Once upon a time, Twiglet bought too many seed potatoes. Such a great story… The problem in this plot is that I now feel obliged to find places to fit all the seed potatoes. Gotta plant ’em all! I despise Pokemon but I like to make use of its catchphrase. I have been working on my crop plan spreadsheet, which is more difficult than I thought it would be. I knew before the new vege beds were finished that I would be needing more vege beds in the future. There are three of us now and I want to grow as much of our food as I can, which is going to require a lot of space. But back to the current dilemma. The jolly potatoes are taking over my spreadsheet. Why are there so many brown circles?! I had to stop them from encroaching on my other crop plans.
Enter the planters. The Little Fulla helped me to plant some seed potatoes in the planters. I was supposed to be avoiding doing strenuous garden activities after a tetanus injection gave me the old sore arm, but trying to get myself to tone things down in the garden is like trying to stop a monkey from climbing. When I say The Little Fulla helped me I mean he enjoyed getting wheelbarrow rides and got upset when I took the precious ‘taters off him. He calmed down when I showed him how to peer over the side of the barrel so he could see the potatoes. I had to plant swiftly so they didn’t end up being planted in his mouth. In planter number one, the sizeable black compost bin, we have nine Rocket potatoes. They are an early variety. In planter number two, the blue barrel, we have three Agria potatoes. I didn’t want to plant too many in there as they can grow large potatoes. It is early for potatoes outside so I will keep an eye out for frosty forecasts. The walls of the planters ought to give some protection to young shoots but I can cover the tops if I need to. The forecast is looking ok for the next 10 days though, with 5degC the lowest temperature.
So, that dealt with some of the seed potatoes. That leaves me with 14 Agria potatoes and 21 Ilam Hardy potatoes. Hmm. I have (I think) managed to convince myself that I shouldn’t plant ’em all. I don’t think a family of three needs 47 potato plants. I don’t have to plant them all, just because I bought them all. I can always give some away. Yes! Let’s get rid of some of those brown circles on my spreadsheet. More space for other crops and less mounding work! After removing some of the brown circles I am left with 13 Agria potatoes and 12 Ilam Hardy potatoes in the vege beds, plus the 3 Agria and 9 Rocket ‘taters in the planters. That’s a total of 37 potato plants. It’s still a lot but considering some are in containers, which can go horribly wrong, it’s not too many. That leaves 1 Agria and 9 Ilam hardy seed potatoes that are up for adoption. Any takers?
Wild Hope Homestead 