Getting filthy

On Saturday, Daddy and I had to finally admit the potato plants were dead. I admit I was more the a bit nervous that we would find nothing. Brother on the other hand had thoughts that he would have enough potatoes he could sell them to the grocery store.

Dead potatoes

May I just say the word filthy comes to mind when digging these out of the bags. I swear I still have dirt in my hair, no matter how we tried to extract these things. However, the best method we came up with is to have Daddy hold the bag on the side of the bin we were putting the dirt into.

Sitting on the size of the bin

 Brother, Pooka  and I  (mostly brother and I since we didn't have enough space for all of us) would then reach in and form a bit of a cavern in the bag looking for potatoes. The dirt would fall into the bin and we could be sure we were pulling out all the potatoes as we went.

Cavern of potatoes

We didn't have a great crop, but we had over a 1 pound of blue potatoes. they are about the size of baby potatoes at the grocery store (you know, the ones that are $3.99 for a lb and a half) so that is what we priced it against. I think next year we will have to pay a bit more attention to what we were doing, and Brother is still excited to eat them. I was about to call it a failure, but Daddy said "since we got at least one meal out of it, not to call it a failure but a learning experience and isn't that what this garden is for, to teach the kids and us." Point taken

Our potato crop

What are we going to do with the all the dirt that came out of those bags? Daddy had us empty into this old plastic bin that was in the shed. After looking at it, (and not wanting to have to carry it back into the shed) Pooka and I decided to plant a few more sugar snap peas in it and let them grow. We will be sticking some wood in it to make a small trellis, and then letting them grow onto the deck. This way, the dirt isn't just sitting around and we can put some nitrogen back into the soil so it can be reused next year for something.

Reused and reuse and reuse