Welcome to the Red Wagon Farm Blog

Red Wagon Farm grows vegetable year-round using organic techniques. We also keep chickens and ducks for eggs.


We sell our produce and eggs at the Alpine Farmers Market at the Hotel Ritchey Courtyard on Historic Murphy Street. We all sell homemade pickles, relishes and mustards.

The farmers market is open every Saturday of the year, from 9 am until noon.

Thursday, November 30, 2017

November 30, 2017

Good morning, it was interesting to watch my TPS (true potato seeds) germinate. I had sown several dozen seeds before checking to see if they should be stratified (chilled for a period of time) to break dormancy. As they say "damn the torpedos, full speed ahead". After two weeks there were maybe 4 or 5 seedlings that had emerged. These seedlings sprouted in each of the four cups that seeds had been sown. 

These guys were tiny so I thought it would be best to leave them in place and allow them to get bigger so that I could  transplant them into individual cups.

After three these seedlings were not big enough to transplant or at least this is what I thought

How surprised I was at week 4 when about 20 seedlings emerged. I thought that maybe at best I would get 10 to work with. 

20 is about the max that I can handle. My early solanaceae sowing is rapidly approaching I will need space to accommodate them.

Having 20 plants I should be able to grow some seed potatoes so that we can evaluate the characteristics of these New varieties. To me this is exciting stuff ( I am easily entertained).

Another observation in the outdoor potato patch, I have noticed other small seedlings near the locations where the plants that produced the berries were growing. Could these be volunteers  and this experiment is further along than previously thought. These plants are mimicking my indoor seedling growth unlike the bigger sturdier growth  of the crop potatoes. Who knows.

As for my indoor seedlings I am pleased with the numbers I have to work with. It does give me some room to have mortality  and leave enough to carry this to the end.

I am stratifying the other berries and seeds. I may have to do a germination test to see if the length of germination period is shortened.

It is all good.

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