Blog | Rose Red & Lavender

Its almost St. Patrick’s day and time to plant potatoes.

My mother always told me that you plant potatoes on st. patricks day. She said thats because the irish love to eat potatoes. She lived in zone 6 in the Appalachian Mountains and by words of wisdom, that is too early for them, but thats what they did and it seemed to work, she ate lots of potatoes growing up.

We live in zone 7 so St. Patrick’s day is just right.

I have a bag of potatoes on my counter and they all have sprouts, maybe they know something I don’t.

Potatoes, are one of my favorite things to grow.

I get small potatoes at the farmer’s market and soak them in water for a little then put them in a warm place in a paper bag to sprout.

After they sprout, I cut them into quarters or plant them whole (if they are tiny) into the place I want to grow them, about 12″ apart, 3-4 inches deep.

Not all soil is equal in Brooklyn and I did read in a NYT article that potatoes grown in soil that may have lead are ok to eat as long as you wash them. That being said though, it is much, much easier to plant potatoes in a container and just empty the contents of the container at the end of the growing season (after the plants turn yellow) and pick out your potatoes. I almost always miss and damage some when I dig them out.

Sometimes, I get antsy and shove my hand under the plant and steal a few during the growing season. The plants don’t seem to mind and I get really tasty new potatoes that are amazing.

Once in awhile I have had problems with Potato Bugs, I have found that planting potatoes with marigolds has kept them away.

Five gallon buckets make great containers for potatoes as do trash cans or a large bag of soil, just cut some slits in the bag and plant your potaoes, isn’t that easy?

Another method is to plant your potatoes in a tire and as the plant grows, keep stacking tires on top of the plants and add more soil, compost, old leaves, hay, shredded newspaper, well you get the idea. At the end of the season, take away the tires and pick out your potatoes.

Potatoes like either a high or low PH soil. Low PH will make a more waxy texture potato and High PH will make a more dry-textured potato. Think pine needles, citrus rinds, eggshells and sulfur, for low ph, think vegetable fats (avocado peels) and lime (the powdered type) for a high ph.

They really are super easy and taste oh so much better than the ones you get at C-Town. I saw a few volunteer plants growing out of my compost bin last year, I can’t wait to see what grew when I turn the compost this week.

Thats, my 2 cents, try them, they are fun to grow.

Kimberly Sevilla

Rose Red & Lavender
Flowers Plants, and Beautiful Things

653 Metropolitan Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11211

www.roseredandlavender.com

Tire Planter Potatoes

It is almost Thanksgiving and this time of year I start thinking about spring.

We have been fortunate not to have any frost yet, some of us may even have fresh basil to put on the table this year, amazing.

Fall is the perfect time to plant spring crops like arugula, garlic, leeks and potatoes. It is also an excellent time to plant spring bulbs. What a good way to take advantage of a warm, sunny afternoon.

I am sure that you have noticed that your tomatoes are not really doing much. Don’t worry. Nows the time to rip them out of the ground, cut them up, and put them in the compost pile. Its also a good time to take the annual flowering plants and old chrysanthemums out of the containers that they are in.

Dump the old potting soil from the containers into your compost pile and clean out the pots with a stiff pot brush and a mild soap like Dr.Bronners, rinse well. Garden trug tubs really come in handy for this. (Yes we sell these at the shop) When you refill the pots, use a high-quality soil blend. You can make your own by using 1/3 peat moss, 1/3 compost, 1/3 course vermiculite and a handful of sand; or buy a pre-mixed organic potting soil, don’t use garden soil, its way too heavy and your bulbs will rot. Mix in with some bone meal and a couple of handfuls of compost. If you want to be thrifty, take your old potting soil, remove any plant material and mix it with 1/4 compost, and 1/4 peatmoss, this will help to refresh it.

Pot Brush

Tub Trugs

You can put a lot of bulbs in a container, the rule of thumb is to plant them 3x deeper than the height. The easiest way is to put the soil in first, put in your largest bulbs, add some soil, and put the smaller bulbs in at the right height. Make sure that you put some broken pieces of pottery in the bottom of your container for drainage. Use a selection that will flower at different times so you have an abundance of spring flowers.

Bulb spacing and Depth, see how yummy they look?

A note about bulbs. Not all bulbs are the same and it is worth it to buy a good quality bulb from a reputable location. Carefully examine each one and if you notice mold or that they are wrinkled, toss them, don’t plant them. A good rule of thumb is to only plant a bulb that looks yummy enough to eat. Often box stores will get bulbs in way too early and they get hot and develop mold. The ginormous bag of bulbs may not be such a bargain when you see that most are unusable.

I like to tuck some pansies in on top of the bulbs because they will last well past the last frost date. This year there was a shortage of pansies so they are a little hard to find.

Pansies and wild hyacinth

Something else that is fun to do is to sprinkle some mescaline seed or mustard seed on top and cover it with a layer of compost. I always forget about it and then suddenly, I have tasty leaves to nibble on while I am admiring my flowers.

You can use a variety of containers and found items to plant bulbs, just make sure that they are big enough to insulate the bulb with enough soil to keep them from freezing, a few inches should be fine. You can also try covering your containers with some hay or a tarp when it is super cold outside and remove them in March.

Wooden Box with Hula girl and muscari

Chafing Dish with Wind Flowers

There are many, many things that you can plant now and will be ready in the spring for harvest, its actually much, much easier to plant in the fall because once you pull out the old plants like tomatoes and peppers, all you need to do is rake the soil, add a layer of compost and mix in. Place your seed (not sprinkle), in depressions made with your thumb and put 1-2 seeds in each space (ignore most of the directions on the packet). Spacing should be about half as wide as a mature plant. Then and sprinkle (ok now you can sprinkle) some compost on top of the seed. You may think, holy cow, I have a lot of seed left, save it in a zip lock baggy in a cool place, trade it with your friends, or plant it somewhere else. Mark where you planted your seeds carefully, you will forget what and where you planted everything. It also helps to plant in neat rows or patterns, so that you don’t have to combat overcrowding and thinning your plants and you can easily tell what is a weed vs a seed.

You can also tuck in some early spring bulbs like crocus underneath your seed so you have something pretty to look at while you are waiting for your lettuce and the flowers also serve as a marker telling you where your other seeds are planted.

Here is a list of things to plant now from seed:

Lettuce
Arugula
Carrots
Beets
Parsnips (MUST BE PLANTED NOW)
Mustard
Lettuce
Broccoli
Spinach
Leaf Lettuce
Chives (from seed)
Onions (from seed)

Vegetables like onions, garlic, and leeks take a little longer. I like to plant them with roses and other perennials. They help to deter aphids and the foliage looks pretty around the garden. You can also plant them in between your lettuce and carrot rows or even create a checkerboard pattern. Remember that lettuce when growing takes up an area the size of your fists put together and onions, garlic, shallots, and leeks take up an area the size of your fist or smaller. You can really get creative with planting and make a lot of interesting patterns and combinations.

Checkerboard Lettuce

Garlic especially tastes better when planted in the fall. These you can plant the same as bulbs, 3x deep with bone meal and compost added to the soil. Make sure that your soil has been loosened and is light and fluffy so that you have good drainage. Leaf mold (partially composted leaves) is a great thing to add to the bed you are planting in and is particularly abundant this time of year, isn’t mother nature grand?

You can buy “seed” on line, or pickup some organic garlic at the farmers market, break apart the cloves and plant them about a hand’s width apart. Onions can be planted from “sets” which are little bulbs or seed and leeks should be planted from seed. You can also experiment with shallots or elephant garlic from the supermarket. I have picked up some that have started to sprout or taken old ones out of my kitchen that have started to sprout and have had pretty good results planting them. Try to stick with organic bulbs as they probably wouldn’t have been treated with anything that would retard growth.

Good luck planting!

There was an interesting article in the New York Times today about the tomato blight. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/opinion/09barber.html?em

This just highlights another reason to stay local. The tomatoes carrying the blight were raised en-masse on huge giant seedling farms in the south and shipped all over the North East to big box stores like Wallmart, Lowes and Home Depot.

Our tomato plants didn’t travel quite as far. Some were raised, from seed, right here at the shop and others made the trek all the way from, gasp, Long Island. Enrique, Lavender and I went out to select them personally and we met the grower, a nice lady who also grows herbs we sell. We had some tomato talk, my favorite, and took our plants back to Brooklyn.

Its nice to know that your tomato plants come from good homes. We don’t spray or use harsh chemicals and we usually stick to heirloom varieties, just because they taste better, its the right thing to do. Every little seed is treated with loving care. Because we are small we can take the risk that a tray of Mortgage Lifter, or Banana Legs might not sell. Big Box stores don’t have that luxury, they stick with a couple of varieties that they can sell to the masses and most of the time sell hybrids so you can’t save the seeds and grow your own.

I am a firm believer in biodiversity and try to keep as many heirlooms around as I can and I have a collection of interesting seeds that I have gathered from markets all over the world (chinese soup melon anyone?). Having a lot of different kinds of plants protects us from things like the tomato blight because there is always a chance that one of the varieties will be resistant to the disease. For example, European grapes cannot survive on the East Coast, why, because we have a fungus in our soil that will kill them, but, american grapes (like concord and Muscat) make terrible wine but do just fine here and are immune to the fungus, so we graft european grapes onto american rootstock and grow our own wine grapes and make wine that doesn’t taste like rotten jelly.

This fall we are going to have a harvest festival with a seed swap, so save your seeds and start taking pictures of your garden or fire escape or where ever you grow your stuff.

So far, we saw one case of blight which I initially thought was TMV, (another tomato disease), and the plant was destroyed. It was brought into us from outside when someone wanted to know what is wrong with their plant. Thus far I have seen no other signs from ours at the shop or ones we took home. My neighbor grows tomatoes from seed as well (Italian Genoa to be exact) so there was no danger of it coming from his. Of course we will have 30th generation Williamsburg Genoa this spring (he has been growing plants for that long with seeds he bought from Italy)

If anyone has seen anything, blight wise, I am curious to know. Take some pictures and send them to us. If you do, rip up your plants, don’t compost them and plant some pumpkins where the tomatoes used to be, they will grow just fine and avoid planting tomatoes, potatoes, eggplants or peppers there for a few years.

Ahhh, tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes, seeds, seeds, seeds.

Ok, do I sound like a plant nerd or what?