Storing potatoes

To identify the perfect home storage location in your house, first answer three questions: What kind of potatoes are they? How long do you intend to store them? How do you intend to cook the potatoes—will you bake, fry, or boil them? Your answers will help you decide where to store potatoes at home.

Overall Recommendations:
Ideal conditions are ventilated, cool temperatures, high humidity and no light.

Avoid exposure to light to prevent greening.

Store away from light in an unheated (42- 55°F) room, closet or cabinet in your home or garage.

Store in a perforated plastic bag to increase humidity and decrease water loss. Or use a small container of water to increase humidity (we use burlap bags)

Do not tightly seal the bag. The goal is to provide fresh air and to minimize carbon dioxide levels and disease development potential.

Do not wash harvested garden potatoes prior to storage.

Tomato tunnel

As of last week I set up my 12' wide by 30' long tomato tunnel. It's a well designed concept and very strong as it's constructed out of 1 3/8" galvanized pipe rail used for chain link fencing. I purchased the 'high tunnel bender' through Johnny's Selected Seeds last year along with an assortment of specialty brackets. The brackets are designed to attach the ridge pipe and purlins to the arches and tie the whole structure together. I am using the ridge pipe and the purlins to trellis my tomatoes up a string line. The frame is covered with 6mm poly and held onto the frame with a light duty synthetic rope and laced over and back along the length of the frame. The rope is held into place with 6" carriage bolts bent at 45* angle at the base of each footing in which the arch is slotted into.

How to prune tomatoes

Hall's Greenhouses

Russell Nursery is very pleased to announce that we are now representatives for Halls English Greenhouses. Halls has been manufacturing greenhouses in England since the 1930’s and has earned a reputation for high quality at affordable prices.
In the early days greenhouses were made of red cedar and at one time Halls was the biggest user of Canadian cedar in Britain. In the early 1970’s Halls moved into aluminum greenhouses.  They pioneered the flat pack do-it-yourself kit in 1974 and have been producing them ever since.
The company continues to manufacture an award-winning range of garden buildings, which now feature the latest innovations in aluminum frames and glazing combined with a traditional and stylish appearance.
The kits come with instructions for DIY installation, and almost all of the models can be put up over a weekend.  If you’d prefer to let someone else do it, we do provide an installation service in the Victoria area.  Our installation crew consists of Brian Russell, Mike McCandlish and Owen Redfern. 

Soil Blockers

Johnny's Selected Seeds check more info on soil blockers

Tomato Starts 2012

Tomato varieties

Vegetable Starters 2012

herbs:peppers:greens 2012