Digging friends.

I had another post. I did, really. All about the other friends I got to see and things I got to experience at Silvia's place last weekend. Things about pickled carrots (Who knew?) and not being able to keep track of everyone I got to meet while I was there. Let's see... Ricky, Carmen, Cheryl, the infamous Dianne who I was so keen to finally meet face to face. Silvia of course and Willy our wonderful hosts, Keiki, Tom...Whom I might add asked me how my garden is growing, so I'll be forced to do a State of the Garden Address very soon now. Honestly I can't keep track of everyone I met.

Believe it or not I'm even doing it again tomorrow. It's supposed to rain - not just any rain but severe thunderstorm stuff 2+ inches and none of the stations can agree on just how bad it will be. That's never a good thing. Less than 24 hours away and they still can't agree. Yikes. But, I'm still planning on going. This time to a place much closer to home. I know it will kill the attendance but at the very least the hostess will be there! ;-)

And that brings me to the next part of the topic. Since I really did have the other post, but blogger seemed to have eaten it overnight and left me with only the first 3 lines I decided to lead one post to the other. The weather will be nasty this weekend - all weekend so I decided at dusk last night to hurry up and harvest my potatoes. After all I don't want to do it in the mud and rain. So...

Here is the tiny potato patch before...

The plants were just starting to yellow. and wither. The first plants died back this week while I wasn't looking. They were yellow like this on Sunday, and yesterday they looked like this.  Dry, brown leaves and a withered stem. A sure sign, indeed that they not only wanted to be harvested but were ready for harvest! WAHOOO! My calendar was right on track for once. OK, it usually is close but this was my first ever attempt at taters so I wasn't entirely sure. I did learn a WHOLE LOT about them though.  I could have spaced them a whole lot closer if I used only one eye per plant (like I did) OR I could have used more than one eye per plant. Either way would have yielded a much larger crop. I also could have gone a little closer to the edges of the planter. Taters tend to grow straight down, not out so much - or at least these did. Then again I only used one eye per plant so that may have had something to do with it.

At this point I tried to get a picture of the potatoes in the ground but apparently my phone doesn't do dirty fingers. Go figure! It wouldn't cooperate so no more pictures until the harvest was complete. Sorry!

Only one plant gave me a disappointing harvest and I don't know what made it any different from the others. It only had a single potato, but it had about 10 tiny potatoes that would have matured if the plant had been left alone so while it did disappoint me, perhaps it would have made me the happiest in just a couple more weeks, who knows?

So I could have fit more plants, and I could have had a bigger harvest - so what? Know what I got?

5 pounds of taters. From just 3 seed potatoes (or did I end up using 4? I can't recall now)

Some Old school hands on knowledge that I can really use next year.

And the happiest worms ever! (This is the reason I could get any more pictures.) :-D Seriously, the worms are happier here than any other part of my garden. I think because the paper shreds kept the ground so much cooler and moister (is that a word?) than any where else. Every time I dug just the tiniest bit I'd have 2-3 worms in my hand it was amazing! The kids had a blast picking them up and naming them. I had HUGE ones, itty bitty ones, and loads upon loads of these teenage sized ones in my hands here. they went from surface to about a foot down where the soil is the most fertile. It's got me really thinking about what to put in this little 3' square spot of my garden now. I think I've got enough green beans growing elsewhere -

 What would you do with this soil? What would you plant here?

And what in the world am I going to do with 50 pounds of paper shredding now? OK that I know the answer to. It seemed to do so much good with the taters that I'm going to use it around the garden as mulch for my tomatoes, peppers and eggplants.

So while this little spot of my garden has hit the proverbial pot of gold... (I took this on my way to work. Thought it too funny and had to find a way to use it today.) :-)

I await your suggestions on how to use that spot, I'll welcome Florida's famous thundershowers to hopefully knock down some of our local fire activity. We sure could use the rains for that.

Once the rains go away I'm working on the grape vine and Pomegranate bed. It is past time for a rehaul there. Unfortunately I forgot the 'before' picture and already tore out the old weed infested mulch and strawberries. I'll try to at least get a during picture.

'Till next time!

Barbie~

*Small disclaimer - my phone is just fine it was just the film of dirt in my fingerprints that kept me from being able to tell the phone to take the picture - you shouldn't dig taters and play with worms while playing with an iPhone or Droid*