Gardening Toolshed

	The Red,White and Blue Seed Potato Collection is a great way to grow three unusual potato varieties.

(HIT)-The Organic Potato Blossom Festival and a new line of Organic Garden Seed are among the new offerings found in the 2006 Wood Prairie Farm mailorder catalog and website (www.woodprairie.com). This year, Wood Prairie Farm is celebrating its 30th year of organic farming with a delightful variety of organic seeds for gardeners to grow plus an assortment of kitchen-ready organic vegetables, mixes and other tasty treats.

Here are a few highlights for 2006 from Wood Prairie Farm:

The Organic Potato Blossom Festival

For the first time ever you can grow potato plants for their colorful blossoms and for the delicious tubers. The Organic Potato Blossom Festival is a unique collection of gourmet potato varieties chosen for their exceptional blossom beauty and fragrance. In midseason, enjoy nearly a month of potato blooms in shades of blue, lavender, purple, pink and white. Come harvest time, enjoy a spectacular bounty of rainbow-colored spuds.

The six different varieties of potatoes include Red Cloud, Carola, Cranberry Red, All-Blue, Onaway, and Butte. These Maine Double-Certified Organic Potatoes perfectly fill a four by four foot planting bed.

The Organic Potato Blossom Festival received an MGA Green Thumb Award from the Mailorder Gardening Association as one of the best new products of 2006. It sells for $19.95.

Wood Prairie Farm Organic Garden Seed

For the first time in its 30-year history, Wood Prairie Farm is offering a line of organic vegetable seed. Wood Prairie Farm Organic Garden Seed features varieties and quality not available from local garden stores, is open pollinated, Certified Organic, and raised by highly skilled family-scale seed operations. All 16 varieties of seeds are untreated and not genetically engineered. Each seed packet sells for $3.

• Bean – Organic Tavera. Gourmet french filet beans or haricot verts designed to be picked before they reach 1/4 inch in diameter. 64 days to maturity.
• Beet – Organic Scooter. A European style open-pollinated beet with bright green tops that stay green even in cool weather. Roots are round, smooth and dark purplish red. 52 days.
• Carrot – Organic Red-Cored Chantenay. The Chantenay family of carrots goes back nearly 200 years. Highly tapered orange carrot with wonderful flavor and quality. 70 days.
• Carrot – Organic Scarlet Nantes. Sweet with a crisp taste, cylindrical to slightly tapered roots are six to eight inches long. Exceptionally uniform strain. 65 days.
• Lettuce – Organic Cardinale. This wine-red Batavian crisp-leaf lettuce adds attractive color and juicy crunch to summer salads. 52 days.
• Lettuce – Organic Flashy Trout Back. A romaine heirloom with upright growth and medium green leaves with bright red splashes. 55 days.
• Lettuce – Organic Wild Garden Spring Mix. Purple Osaka, Tres Fin Endive, Chicory,Arugula, Secret Spinach and more make this early-season salad mix a gourmet delight. 28 days.
• Lettuce – Organic Wild Garden Summer Mix. This mix of Burgundy Amaranth, Strawberry Spinach, Forest Green Parsley and much more thrives in the warmer temperatures. 28 days.
• Melon – Organic Delicious 51. This is Cornell University’s new powdery mildew-resistant version of the classic, great-tasting “Bender’s Surprise” cantaloupe. 77 days.
• Onion – Organic Rossa di Milano. A rare, beautiful red Italian mid-season onion that stores well. Fine medium-hot flavor. 110 days.
• Radish – Organic Plum Purple. Plum Purple has handscome violet-purple skin and crisp white flesh. This variety remains mild all season. 27 days.
• Spinach – Organic Winter Bloomsdale. This delicious dark green variety is king of the “fully savoyed” spinaches. Highly uniform organic strain that is slow to bolt. 45 days.
• Squash – Organic Black Zuchini. Dark green skins and mild flavored fruits! 55 days.
• Squash – Organic Delicata Zeppelin. This is the best “bitter-free” strain of Delicata. Cream-colored, green-striped fruits have the sweetest, tastiest flesh you’ve ever had! 100 days.
• Tomato – Organic Latah. An early, small (2-3″) red tomato with a good balance of acid and sweetness. The determinate bush keeps producing all summer. 61 days.
• Tomato – Organic Una Hartsock. Abundant plum-shaped 1-2″ long fruits with juicy, semi-sweet flesh. Indeterminate. 68 days.

Complete Organic Potato Patch Kit

Gardeners who have never grown potatoes might want to start with the Complete Organic Potato Patch Kit. Included are four different varieties of Maine Double-Certified Organic Seed potatoes—early blue Caribé, popular Yukon Gold, beautiful Red Cloud and baking spud extraordinaire Elba.

Plant, weed and harvest your crop of potatoes with a rugged American-made hand hoe. Fertilize with Wood Prairie Farm Organic Potato Fertilizer. At the end of the season, collect your harvest in the Maine handcrafted wooden garden hod, and store your bounty in the mesh potato sack. The Complete Organic Potato Patch Kit, which also includes the Organic Potato Growing Guide and Potato Recipe Booklet, sells for $39.95.

Red,White And Blue Seed Potato Collection

Wood Prairie Farm offers a patriotic collection of three different 2.5 pound bags of Maine Double-Certified seed potatoes that’s sure to be a hit with any red-blooded American gardener. Included are Cranberry Red, the early-season high-yielding red potato with pink flesh, Onaway, the old-fashioned early-season round white variety; and All-Blue, the striking and beautiful blue-skinned blue-flesh late variety.

This collection includes enough seed potatoes to plant three 25-foot rows. After a fun and colorful harvest, everyone will enjoy a breathtaking red, white and blue potato salad or a rainbow potato bake-off. Recipes are also included with this collection, which sells for $28.95.

Wood Prairie Farm is a family-run organic farm in Maine known for its organically grown potatoes, grains and other crops. To receive a free catalog or to place an order, call 1-800-829-9765 or visit the website at www.woodprairie.com.