Today let’s take a closer look at the plans for our second bed in the Demo Garden. This bed is fairly simple, compared to Bed 1. Half the bed is planted to tomatoes (and basil!), while the other half will be planted to potatoes in the spring and leafy greens in the fall.

I know that you are probably really excited to know more about the tomatoes – but in the interest of having something to talk about when we get to Bed 5…I’m going to make you wait. Sorry!

So that leaves us with the potatoes and the leafy greens. Bed 2 is our only raised bed that did NOT show nematode damage last season, so it is both our “control” bed for our tomato varieties so we can compare productivity and growth with Bed 5, which has heavier nematode infestation. We also chose to plant potatoes in this bed, since they can have nematode issues as well. One of our Master Gardener plants red, white, and blue potatoes with their grandchildren, so we thought that would be a fun approach.

In the half of the bed with potatoes, we divided the space into three 4’x4′ areas, with each area for a different variety. Our red variety is ‘AmaRosa’ Fingerling. I know the map has three things listed – we weren’t sure what we would be able to find, so I had a list to look for. But I found this one, which was our first choice. ‘AmaRosa’ is a fingerling potato (so longer and slender), with red or burgundy skin and marbled pink and white flesh. Yep, interior flesh is pink and white! We actually just planted the potatoes this morning, and I was pleasantly surprised by how large the seed potatoes were, so that bodes well for a healthy crop.

Our white variety is ‘Kennebec,’ which is a long-time, high yielding basic white potato. It is a midseason variety, and has a good package of disease resistance. This is a common variety that you can probably easily find in a local garden center.

Our blue variety is a newer variety (although it has been around for several years at this point), called ‘Adirondack Blue.’ It is one of the darker blue/purple fleshed potatoes that you can find, and the color holds well, especially if you roast it. The plants themselves are also supposed to have a slight blue color to the leaves.

Once the potatoes are harvested in the summer, we will likely plant a buckwheat or sunn hemp cover crop in that area while waiting for cool weather to return for our fall planting. If you aren’t familiar with sunn hemp, it is a summer annual legume that grows quickly, fixes nitrogen, and suppresses root knot nematodes.

For our leafy greens, ‘Astro’ Arugula is probably the most common, reliable variety. ‘Black Magic’ is a newer cultivar of the traditional Lacinato/dinosaur kale that was selected for uniform, long, slender leaves. ‘Joi Choi’ Bok Choy is a larger choy variety, 12-15″ tall at maturity, with thick bright white stems. ‘Kookaburra’ spinach is a fast-growing semi-savoy variety that is supposed to perform well in the fall. It is fairly upright, which is nice in our gardens because the sandy soil can get on the lower leaves when it is rainy.

Check back next week to hear about Bed 3!