Potato Row, May 26

I am happy to report that Wonder Spouse’s Great Potato Experiment appears to be proceeding well. You may recall that WS is trying grow-bags for his potatoes this year to thwart the greedy chomping of voracious voles on innocent tubers. He began by filling the bags one third of the way full of compost and soil, then planted his potatoes — three kinds, one in each bag. The above photo is an attempt to get all three bags in one shot. It’s not easy. They have grown — a lot.

Here’s what two of the bags looked like on May 9. At that point, Wonder Spouse had folded up another third of the bag and filled in more compost and soil around the stems of the enthusiastic plants.

Two potato bags, May 9

Over this past long holiday weekend, he unfolded the final third of the bags, bringing them to their full height. Once again, he filled in compost and soil around the stems of the plants. The idea here is that new potatoes are produced from the newly covered stem nodes, thereby producing successive layers of tubers.

Here’s what two of the bags looked like a day or so after he filled the bags for the final time:

Potatoes, May 26

Already, the plants are taller than what you see in the photo. The burning question plaguing Wonder Spouse’s potato-fevered brain is, “Do I have growing tubers, and are they numerous?” “There’s the rub,” as the Bard once wrote.

The same methodology that we think is thwarting the voles is also preventing Wonder Spouse from checking on tuber production. The plants are jam-packed into those bags. To try to dig into them seeking tubers would be to risk damaging the plants.

Thus, Wonder Spouse, aka Mr. Potato Head, impatiently waits. Potato harvest traditionally occurs when the plants begin to fade and die, usually some time in June around here. New potatoes are said to be ready for harvest when the plants bloom. Ours bloomed a bit, but Wonder Spouse decided not to risk damaging his long-term prospects for a healthy potato yield.

And so we wait, watering occasionally. And when I foliar feed the veggies in a day or so, I’ll be sure to give the potatoes a dose too. Meanwhile, the suspense builds…

You may also recall that I had planned to compare the same varieties of two grafted tomato plants with two seed-grown plants of the same types. However, the grafted plants I received in the mail were past recovery on arrival, as I documented here. It turns out, that’s not the end of the story.

Via a terse e-mail from customer support, I was informed that my money for the plants would be refunded. I didn’t ask for this; they offered. On the other hand, the nice folks at the Oregon greenhouse operation that produces the grafted plants for the wholesale market wrote me several e-mails, including one in which they offered to send me new plants. I thanked them for their kind offer, but declined, pointing out that it was too late for a fair comparison, given the then-enormous size of my seed-grown tomatoes in my little greenhouse.

I was forced to wait much later than usual this year to plant out my tomatoes. Most years, they are in the ground and growing by late April. This year, it was about two weeks later. I was trying to avoid exposing the transplants to nighttime temperatures below 50 degrees Fahrenheit. I didn’t succeed. This has been one wacky weather spring. Last Saturday night — May 26 — the temperature in my garden dropped to 38 degrees! Fortunately, there was no frost, the sun came up quickly, and no plants appeared to be damaged. However, their growth has been slower than normal, I suspect, due to the chilly nighttime temperatures.

On May 9, I was feeling good about the summer vegetable garden. My beans were coming up with impressive enthusiasm, and the seed-grown tomato transplants appeared to be adjusting well to their new surroundings. Imagine my astonishment when that day’s mail included a box of two grafted tomato plants from the company that had promised me a refund. I was flabbergasted — and confused. And curious. What would the plants look like this time around?

May 9 grafted tomatoes still in their shipping box.

If you compare these to the pictures of the ones I received previously, the difference in vigor is apparent. I didn’t ask for these plants, and they were vastly smaller than their seed-grown equivalents already in the summer garden, but they were here. So I did what any obsessive gardener would do — I planted them the next day.

When I unpacked the box, I discovered an addition to the packing instructions. This was not in the first delivery I received:

I’m guessing I wasn’t the only customer who experienced difficulties.

Trust me, those first plants I received were not salvageable even by gardeners with two green thumbs.

I took the little plants to my greenhouse and arranged them for a photographic comparison:

Grafted vs. Seed-grown Brandywines and Goliaths

If you click on the above photo to enlarge it, you should be able to see that the newly arrived grafted plants are in front. Behind them are the dead stubs of the first grafted plants that were sent to me. Behind them are two seed-grown plants of the same varieties that I didn’t have room for in the garden. I deemed these plants to be lesser candidates for transplantation, so they lingered in the greenhouse as back-ups, if needed. Brandywines are on the left, Goliaths on the right.

Here’s what the plants looked like in the garden this past weekend, about two weeks since they were first transplanted.

Grafted Brandywine, May 26

Seed-grown Brandywine, May 26

Grafted Goliath, May 26

Seed-grown Goliath, May 26

It may be a little difficult to tell from these photos, but I would estimate that the grafted plants were about a third of the size of the seed-grown specimens. All my seed-grown tomato transplants are now sporting green fruits, as you can see here:

First fruit on Sweet Treats cherry tomato

To confuse me further, a few days ago, the company from which I ordered the grafted plants credited my credit card for the plants. I guess they were trying to be nice, which I appreciate, but I would have much preferred that a human being had contacted me with an apology instead.

Bottom line: I will attempt to proceed with the grafted vs. seed-grown tomato experiment as best I can. Measuring growth rates is mostly a subjective matter, of course. But I can count the number of fruits each plant produces. And I can record when the plants are overcome by the many diseases that usually claim my tomatoes by late August. Brandywines are heirlooms, meaning they lack hybrid resistance to diseases. In my garden, this usually translates to the production of a few delicious fruits, then the demise of the plant to disease. Will reputed grafted vigor keep that Brandywine alive and productive longer?

Stay tuned, garden fans. I’ll keep you posted.