We went to the community garden today and harvested a LOT of potatoes. More better gardening through neglect, since we basically shoved 'em and the ground and left them until now. No hilling, no chicken tea, just occasional cheering from the sidelines. Next years maybe we'll do even better. We'll definitely grow more German butterball potatoes, since they're my favourites. I've become a potato snob.
We also uncovered another example of better gardening through neglect. Actually, I doubt better care would have helped this, but we might have uncovered it sooner. It would probably have been much less impressive a month ago.
We pulled more mutant carrots too, but that's been done, so I'll spare the photos. Now to go eat some of the broccoli we harvested....
Local Taswegian sorts tell me -- and these are people who Know Their Potatoes -- that an excellent way to grow the things is simply to lay your seed potatoes atop the ground, and cover them over with slabs of straw. (The sort of 'biscuits' that come off a rectangular bale.) Apparently, if you cover the taties with the straw and make sure you cover the ground around the taties as well, come harvest time all you have to do is turn the slabs of straw over, and lift up the taters.
ReplyDeleteI'm gonna try it this summer...