40+ pounds of potatoes
I’ve been involved in conventional and organic farming for years, both in Oregon and Washington State. Currently, we have building projects (including our house) that take priority, so serious farming is on hold for now.
In the mean time, we still have a small garden for salad greens, squash and other compact crops.
Lately, I’ve been experimenting with an easy “no till” method. Our land is old forest that has been turned to pasture in places. For our small garden, I initially tilled one truckload of compost in. After that, when I mowed with the lawn tractor I bagged and dumped the grass in to rot down.
Last spring I had some old organic potatoes that were a year old and sprouting. I took about fifteen or twenty potatoes, threw them on the ground and covered them with a bale of old rotting hay that was an archery backstop.
I dug them up last week, which was very easy because they were bedded in the hay. The picture is not very clear as it was getting dark, but there were 40-50 pounds of nice white potatoes in there!
I dusted them off a bit and put them on newspaper in one of our utility buildings to dry before storage.
For those of you at home with small gardens, try this easy method for good results. My plan is to just keep layering the garden with leaves, grass clippings etc. and till as little as possible.
The worms love it too, a very good sign!
