Potatoes

I finally got the potatoes planted yesterday. I planted one pound of La Ratte fingerlings and two and a half pounds each of Red Nordland, Carola, and Green Mountain. The seed came from Fedco’s Moose Tubers.

Last year was the first time I planted potatoes. I stored them in the basement in burlap bags, and they lasted until March. Our basement is a “wet basement” because the foundation of this old house (1820) is laid field stone, so the humidity level is high, even in the winter. The temperature held right around 42 degrees all winter.

I planted about the same amount of seed this year. My plan was to harvest more potatoes than last year by taking better care of them to increase their yield, but with the way I have been gardening this year, I am not optimistic that I will do so. I could barely stand to be in the garden yesterday; it is like a jungle.

 

Too Busy to Garden? No, Just Lazy.

Two years ago, I established my five-year plan to grow and raise all of our own food. Over the past two years, this five-year plan has been modified to grow and raise as much of our own food as possible because I realized that it is unlikely that I will be growing grains or preserving/storing enough food to get us all the way through April, the cruelest month. This year, however, I have run up against something unexpected; I have been too busy — or too lazy? — to garden.

The kitchen garden, which should be producing spinach and lettuce right now at the very least, is empty, except for the weeds and grass that are happily populating the beds. The lower garden, which should be brimming with onions and peas, planted with potatoes, sown with parsnips and carrots, and prepped and ready to go for warm season stuff, has an onion patch overgrown with weeds, peas untrellised and weedy, no potatoes (they are cut and waiting in the upstairs bedroom to be planted), no parsnips or carrots, and is only half ready to go. The other half is a jungle of weeds.

I am wondering if perhaps between the livestock farm and a desire to grow my own vegetables and fruit, I have bitten off more than one person can chew. Certainly, if I were honest with my time, I would not be too busy to garden, and it would be clear that I have not bitten off more than I can chew. When I review my schedule, I can easily see an hour or two every day that could have been spent in the garden, but wasn’t. Perhaps, then, I am too lazy to garden, rather than too busy? Perhaps I should just kick myself in the butt and get gardening? It is certainly not too late; the last frost date just passed yesterday.

This is it, then, my public flogging. I am too lazy to garden. I am a lazy bum who pretends to be too busy. Lazy.