Garden Journal: 4 Feb 2009: Potatoes

Seed potatoes before covering

Had a little break from work so I spent the afternoon preparing the potato bed and planting the potatoes. Got the bamboo woven without too much difficulty (green strips would work much better but I was able to make what I had work).

Dug out the cedar mulch and grass and then lined the bed with weed mat before putting in the soil. I had forgotten that the cedar mulch was particularly deep in that spot (I think it's about where the front-yard load was dropped).

Soil is about 1/2 my compost and 1/2 soil/compost mix that we bought. Scratched in a couple of cups of old bat guano fertilizer I found in the garage.

Covered seed potatoes with about 3 inches of soil and watered with rain water.

Had a few left-over potato chunks, so I planted those in one corner of the tomato bed.

Julie's mother is in town and made quinoa for us, a South American grain similar to amaranth that cooks up a bit like cous-cous. It's pretty tasty and a pretty amazing food stuff. It is one of the few grains that provides an almost complete protein, better than soy beans. Did a little research and it should grow fine around here in the cool months. Might try growing some.

Separated my new worm bin from the old worm bin--the new bin seemed to have enough worms to be self-sustaining at this point. Going to try the "old dirt, new bedding" technique for finishing the worm compost in the old bin--I want to maintain my worm population, so I don't want to just let the old bin die out, but I also want the worm compost to be as finished as possible--I tend to be a bit impatient and don't always let it finish completely.

I've also added some worms to the leaf and chicken bedding compost pile, which should eventually turn that into a giant worm bed, at least for a while.