This weekend’s gardening project is to clean out the back of the yard and put in a potato patch. This will mean removing all the debris. It will take time because it has gotten out of control. We even have (and I am embarrassed to admit this) an old couch from the winter in the backyard. I do realize that there are all kinds of jokes that can go along with that, and I'm so glad I'm not able to see people's faces as they read that. We did have good intentions of getting it to the dump the weekend after putting it out there, but then the rains started and really haven’t stopped. So, what was once a fairly heavy couch has now turned into a 50 pound heavier wet couch. Every pound counts at the dump. We would have liked to have donated it, or some such thing, but quite honestly after 20 years of use, cats and a dog that used to go crazy on the back of the couch every time someone or thing, including a car 10 miles away would go by, the couch is but a shadow of its former self, so off it goes.
Unfortunately, we really don’t have a place to put our yard debris unless we carry it down two flights of stairs to outside the bottom of the cottage.
Cottage stairs
Door to the bottom of the cottage.
The yard debris goes to the left.
This is where I should have put all the invasive plants (morning glory, buttercups, blackberries) and diseased leaves like off the roses, but hauling bucket after bucket down the stairs is not easy. If anyone has a clever way to get things up and down stairs, I'd love to hear about it. I told Rich we need to put in some sort of ramp system, so I can wheel stuff down there. At any rate, the back corner of the yard has now become a playground for all those invasives, and they seem to be having so much fun. You can almost hearing them laughing. There is a part of me that doesn't want to ruin their fun. They are, after all, living plants. But the reality is they will take over- even scaling the walls of the house if we let them, so out they must come.
And in there place will go potatoes. I know some people don’t like to take up space with potatoes, since they are fairly inexpensive in the stores and all. But we like potatoes and the truth is one time I bought a bag that smelled so bad that I didn’t even want to use the potatoes. Ugh. Like bad compost. The inside of the potatoes seemed fine, but I couldn’t even wash the smell away. Now, when I go to the store, I smell the bags of potatoes. I’m sure people are wondering what in the world I’m doing, smelling a big 10# bag of potatoes. Therefore, because of the smelly potato problem, I am putting in a couple of potato patches behind the raised beds. Plus, there is something very satisfying about turning the soil and finding potato after potato. They are one of my favorites to harvest. I will be growing early reds and the standard Butte.
Materials needed: Seed potatoes, straw and soil (already bought for the raised beds), the totes and potato tower that I wrote about previously. I will also be using the fun item I found at a garage sale for $2.00 that I wrote about in a previous posting.
Cost:
$9.00 Seed potatoes (red early & buttes)
(And my $2.00 garage sale item)
Here are the before pictures of the area:
Notice the rhubarb to the left. At least it's loving
this cool and wet weather. And that ever growing mound in the middle...can't you just hear it laughing and having fun!?!
Stay tuned...
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