Random Garden Pics

Well, the two weeks off work due to a periappendiceal abscess and appendectomy have given me way more free time than I really know what to do with. I'm not supposed to "work in the yard" while recovering. The JP drain sticking out of my old c-section scar for the past week has sucked the fun out of most activities anyways (as well as 150 cc's per day of infected fluid out of my abdominal cavity). This morning said buh-bye to the 2' of tubing and attached squeezie bottle and look out world! (I have my 5-year old convinced my JP drain is a special "juice box" the doctor wants me to keep attached to my belt).

It is so nice to have a garden to come home to:

Pencil-sized purple passion asparagus spear

Potatoes have been hilled up-Green Mountain on the right, and Tom Wagner's selections in the two left rows

Yacon from an ebay seller in California


Garlic, Shallots and Potato Onions 8 months after planting

2" tall okra seedlings seem to be struggling a bit. They were planted out about 2 weeks ago, just as all the cloudy rainy weather started. I suspect they will take off as soon as we get some clear hot dry days.

Finally the first strawberry flower! Time to break out the bird netting.

Lettuce looking cool and crisp in the east bed, which is up against the house in afternoon shadow.

Pole beans of various makes and models prepare to send their first tendrils skyward

Wall O'Peas. To date, all pods have been eaten in situ.

Baker Creek's Topaz

These tomatoes are grown from a seed I saved from a Yellow Pear tomato which I crossed with Cherokee Purple pollen last summer. I know the cross took, because the shape is definitely not pear-like, and the one is already much larger than its Yellow Pear parent. I was actually hoping for a small purple pear yielding the rich Cherokee Purple taste; looks like I may get a beefsteak type instead--keeping fingers crossed for taste genes inherited from pollen parent.

Do not adjust your color settings-yes Virginia, there is a Blue Tomato.
These are currently smaller than golf balls. Very excited to see how this one progresses.

More later. Right now, I have to get back to "not working in the yard".

Pink and Purple Potatoes

Tom Wagner's Paint Jar and Skagit Beets as french fries:

Skagit Beets were on the small side, and the skin had some sort of scab, but pared and cooked up they were creamy inside, crunchy outside, perfect for frying. Paint Jar, on the other hand, although the large smooth picturesque tubers lent themselves well to slicing, when fried they were disappointingly dry and mealy.

Which led me to believe that Paint Jar would be more suited for baking:

Technicolor dinner a few nights later: Salmon, baked potato and green beans. Talk about a feast for the eyes.

and yes, it tastes just like a baked potato!

Some Really New Potatoes

OK I just couldn't wait, so I started scratching around the base of some of the potato stems and here's what I came up with:

Not pictured: Little Red Riding Hood. That one was the very last one to send up leaves, in fact for a while I thought they had all died. So its plants are still small and the tubers I did see were so tiny I just left them alone.

Remarkable color in the Skagit Beets, considering most "red-fleshed" potatoes are more on the "pink" side, and notice no white ring:

See the marked contrast between the Nordic Ocober, with nearly pure white flesh and the golden flesh of the Skagit Valley Gold. However, the Skagit is not quite as "orange" as I had hoped:

The aptly named "Paint Jar":

Black and Blue (Negro y Azul):

I did heat up some Skagit Valley and some Negro y Azul in the microwave for about 60 seconds, for a taste test. Skagit was fairly dry, and fully cooked, but just moist enough, with a strong and distinctive baked-potato aroma from even such a tiny marble-sized tuber. It was very tasty. It reportedly has some solanum phureja in its pedigree.

The Negro y Azul was more watery and had a decidedly grassy taste. Maybe it just wasnt fully cooked, or maybe it was exposed to the sun and was "green" (but with such dark pigment, there's really no way to know). Hope that the more mature tubers later this season have better results.

The rest of the samples will be lightly steamed tonight for dinner.

Potatoes in Bloom

The potato sampler from Tom Wagner is growing nicely. I'll try to get more information on each variety from Tom's forum. Apparently he will be in Europe giving seminars on plant breeding this fall.

This sterile polyploid will have golden almost orange flesh~

Skagit Valley Gold:

An improved Lumpers:
(yes, the quintessential Irish potato)


I think white flesh/purple skin?

Nordic October:



no name variety, just a number~
97A4:




Valdez Bay:



The next two are red-fleshed.
Skagit Beets:




Little Red Riding Hood:

The next two are blue-fleshed.
Highly pigmented foliage and blossoms on VERY tall plants~
Paint Jar:

Surprising white flowers with blackish pollen on the

Negro y Azul:

I haven't noticed berries on any of the plants. The flowers so far just fall off after blooming. If I get any berries I will certainly save them. Some of the varieties like Paint Jar and Skagit Valley Gold are almost finished blooming, but others like Valdez Bay and Little Red Riding Hood just opened their first blooms this week. So, I guess you're supposed to wait until about 2 weeks after the tops die down, and then you can dig them up. (or maybe that's onions?) Ok, I'll just wait.