your ps and os

YOUR PS AND OS
this is about gardening
knowing when to plant and what to plant

here in central texas the two things to plant now are
ps
potatoes
and
os
onions

they both need to be planted now here to get them going
good so they can be ready to harvest
before the suffocating heat in texas hits us in the summer

i planted the potatoes and the onions in their own beds
that are 4 ft x 14 ft
the width is 4 ft so i can easily reach across to the middle of the
bed from each side

these two beds are hugelkultur like beds i made last year
click on the link and read my blog on this and see the link
on a newspaper article on using this method

basically each bed is about 2-3 feet deep with layers of cardboard
newspapers logs limbs leaves compost dirt more layers of leaves
compost dirt newspapers until the bed is complete
then its topped off with 3-4 inches of my country n compost
sweet smelling stuff

i put cottonseed meal and lady bug brand 8-2-4 fertilizer on these
beds several weeks ago and covered them with a layer of oak leaves
i let this all cure during this time
then

two weeks ago
i got about 300 plants of 1015 onions a sweet onion that does
well for us each year

we had the best onions ever last year
i figured out over time that 300 is about the right number to plant
we pick every other one as we need green onions












at harvest we store them in those onion chimes ive written about
before

i get the onion plants the size of a pencil that come in bunches of
about 25+

i plant them one hook em horn distance apart the first knuckle depth
yep i have one dirty finger at the end of the day that takes a long time
to get back to normal
about 4-6 inches is the width apart i plant them

i water them in with liquid seaweed
sprinkle them with a light covering of pine straw
and
when its cold i keep them covered with row cover that white sheet
stuff that acts like a blanket to keep it warm but allows the blanket
to breath and allows water to penetrate

on warm days i take the cover off

they are harvested usually in june based on the weather
the plants start falling over so they tell you when its time

pictures will be posted of the harvest

for the ps
potatoes
i use the same beds
prepped the same way

i get seed potatoes from the nursery
i get red lasoda since we like red potatoes and they do well here

i try to find and pick out the small taters so i dont ever cut them
dry them and put sulfur on them
that just seems like too much work
i just take the tater and drop it in the hole

i dig a trench thats 8 inches long down the length of the bed
then dig a second one so that they are spaced 2 feet apart

i drop the uncut taters in the hole 1 ft apart

i then cover them slightly with soil
in between the taters i sprinkle some of the organic fertilizer
the bed is then covered with a thick row cover until the weather is warmer

as the plant grows out of the dirt i add more dirt until the plant gets eventually
up to the level of garden surface
so i have 8 inches of depth for the tater to grow new ones

usually in june when the plant starts to die back some i harvest the
taters
however ive usually been digging out new potatoes for a few weeks before
i do my final harvest
i cant keep my hands out of the soil

i plant about 28 taters and i get usually 2-3  5 gallon buckets of potatoes

so its time
you can even plant the potatoes in buckets or barrels or pots

they the ps and os need to be planted now though

so
mind your ps and os

the organicgreen gardener