This week the weather has turned 'Irish'. It's wet, windy and cold. Where did the summer go? I shouldn't be surprised, this seems to happen every year. Global warming please come back!!
As for climate change, it changes by the bloody minute here. I managed to get SOME of the 'grass' cut and used the clippings to build up the potato heugel. As the potato plant grows you are supposed to 'earth up' around it to encourage the plant to grow taller therefore producing MORE tubers (potatoes).
Potatoes must be one of the easiest crops to grow so I always balked at the old 'blight' excuse I was being taught on my organic horticulture course. Why do people immediately blame microorganisms for plant 'disease' when, to me at least, it is obvious that the problem is environmental.
Ireland is VERY WET. This is why there is so much bogland. So much in fact that for hundreds of years people have used the bogs for fuel for their fires. Who knew you could burn MUD hahaha. But that is what it is, dried mud.
Potatoes were brought to us originally from the mountainous areas of Chile and Peru. Personally I like to look at the history of a plant, where it came from and so what it thrives in. Hillsides are very well drained and windy. Expecting them to thrive in animal manure and boggy soil is obtuse at best. (I love the word obtuse HA).
Blight is basically mould. Mould grows where their is moisture and a lack of oxygen. If a plant has blight it is drowning. Simple.
By building the heugal with dry grass cuttings it protects the plants from being overwatered but it also keeps some moisture from evaporating.
You can even actually grow potatoes in pure straw. Look up strawbale gardening.
So now I come to the point of the weird title of this post. 'Faith Like Potatoes' is actually the title of an odd film I stumbled across last week. It turned out it was a true story about a farmer in Africa (a white farmer).
The film starts out about the troubles for white farmers in Africa but the farmer doesn't seem to do himself any favours as he seems to be very racist, abusive to true Africans and very angry.
His life and farm are falling apart at which point he gets dragged to church by his wife and has a 'hallelujah moment'. After this he says he was told to put all his trust in God. He stops being angry and stops trying to fight nature. The point of the title comes to fruition at the end when against all the odds and advise he decides to plant potatoes during a drought.
Spoiler alert - I think you can guess after what I've said above, what happened. I was still dubious as the plants did not even appear to grow above the ground. It looked like an empty field of dried straw heugals. Under the ground tho there was a bumper crop of huge potatoes.
True story.
So I'm confident my potato huegel will be successful. It's also a great way to build a raised bed. Next year I will plant something else here and hopefully will have some solid sides to it, am thinking of making them out of some of the trees I have to chop down.
Potatoes are not only one of my favourite things to eat they are easy peasy to grow. I've even got at least 5 more 'volunteer' potatoes growing in the areas I weeded a couple of weeks ago. Happy days.
Thank God for potatoes.
My wife was having a go at me a few days ago, when she starts like that I just listen and smile til she is done, there were potatoes and a shit load of tomatoes growing in the greenhouse, she was blaming me, when she was done, I grabbed a handful of soil, it was her fertilizer/compost of tomatoes, potatoes etc she used, hence the unwanted growing in there, sometimes you got to wait to have the last laugh lol, she never appolgises, but it is the way she is 😂
oh so she is upset when food decides to grow of it's own accord? Signs of a control freak?
A place for everything, and everything a place, in her mind, I am used to it now.
That's what us women do. Organize you. funnily enough I didn't realize it myself until I watched this video the other day. Perfect M/F teamwork. Skip to the end where he explains in his shed how men and women compliment each other. It may help you work it out.
Nice way of living with some superb ideas too. Thanks.
Potatoes are great to grow and provide a lot of food.
I know right!!
Finally rain ,.. it's bin way to dry up here ,. spring had a hard time getting true . The last day's of rain made the green's grow and the birch trees get lot's of leaves . The darker pine tree green color is lit up by the fresh green leaves in the light of summer .
No potato's in my yard , would have to add to much to the soil for some good harvest ,. so i planted Jerusalem artichokes (sunchokes) witch do much better on the northern half of the planet . Got them already sticking there sprout out of the soil .
Faith like Jerusalem artichokes , it is then i guess ,. for me ,. Does sound a bit weird do ,.. but o.k. ill go with it . ;-)
It's all about finding out what wants to grow where. If artichokes are happy there then so be it but my point is you don't need to 'add to the soil' for a good harvest with potatoes. Less is more IMO.
The soil we have came from the swamp . Good rich soil , but death on oxygen and full of methane and co2 . It needs some time to vapor out the bad stuff and absorb some oxygen . So in a way it was not bad to have had a long dry spring .
We live in a little mountain valley , most soil is not more then half a meter thick before you hit solid rock , not very good for farming ,. so we made terraces of swamp dirt of 2 to 3 meters thick around the town . Original the plan was to have space for camping areas . The WEF and WHO plan's made us decide to plant as many crops as we can on those fields ,.. a 9 by 4 mtr poly-tunnel was made to this spring , to grow some alternatives like tomatoes and peppers . How a camping festival site turns to farming community . Still you can spend a camping holiday in town , room enough left , and we still have party's and live music in the bar . https://www.liberstad.com/
Sunchokes are a kind of like potato's ,.. and have no connection to Jerusalem at all , or artichokes . ;-)
https://www.thespruceeats.com/what-are-jerusalem-artichokes-and-how-to-use-them-4783505
Oh I dream of digging a fork in and not hitting rock. Mine is more rock than soil which is why I have to build it upwards. I guess ur swamp soil is like our peat.
hahhaa my fave Black Adder series!
oh no..... I've a fellow adder addict ?...shiiiiiiiiit
Addict no, fan yes. I saw Mr Bean once, sitting eating my lunch at the window bar and he just waltzes past. Happens a lot when you work in Oxford Circus.
.....yeah, living on Hollywood for those years made seeing 'mega celebrities' a pretty normal occurrence ...
.....could you not have just lied and said 'god yes, I'm an addict to'.....? lol...it would make my habit seem much more socially acceptable that way...
...Now I'm going off to watch some blackadder goes fourth - I think....I have every episode of every series, on hard drive........(hangs head in shame....)
hmm if I can find the series on couchguru I may join you for a bit of a binge. I tend to get addicted easily to lots of things but can move my addictions around. It's a pisces thing I hear.
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Gah, I always think: who was the first person who accidentally dropped some potato in hot oil and tasted it and saw God? Is there a better food!?
I've never had potato blight, but as you know, I don't have a probably with muddy soil! I've been growing them in these kinda chicken wire rounds in layers of straw, mounding up as they grow by throwing soil/straw in there and they do just fine. I've done it that way to save space in the garden proper and that way the chooks don't get in there to much up the straw and eat the potato leaves (seriously, ,chooks?wtf?)
It's wicked freezing here today and hot chips sounds like just the ticket. It's the hubs bearthday so irish stew and mash sounds about right as well, he'll lvoe me even more then!
Nothing bothers my pots here, it's the lettuce and baby seedlings that everything goes for. I put plastic bottles over babies until they're big enough to take a bit of munching and not die.
Im with you girl. . .
hahaha is he saying po-ta-toes with an irish accent?