I spent today planting my main crop potatoes - am I the only person who finds planting potatoes such a chore ? It takes ages, moving all that earth, then wrestling with the paper, barrowing the manure up the plot, then moving the flippin earth back again. AND I had to dig up the leeks to make space for them.
I've been laughing at my lottie neighbour who went to a potato day and came away with ten different varieties - he has 100 potatoes in total to plant (well actually 95 as his step son accidentally ate 5 for tea) and is desperately digging to try and make space for them all. I've been feeling quite smug that I've only got four varieties, but I actually counted how many I've planted this season - 10 x Charlotte, 10 x Pink Fir Apple, 31 x Rocket and 40 x Cara ... and 4 rockets still loitering around the greenhouse (2 cara were eaten by the meeces) - that's 95 in total ! Confessed this evening - put a smile on his face.
I don't want to see another potato for quite a while.
In between potato planting I also managed to move some rhubarb from the wild area to the end of the new strawberry bed.
Bought some more butternut squash seeds yesterday to replace the ones that were munched by the meeces. The pumpkins are through already, so hopefully the butternuts will be along shortly. Pricked out 40 poppies ... as another 350 glared at me from their tiny plant pot, along with the Ox Eye Daisies.
I've twisted off three of the sweet potato slips and put them into water to root - fingers crossed.
I grew sweet potatoes last year, they went really well. They are related to bindweed so are quite vigorous. Nowadays I plant potatoes with a trowell, about 8 inches down, then earth them up with well rotted compost when they come up. Much less work!
ReplyDelete