Sunday, May 10, 2009

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.

16 comments:

Crash said...

The soil is not black. Can you really grow organic produce in it?

Crash said...

Also, do you ever use your Ford tractor?

bastinptc said...

Crash - I don't know if you're serious or not with the first question. Soil color indicates mineral content more than anything else. Ours has a fair amount of iron in it. In fact, it used to be a lot redder before we started amending it with compost.

I suppose you have that wonderful black soil in the upper Midwest. Even it is only as good as its steward.

Forrest Gump said...

BOOM!. Roast duck for dinner?

Oh, that's right - you live in the north...


FG

bastinptc said...

Oh, and as for the old Ford, yes, we use it for specific tasks, such as pulling the manure spreader and for broadcasting seed. In that it is about half as efficient fuel-wise, and is not 4WD, the Kubota is the go-to. Still, the Ford can sit idle for a year and it still fires up on the first try.

bastinptc said...

FG, what the hell does your second statement mean?

And no, wild duck is a bit too gamey for me. Tastes like liver.

joxum said...

Interesting, that duck could have been from our local lake. I suppose mallards are even more common than I thought :)

/j.

Crash said...

Yes, I was playing one-upsmanship about the soil color. Ours is jet black. My sister-in-law took a small bag of it back to show her friends in Santa Cruz.

Memphis MOJO said...

Fascinating. I wish I were there to watch, er, um, I mean to dig in and help!

(Dig in, ahem, well...)

bastinptc said...

Joxum, here's an interesting fact: Domestic ducks are largely hybrid strains from Mallards. (Muscovey are a breed unto themselves.) Cross-breeding domestic ducks will often exhibit the Mallard genes. (Awkward phrasing, I know, but I think the point is made.)

Crash said...

Yes, MOJO, had you seen her dig that bag of dirt, you might have caught a glimpse of the Bird of Paradise. (See my new pic.)

Crash said...

b & jox: From ducks to geese: Ever see the documentary, "Winged Migration?" It is a beautiful filming of dozens of breeds of geese in migratory flight, filmed from hang-gliders, etc. Not to be missed. Some of them go 12,000 miles.

Crash said...

Doing some blog-clogging here. The bird of paradise pic is really the top of the DW's dreaded 'assignment pen,' which she uses to give me my tasks. She has an even bigger, red and yellow one, in reserve.

Crash said...

I think bastinptc should issue some sort of party favors for all this work we do for him. I want the Ford tractor.

Crash said...

More Clogging-
Your potato digging tool looks like a combination of:
a spade
a spark plug
a green hose
a white tube
a marital aid

Suzi said...

I'm the sister-in-law that Crash mentioned. It's true. I was so amazed at how black the soil was in that part of Minnesota, I sneaked into a field, dug some up, bagged it and took it home to Santa Cruz where we have lousy soil. Put it in my garden after showing it off. I've been outed!
www.suzilive.com