Wednesday, June 2, 2010

My new Old Tiller - the Roto-Hoe

I'm looking for used tiller. I guess the proper is a roto-tiller. Hillary saw one on her way to Hannan HS one morning. But it was gone, on her return trip.

There have not been any in the newspaper. So I started asking neighbors if they had one. Well it turns out that Gary Woody, the fellow that plowed the garden for me had one that needed a new belt. at first, I thought it was too large. It has rear tines and 9 hp motor. But the asking price was too good to pass up. I just love it.

I spend about an hour a day in the garden. Sometimes more, sometimes less. Today I discovered that the dreaded potato bug, so I sprayed with Capt. Jack's Deadbug, it is supposed to be organic. I was hilling the potatoes. When I found the potato bug.

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

New Gardener

We recently moved into a house with a large garden plot. Large may not be a big enough word. It is close to a quarter of an acre. Almost 10,000 ft.².

We moved in the middle of March, just in time for spring planting. We hired a neighbor to plow and disk the ground. Then my friend Shane volunteered to bring over his tiller and we tilled the garden.




The Farmer's almanac said that April 2, plus a data plan potatoes. So on April 2nd and 3rd I planted three rows of potatoes. Each of the rows is about 100 feet long. I planted, Yukon Gold, Pennington reds, and kennebec, about 50 pounds in all.

Here are the potatoes at about 3 weeks old.

I have just hilled them for the first time.on the left. You see six cabbage plants a row of onions.

It is now time to hill them again.

We had a picnic for the Memorial Day weekend, and I dug my first potatoes. We just dug up one plant to see how they were doing, and it had four small potatoes on it. I am so excited.


Hilary claimed the corner by the Apple tree for her urban flower garden. And it is growing quite well. We've enjoyed several cuts of cilantro already.