Friday, August 6, 2010

Digging Potatoes

We have been having a break from the rain which has been wonderful.  Things are starting to dry out a little around here finally.  My DH mowed the lawn yesterday after work and he reported that there were no wet spots this time.

I went out to dig some potatoes for supper the other day only to find that they were starting to rot in the ground, so we dug up two rows, only got a small pail of red potatoes from seven hills that I had planted.  The rest of the two rows were bakers, they had all rotted.  How disappointing to turn over big clumps of potatoes only to see they were rotten.   My DH then dug a few hills in the main part of the garden in the lowest area, they were either rotten or no potatoes at all.  We have just a little over a row that seem to look like they may do alright, the plants are still mostly green yet.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   Gardening in clay soil has certainly been challenging this year.  We will work on getting more compost and things added to the garden before next year.  I just need to learn more about gardening in clay, it is a big change going from very sandy soil to this (still prefer the clay over sand).

On a brighter side our grandsons spent the night and will be going home later today.  We always enjoy it when they come.  Although I think they're trying to eat us out of house and home.  After supper last night of chicken and dumplings they had chocolate cake, the oldest one said that would last until popcorn and malts later.  Time to feed them again, they are waiting for their breakfast.  Grandma duties are calling and I love it!!
 
Have a wonderful day!

3 comments:

Kelle at The Never Done Farm said...

So sorry to hear about the rotten potatoes, it's heart breaking :o( We had that happen three summers ago, our late Summer and Fall was riddled with rain, rain and more rain. Finally we went out with our mud boots on in mid Sept and dug taters, only to find as you did, many were rotten, many were soft( starting to decay) and a few for us to eat and approx. 150lbs to store. Typically we harvest 700-900lbs of spuds a year, so you can see our loss was great. BTW, our soil is sandy and still they rotted.

LOL! I understand feeding boys( especially growing boys. I didn't realize how much our son ate until he left the nest and all of the sudden my cooking had to scale WAY back, otherwise we had leftovers for a week( from one meal*wink*)
Enjoy your Grandma duties, unfortunately we don't get to see our grandkids enough,the kids are so busy working to earn a living there isn't much time for visiting*sigh*

Mary @ Neat and Tidy said...

What a disappointment! Aren't you glad you don't have to be totally depending on your own gardening abilities. We can't grow food in our soil, but we buy from the farmers when we can.

Cheryl said...

Kelle, what a disappoint that must have been to lose so many potatoes. We have been blessed our grandsons have always lived very close to us and even with us at one time. When we had to move our daughter-in-love moved also, so that was nice or we would have been three hours away.,

Mary, I am very thankful that we do not have to totally depend on living off the garden, as we don't have room for corn, pumpkins, and squash. We buy from local farmers who raise large gardens and sell the extra, God always supplies.