Big Purple Potatoes Please, With A Side of Horse Trough Salad

R ain is on the way again; the second or third storm in a row since last post. Couple of days of modest rain, followed by clear, cool, sometimes quite cold weather. March has seen a lot of frost -- and a couple of agriculturally significant frosts overnight too.

Last fall's potatoes are begging to be dug, but I am looking for a several day stretch of dry for that. We should, if the cycles continue, have fine 'tater diggin' weather by the end of the week. Will have to get Kathryn and Spencer to help with the digging; although they know where their food comes from, it never hurts to get your fingers in the ground and really know.

This afternoon's lunch is a giant purple potato. I didn't take a picture of it, I guess I was just hungry. We planted baby purple potatoes from Organic Express last year when they sprouted. This year's purple crop was a volunteer from a missed spud from last year! Although usually sold as small, "new" potatoes, this one was the size of a medium baker -- and went quite well for lunch baked, with just a little butter.

Although the purple color makes me expect a berry flavor, they are quite mild, and buttery even without butter, and mash pretty well, but keep shape when steamed.

Main crop are some red potatoes that went off last fall -- so we planted them rather then composting them. The vines are looking wilty (probably due to the frost) and I would like to get the red crop up and a new crop in the ground pretty quick.

Wouldn't mind finding some more of the Russian fingerlings we planted last year either. Yummy steamed; do well in soups and stews.

The rest of lunch consisted of a salad of corn salad, escarole, and a couple of leaves off of an immature head of romaine lettuce -- plucked from the backyard. These, like the potatoes, were planted last fall. Too late to mature for late fall, but such that they are ready to eat right now, when everything else is just going in the ground. (Yay!)

Hard lesson: Corn Salad needs to be eaten young. We have two large plants, but the large leaves are just too tough for salad enjoyment. Today I thined the box a little and pulled the whole plant. I need to see if I can harvest the outer leaves while they are still young, and keep the plants producing young leaves for awhile.

Squash into the ground after this weekend; seedlings have a pair of leaves after the seed leaves, and I have been reacclimating them outside during the day for the last day or so.

Bush peas planted last week in one of two big pots, and a tomato cage placed over it; learned the lesson last time that peas do better when planted heavily, and taking up some ground. Something we are loathe to do with our small vegie space. Maybe some of that lawn will go this summer after all.

The basil seedlings are *tiny* and I am jealous (a little) of our neighbor, Jill, who started her basil back in the late fall, and had sprouts by mid December. Ah well, perhaps we will still have later summer pesto under the moontree.