Potato Harvest Complete

With a grand total of 130 pounds of potatoes, we did well. We pulled 5 very small bulbs of garlic.

By offering our neighbor to the south some potatoes, we became the recipients of 6 dozen "farm fresh" eggs. Our neighbor is very generous.

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

Potatoes!

As of July 4, we have harvested 97 pounds of potatoes. Yum!

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

Potato Harvest...

... in the rain.

Yesterday, the family visited the land with my brother, his wife, and their two girls. Our girls slept through most of it.

Since it was raining briskly when we arrived, only I opted to exit the car and soak my clothes in order to dig potatoes. The total yesterday? 16 pounds. I'm just getting started, too, so there may be lots of potatoes in our future. Some are already trying to resprout, so it's time to harvest them.

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

Fruit of the Land

Today, the high is forecasted to be 100. We were due for a trip to the land, intending to harvest potatoes for the baptism this weekend, as well as to see if our labor had borne any fruit at all.

Behold, the fruit of the land! From six plants, we harvested 10-12 pounds of potatoes, both Yukon Gold and Purple Viking. The plants-sans-compost are going to have a very poor harvest, but it was a useful lesson for us to learn this year.

I must admit, digging up potatoes is very fun. I enjoy filling the bucket with produce that I have been a part of growing. Of course, it will be a few more weeks before we harvest everything, but I think we will do better than 40 pounds of potatoes grown from 40 pounds planted.

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

June 2

I arrived second to the land in the evening, around 7:15. Dan had arrived just moments before, but that's fine as he had the important equipment: a trailer to mow our overgrown paths. A nearby neighbor kindly loaned it (he even brought it and mowed part of the trails). Part of me thinks it would be great fun to have a tractor to drive around, but then the other part of me is reminded of the costs involved and how I want to do more with less... is a tractor in the plans? James arrived a little later with his dad and family, who had never before seen the land. I think it's overgrown state was a little more than they expected.

Then again, Dan almost hitting the van with the trailer was a little more than I was expecting.

We can one again drive to Six Penny Pond and search for the skunk. The saplings have paths around them so the grass competes just a little less.

I managed to weed one more row of potatoes, trying to lay down my weeds as neatly as my dad had on Monday, when he completed a row. The obvious distinction between use of compost and not will continue to be a lesson for me on soil quality. I tend to grow things a bit willy-nilly, attending to weeding and care of the plant more than care of the soil. Not anymore.

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

Weeding Duty Take 2

Take 2 of weeding was not particularly successful. James replaced the dead saplings, but due to his goat milking duty, by the time he finished replanting, it was too hot for Q to stand it. He just cried while I attempted to weed. It was time to call it quits.

Dad did go out (God bless him) and weeded an entire row. Just one row consumed nearly an hour of his time.

We will conquer the grass, so we will be back bright and early Monday morning.

Until next time, remember: This is not paradise. It's Purgatory Ranch. (If it were paradise, this wouldn't be the current state of James' shovel.)

Weeding Duty

After a several-week hiatus from visiting the land, James and I took our children out to weed potatoes before a house-hunting expedition.

When you see this, do you keep going, or turn back?

James opted to gun the motor and forge ahead. It's a good thing too, as we had to cross that to reach the potatoes. No, we didn't get stuck. Our neighbor across the way would have laughed to pull us out for a second time since we bought the land.

The potatoes-cum-compost are rocking. They are over 12" high, meaning we need to hill them the next time out. Of course, the weeds are keeping pace. I weeded three rows of the potatoes-sin-compost, although I didn't weed in between the rows. I determined that the potatoes don't need competition, but I'm not about to weed my walking paths (yet). Considering that we thought maybe none of the potatoes were going to make it, this is a beautiful sight.

There are also 6 garlic stalks, so we may be able to harvest some garlic as well by the end of the summer.

We took a tree-inspection tour. The first 300 feet had no dead trees, but after that, we found about 15. Given the inexperience that accompanied tree planting, a 15% mortality rate is excellent. We still have some lilacs in a barrel in our yard in town, and next time we go out, we should take it with us.

Our neighbor across the way thought we were out early for city folk (8:30 am is not early with three small children) and brought us some sugar-packed cereal for the girls that he had received with his newspaper this morning. James visited with him for a while, and I continued weeding. I like the satisfaction of seeing the piles of grass trampled in my wake.

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