Potty Potatoes

I fell out with the land today, big style. The happy farmer has been working away at the vegetable patch, working the soil, rotavating the manure, so that I can get down to some serious planting. He told me it was ready today, so, run accomplished, I felt obliged to at least go and make a start with the potatoes.

I decided to plant a long drill the whole length of the patch, and gently began to hoe a line across. Gently became more of a tug and a struggle as I battled against heavily rooted grass shoots, stones and manure (cow poo), undeterred I toiled on, at last reaching the end of the patch. Carefully I planted each potato, a foot apart, trying to get some depth between the eye of the potato and the top of the soil line, cursing their odd shapes as I went. They never seem to quite fit into the hole I have burrowed into the ground for them, always being too fat, or too wide at one end. I then tried to hoe a deep line of soil across the newly planted potatoes, in their beds. Again the grass roots fought with me, as I huffed and sweated, tearing aggressively at the ground, with my hoe. Now there’s a thought for an anger management course me thinks, thankfully today there is no law about being cruel to grass, ripping it from the soil, I will let it grow elsewhere, promise!

I met the happy farmer in the kitchen having lunch as I made my way home. I had trudged across the garden wondering why on earth I go through such battles each year, all of the weeding, digging, planting, just for some vegetables, of course as the weeks progress and my blogs wax lyrical about my wonderful journeys to the ‘kitchen garden’ you will be able to remind me why.

The happy farmer just smiled and commented that I had planted the potatoes too close to the fence, along the bit where all rotovators refuse to go, and no ‘rotovator has gone before’. He assured me that the next few drills will be easy peasy, I will let you know.

Until next time…..