garden – The Reluctant Farmer's Wife

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!!! Where we live people go a little bit crazy for St. Pat’s. The college closes for a week of St. Pat’s festivities including a huge parade and concert. This year we decided to embrace a wee bit more Irish tradition and plant potatoes on St. Patrick’s Day. According to Burpee Garden Company in 2011:

“St. Patrick’s Day remains one of the nation’s most celebrated holidays nearly 250 years after the first American celebration took place in Boston in 1762. While a few traditions have changed, the ceremonial planting of potatoes around St. Patty’s Day remains strong, according to Burpee Chairman and CEO George Ball.”

I’ve never planted potatoes before in my life but I had a few old potatoes that I found sprouting eyes and have been holding onto with the thought that I might plant them this spring. When I saw this Pin

from Preparedness Mama I decided to give potato growing a try. We had an old laundry type basket that would be perfect. My biggest kiddo helped me drill a couple drain holes in the bottom then ran off to swing. My Little Miss was thrilled to get her hands dirty helping.

I used regular red potatoes from the grocery store that had sprouted eyes. I’ve read mixed reviews about whether they’ll work but I figured it didn’t hurt to try! I’ll update when and if they start growing!

You may have noticed on my Home page that there is a Google calendar. If you have interest in following along with when things were planted or sprouted or harvested you can find that information there.

On the back side of the property, hiding behind the pond, we found this big eye sore of a pile when we moved in. It had hunks of concrete with poles sticking out and a huge mound of one to two foot pieces of railroad ties. All fall I had it in my mind to burn it and get rid of the mess. Then one day when I was starting to plan my garden beds it occurred to me that those really expensive railroad ties I was pricing at Lowes were already in my backyard! They were two foot sections instead of six or eight but they still worked the same way. When the weather warmed up in February I got out there and started sorting and hauling pieces out of that pile. I was super thankful that my husband picked up a little trailer to go behind our riding lawn mower at a yardsale last summer! That made my life so much easier. It didn’t take long to turn that pile into a decent sized raised bed. I threw in some partially composted straw from the rabbit hutch and topped it off with miracle grow potting soil. Since it’s going to be my greens bed I had to come up with something to keep the rabbits and critters out. After looking around some more I drug the old very ugly door off chicken coop over and laid it on top of the bed. I planted my seeds in 70 degree sunshine, then went in and read that the weekend forecast was calling for a hard freeze and snow! I’m crossing my fingers they survive the cold.