard Greens (or greens of any type), Kale

Potatoes (Warning: White Potatoes only, not Sweet Potatoes. Wow! Reading that out loud sounded so racist. Not all white potatoes are white. Uh... yeah.)

Carrots

Other Tubers: Beets, Turnips

Swiss Chard

And only certain types of green peas.

For everything, you want to check your seed packet for possible planting times, however, the plants listed above are considered cold-hardy (some extremely so, like beets and Brussel Sprouts) because they can survive temperatures as low as 29 degrees with minimal to no damage. That doesn't mean they're invincible as you may still have to take a certain care with them if a late deep frost below 20 comes and knocks things out, but you should be safe with these.

Now, at this time some of you are saying, "But I don't see what I want to grow on that list. What about me?" Well, just hold on to your britches because they might not be on that list but that doesn't excuse them from being started from seeds this early in the season. I'm just listing those because you can risk throwing them out into the cold, workable ground right now and they'll grow. However, if you want a surefire way for any of your seeds to grow just hang on.

That last paragraph is in reference to the most commonly grown vegetables that people love to eat and almost everyone grows: Tomatoes and peppers... and some sweet potatoes too. Is it OK to start tomatoes and peppers this early? Well, it depends and yes, respectively. I have started both all my tomatoes and pepper plants already. In fact, I still have four pepper plants as holdovers from last season. However, tomatoes can be tricky in that, unlike peppers, they will need staking at some point and they classify both as determinate and indeterminate. I'm sure you, my smart readers, know what those mean but for younger or more inexperienced readers, indeterminate means they may produce all season long until a killing frost in fall/winter. Determinate means they will produce for or at a specific time in the season or their growth cycle and then that's it. A bunch of tomatoes, then nothin'! For the latter, wait later toward the summer (early to mid-May) to start as you won't have them long anyway. Indeterminates can be started right now but both them and the peppers must be kept inside. The sweet potatoes I will do a completely different post on, but suffice it to say that you can start them now, too.

Now, as for the seeds themselves, today I am starting these packets of seeds. Unseen, I am also starting my lettuces because I don't want it to get too hot too quick. Lettuce not only does great in the cold, it must have a certain amount of coolness or it will begin to bolt or put on seed, which makes the leaves taste bitter. This often happens during the dog days of summer when temperatures rise above 78 degrees. So if you're in a warmer climate than Ohio, make a note to start your seeds even earlier next year.

I Get Seeds From All Over: Burpee, NK, Seeds of Change, RareSeeds.com, SeedSavers

For this, you will need.

One bottle of clean water. It can be from the faucet, however, it is best to let it sit for a day to allow some of the chemicals to die back. #Water4Flint

A roll of paper towels. I usually get the half sheets rather than the big square ones (mine are rectangles). You can also use napkins but don't completely unfold the napkin. You want the seeds to be able to be covered by a semi-thick layer of paper.

And finally, one plastic Ziploc bag or many depending on how much you plan to plant and what you have available to you. As an incidental or added need, you may want to have a permanent marker for marking your seed bags and you may want to have a ton of bags, one for each seed pouch. I am quite lazy and I just stuff as many seeds into one bag as I can and am then surprised at what I get. No, I don't label either, though I tend to have a good memory on what I placed where in the bag. You'll see.

Step one.

Remove a few seeds from one of your packets. I know, small (we're talkin' Trump-hands small). To me the cold-hardy plants tend to have smaller seeds than the warmer plants, with the exception of spinach and collard greens.

Step two.

Scatter them across the center of the dry towel. This is why I like the half-sheet rectangles because it is easier to get them centered and not waste the rest of the towel.

Step three.

Pour a tiny bit of water on the paper towel. Important: Wetting the paper towel before spreading the seeds may be easier for you, just make sure it is wrung out and not sopping wet. You want it to feel like you laid it on top of a tiny wet spot on your counter and let the water spread across the towel fibers rather than tried to wipe the wetness away. Damp or moist (mmm, moist. I love that word).

Step four.

You want to fold the paper towel like you are folding a letter, then fold it again at the ends to make sure the seeds don't roll out. Place it into the bag as far as you can. Do not seal the bag at any time! The seeds need the air to breathe. Again, if you have smaller sandwich bags you can do one type of seed per bag. If you have the bigger bags, you can fit in multiple folded paper towels and put a permanent marker mark on the plastic directly over the paper towel. For example, Broc written overtop the corner of the plastic would remind you of what's there. Remember to carry the bag flat on your palms so that the towels don't bunch together at the bottom or anything.

This is mid-fold. You want one small rectangle.

This is two already finished and neatly bagged

Step five.

This is where many people will differ from me. My house has a gas fireplace. I generally place the bag on the floor in front of the fireplace--right under it when it's not on, no less than a foot and a half away when it is on. But that is just me. The seeds need to be kept warm. While most people's homes are kept at or above 70 which should be enough ambient temperature for germination, some houses have deathly cold spots. So place the bag in a place that you know will stay between a constant 70-80. For cold-hardy plants it is actually OK to put certain seeds in the refrigerator instead as this will help them germinate quicker (I've done this for kale and collard greens). Others like tomatoes and peppers require the heat. Warning! Do NOT put them in a windowsill. Only seeds specifically stated to need sunlight should be put in a windowsill (Stevia, coleus plants).

And that's it. Simple, right? Leave the seeds there for about a week untouched. By the time you come back, they will have sprouted from their coatings and we'll be ready for step two, planting them in starters.

What do you think? Will you be trying to start all of your own vegetables from seed? If not, why not? It's so easy. If so, what do you plan on planting and what's your favorite dish to make with it? Let me know in the comments below (hint: click the no comments button if you see no comments).

Check out my new 5-star comedy novel, Yep, I'm Totally Stalking My Ex-Boyfriend. #AhStalking

If you’re looking for a scare, check #AFuriousWind, #DARKER, #BrandNewHome or  #ThePowerOfTen. For those interested in something a little more dramatic, check out #TheWriter. The full first season is out NOW exclusively on Amazon. If you like fast action/crime check out #ADangerousLow. The sequel A New Low will be out in a few months. Join us on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to and follow my blog with that Google+ button to the right.

Until next time, "you reap that which you grow."

P.S. Wait, is that how that goes? Now I can't remember. But that could be an acceptable sign-off for my blog right? At least for the posts about gardening and stuff, right? Right? So what if it's cliche and derivative. I can't be creative all the time. Geez, Louise!

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