Potatoes

Lily helped me pick potatoes this past weekend. It was pretty easy seeing as there weren't that many. Sometimes I feel like in gardening I learn a thing or two, then take a few steps backwards, then try again and learn a few more things and then again I take a few steps backwards. Is this how it is for you other gardeners? I guess it's kind of like writing, awesome and really frustrating at the same time. I can't even compare it to parenting, because in that realm I'm pretty much walking backwards the entire time while Lily leaps ahead of me.

The first potato I planted on St. Patty's Day didn't do a thing. I tried again almost two months later. I planted the potato in the large garbage can in just a few inches of soil mixed with compost. As it grew I mounded up over it. It grew some more; I mounded more; it grew; I mounded...you get the picture. And all this time I had such high hopes, dreams of being buried under the enormous piles of potatoes we were going to harvest.


Pipe dreams, baby, pipe dreams. I can count the spuds on two hands, 8. Yep, that's right 8 potatoes. Hardly enough for even a teensy tiny pile. Two of them are barely the size of a quarter so I'm not even sure I can count those. Honestly I had more luck doing nothing, and I mean nothing. The potatoes that spontaneously grew out of our compost pit this year grew like they were on acid; we had meal after meal of delicious, sugary-sweet, fresh picked potatoes without me doing a thing.

Oh well, at least Lily had fun chucking them around the garden. She's learning to throw which right now is her holding the potato/ball up over her head and tossing it off behind her. Pretty cute. It sure is hard to stay mad at my potatoes when she's around.