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| Potato vines have all died back. Only a green weed remains. |
It ain't true. You don't have to work hard to have a garden. My potatoes are proof. Sitting on my laurels (on the ground) next to this neglected patch of earth, I chuckled to myself, and the hens chuck-chuckled, too.
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| Rake back the straw! |
One Lazy Farmer here, on a day last spring when she had plenty of Things I get to do today already lined up, threw a pile of old alfalfa into a bed of earth. She came back in a few minutes, made little holes in the hay, and tucked in sprouted potato chunks.
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| Lazy Farmer's yield from one plant |
That was the end of the "work." Five months of total neglect later, the Lazy Farmer scratches in the hay, looking for treasures in red and gold. Eureka! Twenty five plus pounds of lazy potatoes lay snuggled in the beds.
ps. Since harvest day, the hens have spent nearly every waking hour going through these beds with beak and claw to remove all bugs who thought they'd found a sweet home. The Lazy Farmer, she smiles.
My potatoes did lousy, but I learned some things. They don't like this clay soil, so I am going to have to add some straw or something to it next year.
ReplyDeleteGood luck! You might try tucking them just under the surface of the soil and mounding on plenty of old straw. Seven inches plus is recommended. Or plant them in a loose straw bale!
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