Saturday, September 11, 2010

Garden end games

So we've got a few days of sun coming up. After some agony, I decided to dig up the potatoes. This is a job for the spading fork.
You go down the row and try to get the spading fork under all the potatoes. You can see a couple of potatoes brought to the surface for this maneuver. Then you get in there with your fingers and winkle out all the stragglers. When the sun is shining, this is a joy. You work your way down the row. Sort your potatoes, large and samll-to-medium. Slowly your containers fill up. Occasionaly you impale a potato with the fork. Tough.
At the end, I decided the cabbages were a go, most of them; so up they came too. Cut them off, pull the roots up, stuff them into a container.
So there we are. Cabbages and potatoes for the winter. The potatoes will last all winter. The cabbages are great, in spite of the wet summer; the traditional family borscht awaits. We have lots of beets, no problem.

There are still a few things left in the garden. The new garden was not so productive as the old; I expected this. It takes a while to build up the soil. But still, the new garden has been a success. Another small step on the road to self-sufficiency.

No comments:

Post a Comment