This past February, in a fit of the winter doldrums, I ordered a copy of the Vegetable Gardeners Bible by Edmund C Smith. There were lots of hints about growing champion tasting vegetables including raised bed gardening. I took this suggestion to heart and when we returned to Indiana from Florida, I set about building raised beds in my 10 year old garden space. First stop was the Mulch farm where I bought a ton of top soil liberally laced with compost and had it loaded on my utility trailer.
I took a couple of pain pills and immediately began shoveling it off the trailer before the pills lost their effect. forming the dirt into raised rows for planting. Sugar peas, beets and onions went in the ground before it started raining. My next objective was to get the some seed potatoes in the ground as quickly as possible.
I went to the Plant Farm and talked to Wayne, the proprietor, about potatoes. I bought 3 pounds each of Red Kennebec, Irish Cobblers and the Yukon Gold variety. Why so many different kinds? I went with the Kennebec because, for the first time in many years, I am also going to raise green beans and a mess of new potatoes and green beans struck me as something I’d like to have about mid July. The Yukon Gold was Susie’s suggestion. She feels that they make great Baking potatoes but we’ll just have to take her word for it because I have nothing to back that up with. The Irish Cobblers were just a sentimental pick. Susie and I are fresh off of an attendance at a St. Patrick’s day party and the memories prompted me to reach in that burlap bag marked ‘Irish cobblers’ and get a sack full.
- ya load 16 tons and what do you get……
While I was picking out potatoes, Wayne got in his almanac to get the best days for planting. April 21 and 22, Holy Thursday and Good Friday. At the time, that was still a week away and I didn’t want to wait but Wayne and Susie convinced me that I should do what the Almanac said.
I told Wayne that would give me time to measure the PH of the dirt and make the necessary adjustments.
“No need to do that.” He said. “Just put a little 6-24-24 under the eyes and that will take care of it. A fifty pound bag was 42 dollars which had me trying to figure out how many potatoes I could buy for that amount. Turned out to be quite a few. Luckily, the plant farm sold it by the pound so I bought 6 pounds of fertilizer and a soil PH tester. The soil was 7.0, considered to be neutral between alkaline and acid, if you’re interested in that sort of thing.
I was ready and settled in to wait on Good Friday. Thursday evening, the weatherman said it was going to rain all day Friday beginning around nine in the morning. I began to question the wisdom of waiting to plant. (Something I won’t do again.)
I was up at 5:30, ready to go. I warmed up the tiller while the coffee was perking and after a quick cup began tilling the wet soil and shoveling more dirt off the trailer to build the raised potato beds. It went pretty well but by nine, I was only a third of the way finished.
The rain didn’t show up until about 1 in the afternoon which gave me time to get everything planted. It also gave Susie, a closet firebug, a chance to burn some brush, a job she loves to do.
Now all we can do is wait on Mother Nature.
Hey Gordon—you did right by planting the tators on Good Friday. Herms dad, who lived in Wisconsin always planted them then–most of the time he had to shovel the snow away. But he always had good luck with his tators.
Hope you do too.
Love from the Beiers