Diddly dee potatoes

Do not be alarmed. Chillies are still growing, fish are still alive, spicy food is still being eaten, but a hectic few weeks, coupled with the winter months not being conducive to a blog written about things that grow in the heat of summer, have made this blogger a tad MIA.

With spring fast approaching however, things are ramping up, chillies are growing quickly and I have been back in my neglected kitchen this weekend.

One of the best things we grew last year was potatoes, so when Elliot had some time off work recently, gardening centres were inevitably visited and seed potatoes were bought and left to eye up in the cupboard.

Varieties are Jersey Bennies and Maris Anchors

They were ready to be put into tubs today so all of the eyes except the biggest one were cut off and five potatoes were planted in each of the three 40 litre tubs (remember to put holes in the bottom BEFORE putting the kilos and kilos of potting mix in...)

The potatoes were placed on top of some compost and covered with potting mix.

Yep, they are that easy and you only need to tend to them with they sprout leaves out the top. At that point they get heaped over with more potting mix and repeated until the soil gets to the top.

The maturity time is about three months so we will have some lovely new potatoes just before summer.

I think this is the perfect thing to do with kiddies if you want to get them into gardening or just outdoors - you can do it in tubs so they don't take up much room, they are super easy to do and they are so rewarding after a few months as you can get your hands in the tubs and dig out the potato treasure.

One of my fondest childhood memories is doing this in Grandpa's garden in Picton and Nana would get fresh potatoes every night to cook up over the Christmas period - a bit of butter (which we were NEVER allowed at home) and a bit of salt - heavenly.

The rest of our garden is looking green and fantastic. Our carrots have been pulled - they are awesome and funky and tasty and about as big as they are going to get growing fairly crowdedly in tubs.

Plus the tops are yummy in salads.

We continue to plant and eat and plant and eat our cos lettuces and herbs and have re-planted some spring onions.

The shallots are growing very well and have been in there for a few months now so they shouldn't be too far away now - bring on the Thai chilli pastes.

The chilli season is definitely upon us with Elliot looking after the seeds and plants well (some may say obsessively). Seeds continue to germinate in the propagator and then get transferred to the light box and potted up when big enough. Some have even had a little outside time.

Updates and photos to come, as well as some recipes (fingers crossed the bread rises this time).