VIDEO: How to Plant Tomato and Peppers in Seed Trays (Video)

Visit My Youtube Tomato and Vegetable Garden Video Channel: Videos About Everything Vegetable Gardening

Another Stab at Planting Potatoes: Step One Planting in Containers

Visit My Youtube Tomato and Vegetable Garden Video Channel: Videos About Everything Vegetable Gardening

Last year I made 2 mistakes. I started too late and I baked my potatoes by using green grass to cover potato growth. Basically the black trash bag and green grass began a compost process that raised the temperature of the cut grass to well over 100 degrees. In the middle of the heat was my potato stalks. Baked potatoes and not in a good way!

This year my old potatoes began sprouting in their pots. I took that as Nature's cue to plant potatoes now.

You basically want to plant potatoes 2-4 inches below the surface in 6-8 inches of soil when using containers. As the growth (stalks) reach 6 to 8 inches, you cover 1/2 the stalks with soil. You raise the soil up 3 to 4 inches every time the stalks get (as stated) 6 to 8 inches high.

The reason you do that is to increase the yield of your potato plant. Potatoes grow out from the stalk. The more you cover the stalk by 1/2 with soil... the more potatoes you will get.

Here is the planting step of potatoes in containers. Ill show the other steps as these grow. I hope.

Seed Potatoes from Walmart- The Rusted Garden: Gary Pilarchik

The seed potatoes have stalk growth on them. The reason they have so much is because they sat in my car trunk for 7 days. Who knew?  The container below has about 6-8 inches of fluffed soil in it. It is very loose.

3 Potatoes for this Container: Gary Pilarchik

Potatoes 2-4 Inches Deep - The Rusted Garden: Gary Pilarchik

Fill a 5 gallon container about 1/3 the way and plant a potato in the middle about 2-4 inches deep. Two potatoes would be fine... just space them out. The potatoes in the 5 gallon bucket probably will be smaller but this fine for baby potatoes. I am not a seasoned potato grower! One day maybe but the great thing about gardening is there is always something to learn. Advice is appreciated.

Potatoes in 5 Gallon Containers: Gary Pilarchik

VIDEO: How to Protect Your Vegetables from Frost: It Works Well!

Visted My Youtube Tomato and Vegetable Garden Video Channel: Videos About Everything Vegetable Gardening

What's Growing On at The Rusted Garden: Frost and Plans

Visted My Youtube Tomato and Vegetable Garden Video Channel: Videos About Everything Vegetable Gardening

 

Friday and Saturday night are iffy for frost in the Maryland area. Argh! I have plants to put out!

 

I just bought an external drive with 1.5 tetra-bytes of space. I remember when 1 giga-byte was something. At least gardening doesn't change too much over time. I will now be able to create HD videos and not have to worry about storage for years.

 

This weekend I hope to get a blog entry up on potatoes - that is the new vegetable I am learning to grow.

 

I will be making several videos on the following topics.

1. How to Protect Your Garden Vegetables From Frost
2. How to Make the Ultimate Garden Slug Beer Trap and Use Iron Phosphate
3. How to Transplant Your Cool Weather Crops (Kale and Cabbage)
4. How to Start Tomatoes Indoors and Transplant Them to Cups

 

And that is about enough...

 

Good Luck with Your Garden!

To Help Settle the Worry of Frosted Greens: They Are Cold and Frost Tolerant

Visted My Youtube Tomato and Vegetable Garden Video Channel: Videos About Everything Vegetable Gardening

Here are two blogs from November. These plants survived!


It is 6:32 am and I just gained an hour of sleep although technically we subtracted an hour and I slept the same length of time.

Well, I know what to do to protect against frost. Can't say I did it this time. My tomatoes and peppers are done but the greens and lettuces frosted and survived. Even the peas, oddly, made it through a light frost. 

Snow, Frost and Lettuce: Gary Pilarchik

Snow, Frost and more Lettuce: Gary Pilarchik

It want to stress that greens and lettuce are great cool weather crops and can survive the cold and frost. The above pictures was ice and snow. The pictures below are how the plants look after 2 night of frost and below freezing weather. No issues. So grow some Fall greens next year. According to the weather I will have at least 1 more week of no frost nights. More greens for my salads. My garden has made it into November. I harvested leeks over the weekend and made chicken soup with them. The leeks will tolerate frost too.

Red Romaine 2 Nights of Light Frost: Gary Pilarchik

Container Lettuces Resist Frost: Gary Pilarchik

The cold weather brings a sweetness to greens and lettuces you just don't get during Spring and the warm periods. Lettuces and greens can freeze. The cell structures are a bit different. The ice doesn't burst their cell structure. Now prolong freezing will kill the plant. But they can take even a pretty hard frost.

Here are some pictures of my greens as of about 10 minutes ago. I am in the suburbs so I typically get 3-5 degrees lower temps then what is on the news. I did miss this frost was coming. But I am going to bet 90% of my greens are okay. Ill see'll how they look this afternoon.

If they are wilting, their cells were ruptured by the frost bursting their cells. Greens and lettuce have some resistance to this.

Frosted Greens and Lettuce: Gary Pilarchik/The Rusted Garden

Frosted Red Romaine: Gary Pilarchik/The Rusted Garden

Frosted Arugla and Endive: Gary Pilarchik/The Rusted Garden

A Frosted and Frozen Container Garden: Gary Pilarchik/The Rusted Garden

Frosted Loose Leaf Red Lettuce: Gary Pilarchik/The Rusted Garden