Taterz - Materz - and - Crap

( Last year's garden. )

The planting has begun.  Tomatoes - potatoes - and onions.  First to make it in - as far as the big veggie garden goes - anyway.  There’s also been the flowerbed by the barn - where more herbs have been included.

Mapping out the garden felt a little odd this year.  So much to grow - very little space for rotating crops - something very important to the successful growing of some vegetables.  It has everything to do with nutrients - sapping the dirt - and a bunch of other crap.

Ahhh - but - crap - would be the secret.  All the hassle is cut in half by the subject of - crap - if you’re not so stubborn.

 ( Part of the line during our run for the second load this year. )

Last year - Hubby and I sat in line for a little over three hours - at the Monterey Mushroom Plant - here in Loudon - waiting to load the back of the pickup with mushroom compost.

Television had not switched over to Digital transmission - yet.  I was able to take our little hand-held television - and catch my favorite soap - “ General Hospital. “  It helped both of us keep our attention redirected from the smells.  And that’s how Hubby got kinda hooked on GH - as well.  ( But - don’t tell him I said that ! )

Anyway - with all we bit off to get the garden in for the first year of living at our new home - and after waiting in line and struggling to ignore all the smell - we made do with only one load of mushroom compost last year.

( I think they add concentrated fish emulsion in this tank, as well. )

I’m telling you - the smells can be downright - atrocious !  And you wanna eat after you get back home!

This year - we shot for two loads - and got really lucky!  Took us a little longer to wait in line when we drove over to pick up the second load - about an hour.  But we learned a very important secret.  Lunchtime shoots the line down to nothing!  Next year - we’ll go for our loads during the week - and no sooner than 11:30am each day!

Our tomatoes are in for this year!  We planted four Red Beefsteak plants - and two Amish paste plants.  We’re investing in a pressure canner this year - so we can put up more yield in jars to save space in the freezer.  And now - I’ll be able to make our own tomato sauce!

Oh - and some tend to think they don’t have the room for storing canned goods.  Guess what.  Space under beds makes even the best place to store canned goods!  Just make sure to keep the cartons that your jars come in!  That’s what they did back in the good days - the wiser days - the simpler days - the best days - the days I wish we could all get together and take back - for the sake of sanity!

We’re trying something different this year for staking our tomatoes - which is an absolute must.  And we try something different every year.  I think it tends to become the savior that keeps us from dreading the inevitable.  They’re vines.  They’re gonna have a mind of their own.  You’re gonna fight with them.  Deal with it!

Dwayne drove fencing posts - two at each end - 24” apart from each other.  We ran 17-guage galvanized electric fence wire from post to post - one end of the row to the other - on each side of the plants.  For now - we have only run two lines of wire on each side.  We’ll run more lines of wire as the plants grow.

We’re spacing the lines of wire every fourth notch on the metal fence posts.  And if that trick doesn’t beat all we’ve tried in the past - I’m caving.  I will go to 4x4 field fencing wire next year - no matter how much the left-handed right brain fights with the left-handed left brain! ( But I still love you - my Hubby - my Hero - my Baby ! )

The holes for the tomato plants were dug deep enough - and wide enough - to lay the plants sideways - at about a 45* angle.  Any growth on the main stem that could be covered by dirt was removed - leaving no less than two sets of leaves at the top of the plant sitting above-ground.  Burying extra portions of tomato stems will bring more roots - increasing health and sturdiness of the plant.  I just packed the dirt down - while holding the portion remaining above-ground straight up.

I hilled a moat of dirt about 8 inches from - and around - the plant to act like a dam when watering.  I made protection strips ( for fighting cutworms ) out of foil.  You can cut 1” pieces of paper towel - or - bathroom tissue tubes - as well.  But with the foil - the final strip was 4 layers thick ( after folding ) and about 6 inches long.  I just wrap it around the plant - about a half-inch from the main stem - and secure it with the corners from one of the ends of the strip.

As time goes by - I may need to hill dirt around the base of the plants.  So - I always drag dirt to the ends of my rows and pile for storage.  I end up with a flat - and somewhat hard - surface surrounding the moats and down the path for walking.  If I need more dirt - our areas between our crops are always left wide enough for the tiller.  Hubby tills down - and we take soil from there.

Last - but never least - a thick layer of pine straw was distributed over and between the moats - covering the whole row of dirt.

For our potatoes -

We mounded dirt off to the side of the row where the potatoes will be growing.  I applied another light layer of mushroom compost over the proposed row.  Dwayne went back in and tilled down deeper.
We hilled all that dirt off to the other side of the planting area to create a trench.  Pine straw was laid on the bottom of the trench.  This row is about 40’ long - and it took less than one bale of pine straw.

Our potato sets were sliced that evening.  They were set on a cookie sheet and allowed to cure for a couple days.  It looks pretty gross.  But - that’s okay!  What’s not okay - if you cut into a potato set and find any kind of rot.  Throw that one out!

Yesterday evening - we planted the potato sets - each piece having at least one good eye - all planted eyes up.  They were just set on top of the pine straw - covered with dirt - and watered.  One of the things I always have to remember when watering - the fact that these were planted into a trench.  I have to make sure watering is done enough to reach down deep enough.

Here’s something off the wall - tomatoes and potatoes are in the same family.  For that reason - very important that you change places for growing each year - and never plant one where the other grew during the previous year.

We only use pine straw on our tomatoes and potatoes - unless we plant carrots with the tomatoes - which you can do if you want.  But I wasn’t too happy with my attempt last year.  The carrots planted between my tomatoes didn’t grow as well as they should have - due to my tomato plants going nuts on me.

The pine straw left over after the harvesting is finished - goes into our compost pile.  That is the only straw we do not leave in the garden area to burn.  Reason - the high amount of acid and alkaline in the straw.  All other hay remaining at the end of our growing season is always burned.  The ash is left with the soil.

As for today’s project - I have fennel - peppers and garlic to plant.  I have Freesia bulbs to plant under our Georgia Belle peach tree.  And I’m emptying all the old potting soil in my pots from last year - out into our front yard area.  The pots will be cleaned before being filled with new potting soil and set up around our driveway.

And then - because we’re having such an odd spring season - I will be planting some spinach and lettuce in our larger pots!  Haven’t decided what to plant in the others.  All I do know is - there will be lots of color!

For now - here's something from my favorite guy!  Okay - second favorite guy!