Potato Planting for English Majors

I spent the day dealing with annuals. My cabbages and broccolis, my few mixed greens that have thus survived, are all growing well. First, I formed beds in the tilled soil, using a shovel to create orderly walkways. Then I planted almost 40 tomatoes, ridiculously enormous. We're about three weeks from the last frost date, so the hard truth is that they might not make it. I started them when a local expert recommended, and after eight weeks in the greenhouse, the most vigorous were grown taller than my knees, and yesterday's watering made them tip over.

Since they would die of lack of space soon, I figured I might as well plant them as chuck them. At least for today, buried in garden soil up to their first or second set of leaves (meaning, these are planted about six inches deep!), the strong tomatoes in the sun gladdened my heart. May the Lord give the increase. About four flats planted; about 34 to go.

I also planted out one of the two flats of strawflower flowers. Those, too, would die in a frost. Thus, I have one flat in reserve.

Phil spent some time today plowing, then tilling the next section of garden bed for me. When he was done, I planted about 20 pounds of Yukon Gold seed potatoes, my favorite type of grocery store potato, so rich and buttery. Two years ago, I ate Bessette home grown potatoes, and there is no comparison with store-bought. So much more flavorful!

The flavor was the only consolation I had as, exhausted, I formed more beds, then used my hoedad to form trenches, and dropped in the cut up seed potatoes. My rows are, again, wavy and irregular. Perhaps if I were an engineer, they would be perfectly spaced. I think of this as potato planting for English majors.

I had made the mistake of looking for a short tutorial on how to cut up seed potatoes, and came across a large-scale commercial operation, with a massive cutting machine, fed by huge conveyor belts, loaded with tractor buckets taking potatoes out of semis. Compared with my process of setting potatoes in row, about one shoe-length apart, then covering by hand and foot, it seemed a bit silly to bother to grow such a staple.

It made the 20 pounds of potatoes I cut by hand seem futile. But for the promise of better flavor. . . .

We received delivery of nine enormous hay bales.

I realized recently that planting has consumed so much of my time, I have often forgotten the little oddities that happen around the farm.

For example, for eighteen months, our humanure buckets have served us well, without smell or filth. Yesterday evening, though, our house started to smell like a zoo. When I got up this morning, I noticed a yellow puddle on the floor. The bucket bottom had sprung a leak. This was not a pleasant way to start the day, but a few cents of tea tree oil and water to disinfect and cleanse the room, and a few minutes of time to clean it: that's the plumbing price of our system. I can afford that.

Completely different topic: we had twenty eggs on Tuesday; six eggs on Wednesday; five eggs on Thursday. And since Phil and I, combined, eat a dozen eggs for breakfast, clearly five per day is not sustainable. We guessed that the little chicks had, perhaps, developed an insatiable appetite for hen eggs. What else could cause such a reduction in production?

Phil and I checked eggs three times during the day today, and found sixteen eggs. And many little chicks clustered in the hen house. Interesting.

The ducklings have no proven to be terribly robust. We've had five die, all inexplicably, often in the middle of the day, when the cooler overnight weather has turned to weather in the mid-70s. It's disappointing.

Perhaps the most interesting moment, though, came as I headed to bed last night. Joe had fallen asleep in my bed with his hands clasped around Isaiah's arm. I'm not really sure why Isaiah fell asleep in my bed, but he is heavy enough now that I can't lift him easily, especially when he's a dead weight and all my energy is dissipated at the end of the day. So I lay down next to Joe.

The boys have eaten through almost 30 pounds of raisins in the last few weeks, and no matter how often we exhort them not to eat on our bed, somehow raisins drop onto the mattress every day. In the half light, I thought I saw a raisin on my bed, and lay down, only to feel a sting. The "raisin" was actually a dead wasp, fallen from the window above, and waiting for my arm.

I've never been stung when getting into bed before.