Cellar Adventures (and the Great Potato Harvest of 2012)

UPDATE: It turns out that potatoes do fruit! They're the true seeds of the potato; planting 'seed' potatoes is actually akin to planting a root. Here's a bit of info: http://www.ipm.iastate.edu/ipm/hortnews/2004/7-2-2004/tomatopotato.html I've learned something new today; now I can go back to bed :P

Hey, it's Mandi.

This past weekend, I decided that the garden should be harvested. However, if I was going to start pulling stuff out of the ground, I'd need somewhere to put it, and the roof of the doorway to the root cellar caved in a few weeks ago. So, again, out comes the measuring tape and the saw, and it becomes another project weekend :)

The root cellar is built into a hill and surrounded by trees (mostly spruce, I think). The top of the cellar and the entryway are therefore covered in fallen leaves and spruce needles. This had built up over many years, and was about a foot thick on the entryway roof. Of course, this soaks up any water and starts to compost, causing the wood underneath to rot. The entryway is built out of 2x4s and 1/4 inch plywood; this is not meant to be terribly load-bearing in the first place, and as it rotted it just gave way. As well, the walls of the entryway have started to warp and bulge - I get the impression that they'll be breaking during spring thaw.

I finally managed to get outside around three, after doing some housework, making a quick trip in to town, and starting supper (a double batch of chicken and wild rice soup in the large slowcooker Jordan's Grandpa got us for Christmas last year.) Of course, in order to do any work in the root cellar, I needed an extra light source, as the sunlight just doesn't penetrate that thicket of trees and the cellar door faces west-ish. I found a trouble light in the cellar, plugged in to an extension cord from the trailer (the closest building). 'Fabulous!' I thought. So, I headed in to the trailer to try and determine which breaker will power that outlet. Well, first I had to determine which position the switch had to be in to turn on the trouble light. During this, I discovered that the old light doesn't work. Okay, I brought our new one. I plugged that in to one of the indoor sockets and got it working. Okay, haul it back outside, plug it in to a different extension cord so I can monitor the light through the window as I play with the breakers. Well, I hit every darn breaker and that light didn't turn on. So I turned on all the breakers and plugged the light directly in to the outlet. Okay, it turns on; the extension cord is toast. Ugh! By this point, I am getting frustrated - a 5-minute breaker check has turned into a 45-minute ordeal. So I hang the light so I can see it from inside, and head back in to turn the breakers off one a time to isolate the outdoor breaker. Okay, got it. Now I have light! On the bright side, during this ridiculous fool's errand, I determined that both the old fridge and the slightly newer stove in the trailer both work. Awesome, we can pull them out of the trailer, put them in the longhouse, and have extra appliances to use in the summer to store pop (or beer) and to cook outside so we don't heat up the house.

Anyway, back to the point of this story: the entryway roof needed to be replaced.

The north side of the roof

The south side, after excavation

The debris that had fallen into the entryway.  The wall on the left is nearing collapse as well.

So I excavated it, and got a good look at the damage. As I excavated the remains of the roof, I could tell that this was not the first collapse; there was another piece of plywood laid over a previous hole. Wonderful (yes, I'm breaking out the sarcasm; the lack of maintenance is just baffling).

The North side - you can see the piece of plywood over the previous hole on the left

Next, I measured and cut new plywood (yes, again, 1/4 inch stuff I found in the shop - I'm hoping it only has to last two years before we can build a new entryway, and possibly whole a new cellar too). By this point, it was 7 pm, so I stopped for the night; it was now too dark to see in the thicket.

In the morning (around noonish) I pulled the old plywood off. This was not terribly hard, as the 2x4s were in various states of rotting as well - occasionally I would pull out a nail and I'd get a chunk of 2x4 with it.

Look, rot!  I shouldn't have been surprised.

Then I put on the new plywood as best I could - the front 2x4s weren't too rotten so the nails could actually grab some real wood, but it was pointless to put nails in any of the rear or top supports. As such, the peak of the new roof wasn't quite perfect.

At the top left, you can see where the peak isn't quite perfect, due to the warped 2x4s underneath.

Luckily, as I was messing around with the darn light the day before, I noticed a chunk of firewood that had a right angle cut out of it. 'Perfect!' I thought, 'That will make a great roof cap!' I was able to find three of these logs, and they'll do an alright job to shield the peak from the worst of the water (and they add a little character too!).

Ta-da!

The inside of the cellar could use some work too - there's a weird fungus or something growing in one of the back corners, and mice and squirrels have gotten in. This prompted me to decide to store everything in buckets with tight-fitting lids. So I grabbed some spare buckets and washed them with dish soap - now they're ready to hold our magnificent harvest!

Inside the cellar.  The tube is one of two ventilation tubes; this one has rolled burlap sack shoved in the end, I assume it is to act as a 'screen' to keep critters out.  I found another sack in the debris between the doors, presumably from the other vent pipe near the door.  Weird, anyway.

After all of this, it was time to have a sandwich and start on the garden.

I harvested the cabbages first, as we'd already had two frosts and I wanted to grab them before they got seriously damaged.

Then, I moved on to the potatoes. I started with the bucket potatoes, and got about a pound (I think - the weights are all rough estimates, and could be totally off) from four plants.

Bucket-grown Seiglinde potatoes

After that, I started Row A. By the time I was three plants deep, I was convinced that these were also Seiglindes. They grow a bit odd - the new potatoes don't really cluster under the plant, but rather they spread out. I ended up digging holes about two feet wide by one foot deep in an effort to get all the potatoes - they had even grown under the paths! All in all, the eight plants gave me about four or five pounds - not bad!

Row A suspected-Seiglindes

Finally, I moved on to Row B. The strange thing about these potatoes is they 'fruited'. They were growing little tomato-looking thingys from where the flowers had been.

I cut one open; it was quite hard, but didn't really look like a tomato inside. And why would a potato plant be sprouting a tomato anyway?!! I'm baffled.

Then I started digging up the plants. These potatoes were much easier to pick - they all grew right under the plant. By the time I finished the 11 or so plants, I had about three to four pounds. Again, respectable.

Row B - type undetermined.

So, all in all, we got about ten pound of potatoes from just over 20 plants. They were all planted late, so I'm not surprised. And ten pounds is better than nothing!!

Left to right: Bucket, Row A, Row B

After tucking the potatoes in the cellar, I headed inside to clean, chop and blanche the cabbage for freezing.

Mmmmmmm cabbage :)

I had decided to make Lazy Man's Cabbage Rolls for dinner Monday night, so I would be blanching two heads, and simply chopping the two others. A batch of cabbage only needs to be water-blanched for a minute and a half (it's three and a half minutes to steam blanche), so it didn't take long to blanche the two heads in four batches of half a cabbage each. These will be thawed and used for a future batch of Lazy Man's Cabbage Rolls. (And yes, this meal is just how it sounds: cabbage, hamburger, bacon, rice, and tomato soup all mixed together. It's one of the meals that I ate quite a bit growing up, and I still enjoy it.) Of course, our garden cabbage is a lot sweeter that then cabbage at the store (I find, anyway), so the meal was delicious (if a bit bland; I'm a terrible cook).

Frozen cabbage

And that was my weekend! Luckily for me, the weather was beautiful both days, getting into the 20's each afternoon with just a few clouds on Sunday. I'm am hoping to get similar weather this coming weekend, as my parents will be coming up and I have a few projects in mind (of course!). One of these days I'll need to harvest the carrots, the lonely green onion, and the chives. I also have two strawberries on a plant in the greenhouse that have magically ripened - those will be breakfast part two tomorrow :)