Field Boss

My mother is the queen of lists. The Things I Get To Do Today when I'm visiting her frequently gets longer by the hour. The reasons for that are perfectly okay. She's nearly ninety two. The fact that she is not physically able to do all the work but can make a list for me to do what she wishes she could is okay, too. I'm grateful to be of assistance to her.

Today we planted potatoes and carrots. Her instructions were: use the post hole digger to make the hole for the seed potato, put in the sprouted potato being careful to protect the tender sprouts, add a tablespoon of potash, cover with soil making a little mound so she could see where each hill of potatoes would spring forth in a couple of weeks.

She apologized for being bossy. I knew she was just talking out loud as she "saw" herself doing the planting as she had done for the last eighty five years. "Naw," I said, "you're just being a good field boss."

Fruits of Neglect

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.

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.

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.

Chicken Pro/Garden Pro

Blue Scotch Kale
stripped to the ribs by hens with good taste

"Short speak" can be confusing.  Pro means professional or pro can be short speak for protection.  Chicken pro means protecting the chickens. I may give that up for spring planting.  Just to drop a hint, here is a close-up of what my previous "Instant Gratification" Garden looks like since the hens have had full run.

Peas ready to cover with 1" of earth

Soft, freshly turned earth calls to a hen like nothing else in the universe.  The worms send out a special tractor beam that just draws them in.  The girls, knowing that I create soft, freshly turned earth, follow me around the yard ready to spring into action.  So right after I planted peas and potatoes, Installing Garden Pro was on my list of Things I get to do today.

Peas planted and pro-tected

I want the peas to come up naturally as a result of earth, water and time causing them to send roots down and stems up.  Chickens can make peas come up faster than anything else I know--up and all over the place in less than ten minutes after planting.

Half-planted potato bed well protected

The potato garden is in the back corner, a place the chickens currently call their own.  They can have it for another couple of weeks, and then the fence goes back up.  Until then it potato pro trumps chicken pro.