Potato Planting

Last week's plowing cut today's work down from 10 hours to 96 minutes.  (Last year, tilling, composting, moving the compost, digging rows, and planting took nearly 10 hours.)

First, James and my M., my sister, marked the rows with yard sticks and a broken hoe.

Each line is approximately two feet apart.

(Remember it from last year?)

 Next, James, my dad, my sister, and I began digging trenches for the potatoes.  Dad and I worked under the "dig a row, plant a row" banner while James and M. dug like machines!

Not too long after, some new-to-the-Ranch friends came with another trusty shovel and strong back.

On with planting!  Each potato is loosely 12" away from the previous.  Loosely because we didn't measure.

After covering the potatoes with SIGNIFICANTLY less labor than last year, we celebrated with a little lunch.

Tuna salad and egg salad on homemade bread.

Welcome to Purgatory!

Many thanks to our friends and family who made such short work of planting!  Dan and Myle, we missed you.

There's still plenty of space for more goodies.  We're thinking onions.  What else?

And, one more important item of business:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE SCREAMER!

Until next time, remember, this is not paradise.  It's Purgatory Ranch.

Potato Preparation

Start with seed potatoes.  Lots of seed potatoes, if you're as crazy as we are.  This year, we're planting

31 pounds of Kennebec (2011's champion)

10 pounds of Yukon Gold (2011's least productive)

15 pounds of Purple Viking (2011's middle in productivity)

15 pounds of Dakota Crisp, new to us this year

5 pounds of Red Norland, another new potato to us.

(76 pounds!) 

Also, 5 pounds of All Blue will be coming in a few weeks.

You also need a good, sharp knife.  I used a knife from my kitchen..

 Each of my potatoes was cut into smaller pieces, about the size of a hen's egg, and each piece had to contain at least 2 eyes, although some contained plenty more.  I noticed the Yukon had a bad habit of being full of eyes at its narrow end, but then the bulk of the potato had no other eyes.  Does that coincide with productivity in any way?

Some people recommend cutting the potatoes several days in advance, then lying them out to dry and heal, but I cut mine the day before since I don't have space for 76 pounds of seed potatoes to lay out.

After cutting into pieces and discarding any moldy/rotten parts, I loaded the potatoes back into their bags and into the back of the van for moving to their planting sight.

Until next time, remember, this is not paradise.  It's Purgatory Ranch.

katie z.

Plowing

 Saturday, "plowing day," in three parts.

Part I, 8 am delivery of 6 tons of compost at less than $15 a ton.  It was chilly, in the 30s, but once we started working, I had to take off my winter coat.

6 tons of compost.

Preparing to sell our mower, as we have no tractor for it currently.

After Mike the compost guy left, we began felling red cedars.  Why, you might ask?  Red cedars are considered a noxious week and make it hard for us to plow up larger plots for our food.  When we bought the land over two years ago, the previous owners had cut and burned the largest of the cedars.  Our original plan had been to burn our front 20 acres, thus killing all the cedars and any other not-so-pleasant undesirables, but county regulations had other things to say.  Since we are within a mile of an air strip, we are not allowed to burn.

Plan B?  Axes and bow saws.  Next time, I'm using loppers.

Excellent camouflage, no?

Our tree hauler!

Early in our tree piling, before James used it as a resting place,
 only to discover I had also been cutting down honey locusts!
(Ouch!)

 Unfortunately, I failed to snap a picture of James as he felled cedars with one blow.

The end of the pile, over 100 trees.

 Intermission, we attended a nearby auction when we learned that the man with the plow would not arrive until 12:30.  It should be noted that we (James in particular) are not to be trusted alone at most auctions.  Last time, we bought a tractor that nearly killed James.

This time, being more prudent, we only bought a tool box and a fence post driver.  (I really appreciate the Google search engines for things like this.  Fence post driver?  We called it all kinds of things as I didn't know its proper name!)

Part II, in which I fail to take pictures of the tilling.  My dad asked that we plow this year, as our heavy clay needs to be broken up, but he found a man who thought we only needed tilling (again... James still maintains we never needed to plow) since the ground was soft from all the rain.

Wow.  The two plots look amazing.

Supervising the plowing and assisting with his own hoe.
Doesn't the drive look lovely with gravel?!

 After plowing, we showed the girls how to plant sprouted potatoes left from last year's harvest.  It will be their own little garden to care for, and will hopefully keep them busy!

Next week, planting!  We have 6 varieties of potatoes, including All-Blue.  We're going to make a party of it!

Until next time, remember, this is not paradise.  It's Purgatory Ranch.

Dryer Free Month

I didn't turn on my dryer this winter until November 30.  Thank God I was using it during the Great Vomit, as I think in the space of a week and a half, I washed 12 or more loads of laundry.

At the end of December, I realized certain members of my family were still operating under the delusion that I didn't use my dryer, so I decided to try not using it again for all of January.  After all, I had strung lines in the basement and received a new drying rack for Christmas.

It turned out, other than timing loads and the necessity of washing each and every day, it was no more labor intensive than throwing the clothes in the dryer.  Certain clothes belonged on hangers and the rest required folding, regardless of how they dried.

I did learn to throw in a load every night, or, at the latest, first thing in the morning.  I had to be prompt about hanging up clothes and turning on a fan at night if clothes weren't drying fast enough.  We've had an incredibly mild winter, so between a lack of dryer use and lower heating costs, the gas bill is half of last years'.  If the winter were colder, our basement would be chillier, which might make it difficult for me to keep up.

Now to see how long before I turn it on next...

Until next time, remember, this is not paradise.  It's Purgatory Ranch.

The week in review

We visited the land on Sunday since our neighbor Uncle Bruce had called to say he found a solution to our uncapped well.

Who knew a rusted out chicken feeder would fit so perfectly?

Today, at the store for a few fresh essentials, I discovered canning lids in the CLEARANCE section!  At 60% off, almost 360 lids, which should safely take care of next fall's canning (unless Myle and I get REALLY adventurous)!

I seem to have trouble getting the Barn Hop picture (again).  See what other homesteads have accomplished this week.

Until next time, remember, this is not paradise.  It's Purgatory Ranch.

A Christmas Gift I can use...

Frequently, my mother-in-law and I have very different views on what I would like to have for a gift.  God bless her, she has amazing taste and buys very lovely things... it's just not my taste and not my lovely.

Imagine my excitement when she actually clicked on the links I sent her and received THIS for Christmas!

A pioneer drying rack from Forgotten Way!  James frowned when I asked him to help me assemble this, and oh, dear, I need a drill, but once he realized it was just a few screws to hold the dowels in place, we were both very happy with how quickly this assembled.

Our only hiccup came when James returned to the house with his electric drill, which I had found run over by the van (I don't know which of us committed such an atrocity, but there it is!), which would NOT work to drill the pilot holes.  Then, as James said, he "went Amish" and fetched the hand-powered drill I had purchased for his Christmas gift in 2010.  Don't you love it when you buy a good gift?

Until next time, remember,this is not paradise, it's Purgatory Ranch.

End of the Year

And we have been absent, but not idle.

Rain continues to fall on Purgatory Ranch, giving us a full pond for the first time in two years.

Isn't the ice beautiful?

Did you know that you can't but a cap for 8" PCV pipe around here?  6" will have to do, and we only capped the inner pipe.  It's a good thing Uncle Bruce came through and figured out a way to cap the pipe after we left.