Roasted Potatoes

Ann Arbor Food Potato Harvest

Long after the garden has been put to bed, there are POTATOES.

Above is a picture of some of the potatoes a grew this year, this crazy garden year. It is almost Dec and I am still enjoying my garden.

Ann Arbor Food Pan Roasted Potatoes

Looking at my potatoes and preparing my standard recipe pan of simple roasted, I wondered about looking into other potato recipes.

Emily asked why.

Why indeed. I can eat roasted potatoes for the rest of my life and not want for any other potato.

Here is my recipe:

1) Wash and rinse as many potatoes as you feel like. (for my that is about 5 pounds)
2) cut them into about 1 inch size pieces.
3) Place in a pan one layer deep (get as many pans as you need. I usually make two pans for leftovers)
4) drizzle some oliver oil on them
5) shake on some salt and dried thyme or rosemary or both

And bake in a 400 degree oven until they are done (45-60 minutes-ish)

Taste and add more salt if desired.

I use yukon gold and red potatoes. I grew red Pontiac and yukon gold this year.

Enjoy

 

Extend the Harvest

End of Year Garden: Extend the Harvest

The garden is looking pretty spars for the most part, but not my collards. My Collards are huge, look great and taste great.

I wish I had the foresight to grown my whole green in Collards.

There is a garden concept to extend the Harvest. This does not mean extending the growing season.

To extend the harvest in places like Michigan that means growing winter hearty crops in late summer and early fall like broccoli, cabbage, mustard, kale and collards.

While the plants will slow or stop growing at this point, they stay tasty and fresh into winter. Even with snow on top, these veggies keep going and can be harvested long after the garden is usually packed up for the year.

Collard’s and Tofu with garden roasted potatoes

Arugula Flowers

Garden Spider: It looks scary, but it is a beneficial insect

 

Garden Update: Grass

Bolted Spinach

If you look very closely at the picture above you will see three rows of bolted spinach nestled among the grass.

Close up Bolted spinach

This has been a very trying garden year. With the 100 degree days, I have not been out to the garden as much to do the work.

Weedy Snow Peas

To compound the problem, the Platt Garden is grassy to the extreme. Any non-weeded patch of soil becomes a lawn. Above,the grass has attacked my giant snow peas.

Weedy Garden paths

The folks who splurged for straw were the smart ones this year.

I rarely do the straw thing. I tend to be a fan of the hula hole, which allows me to weed most my garden without hand weeding. This includes the rows.

A few minutes of hula holing once a week for a few weeks and my garden was good to go. The weeds stop coming. But not this year.

The weather kept me away and the grass took over.

Cardboard Weed Barrier

So I am now on the defensive and the name of the game is cardboard.

I have used cardboard on all of my rows and will have to put in the extra hours to weed all of my beds by had (UGH!!!) And I will need to do that for the rest of the year.

For now, I had to turn over my radish and spinach beds without getting a harvest.

Ready to Plant