Spuds in the ground!

With rain on the horizon, literally, I broke land speed records mowing the yard and barnyard. I usually use the bagger and compost the clippings, but with the grass as long as it was, I knew the job would take a couple extra hours of time I didn't have. I wanted to get the potatoes planted before the ground became too wet to work.


The tool that made those nice trenches. When we were growing on a larger scale, I also used this blade to dig up the potatoes. So much easier than the potato fork.

Spuds. From left to right: red, white (russet) and blue (2 rows), placed about 15 inches apart. If you enlarge this picture, you can see on the right that the garlic is doing quite well. As last year's stored garlic has all but dried up or rotted, we will start picking green garlic for meals.

My wonderful tool bar. The plow that dug the trenches attaches to the bar. The bar is solid steel and weighs about 60 pounds.

The discs in action. They pull the soil back over the trench. When the potato plants are about 5 inches tall, I will add weights to the tool bar and come back over the rows with the discs. The weights will force the discs deeper to pull up more soil. The extra soil will cover the little plants, new growth will then emerge, and the part that is been buried will become the root system on which the potatoes will grow.

I also use the discs to make raised rows for most of what we will grow. The extra 3 or 4 inches in height makes is that much easier to weed and pick.

It is supposed to rain off and on for the next 3 days. Getting the potatoes in just made me anticipate planting all of the other goodies that are waiting in the hoophouse. In the meantime, the rain will keep the ground wet enough that I won't have to put down irrigation for a while longer.


As we were closing up shop tonight, DW spied this little visitor, a female Mallard, on our pond.