Digging the first potatoes and a drizzle of rain

Seeing the potatoes growing so well and be flowering we knew it would not be too long until we could start harvesting them.

On Sunday we dug up a few spots in the potato patch to see if they are ready to begin harvesting and they are so we will have them at the farmers markets beginning today.

The first potatoes of the season are called ‘new’ potatoes as the skin on them has not set and they are very creamy due to them having less starch.

With the skin on these potatoes not being set, it is imperative to keep them refrigerated as they are very fragile at this time.

The variety we grow is called Sifra and it is a creamy, white potato that can be cooked in a multitude of ways. We like to cook it very simple and on Sunday night we steamed the potatoes and then mixed in some parsley and our olive oil before devouring them.

Over the next two months we will be harvesting the potatoes every week and since we don’t have the space or capabilities to store them for months we will only have the potatoes for a short season.

Even though the forecast showed rain for Monday we didn’t really believe it would rain until we felt the raindrops. We got a nice quarter inch of rain that got the top of the soil damp and helped keep the dust down for a couple of days.

All the spring and summer veggies growing appreciated the little bit of rain but it was not enough to cause us to water the plants less with temperatures warming up next week.

We are still doing the last few planting of summer crops including peppers today and tomatoes tomorrow. These won’t be ready until later in the season and the idea is for them to start producing when the earlier planted ones slow down so we have a more consistent amount to harvest.

Now with the basil and potatoes being started to harvest it won’t be too long until we have a bounty of summer veggies.

This upcoming Sunday, May 18, we will be at the Sacramento Natural Foods Co-op sampling our olive oil from 11 am-2 pm. We are selling our olive oil there along with at the farmers market, shipping through our website and at Mabel’s Market in Davis.

More and more flowers and green fruit are on the tomatoes and when we were putting string on the first sungolds we found a few ripe cherry tomatoes. We had to taste them and they are very good so hopefully we will have more than a handful ready to harvest next week.