Panicking about potatoes

Well I have not been rained on for three days, and I am officially terrible at giving up coffee, so here is a post from an extremely excitable person who has had some great caffeine fuelled days.

I am also excited, because tomorrow I am finally granted a day off, in which I can go to my friend Frank’s house and do her gardening, something which has been put off three weeks in a row due to weather.

Planting potatoes

On Monday I got a deep, frustrated feeling about needing scores and scores of potatoes. I’ve been trying to focus my vege gardening onto things that I know my family will all happily eat, and I had forgotten potatoes, so tomorrow I am going to buy some seed potatoes (Agrias, a good all rounder potato) and pot them all up.

I’m skipping ahead a few weeks and putting the potatoes in now, because they aren’t affected by the cold or weather changes nearly as much as other plants. I drew a handy picture for you as to how I do grow mine entirely in pots. Our paid post this week goes into a bit more depth.

How I grow my potatoes in 50L pots without making an effort to buy any new garden mix or potting mix

Some updates

A few months ago I looked at people who cut their lomandra down to 10cm high every year, and we tried it with one at a clients place. I am annoyed, because digging it up, dividing it and replanting has yielded much worse results. I think cutting lomandra down every year may be a decent idea-

There she is. I should drag a dark board around me wherever I go, to put behind the things I want to photograph so my photos are better for you.

And even longer ago- my diary says February- we cut a client’s buxus down about halfway, to get rid of blight damage and encourage better growth. Well, it’s looking promising!

The floof!

And I finally remembered to take a photo of my favourite flowering cherry tree, Prunus serrulata ‘Shimidsu Sakura.’ And there’s a bonus in there- in front of it there are two lomandra which I didn’t cut down to the ground, and one of which I tried to divide, that has a really poor form now-

So all in all, good day for updates.

What we’ve been doing this week

Mowing, mowing and mowing again. I have also been doing a lot of edging, because clean edges on a lawn means people are more forgiving of 4 metre tall grass…

We stop planting (without setting up irrigation) on Oct 30, so there has been a lot of planting…

And have I mentioned weeding and mulching yet? And how much less work you have, if you are able to mulch? A friend is about to pick up some hessian sacking which some of our products come in, as it is an inexpensive form of weedmatting that lasts about 9 months. I don’t have the patience for it, I much prefer cardboard or jute, but it is a good option (as is using the woolen blankets that come with food deliveries).

I trimmed my first few hedges today, against better judgement, and we have resumed our health sprays for hedges which are susceptible to blight (and all manner of other things)- essentially, keep them well fertilised, well watered and if they are particularly bad, we spray them with horticultural soap.

That’s it! Have a fantastic weekend, everyone. Remember that 3 days of sun does not mean that the cold is over- hang onto your summer veg for a little bit longer, and if it is a nice day, leave it outside as long as possible, then pop it back under cover at night. Have a great week.

(I hit ‘send’ and it only sent to half my subscriber list, so this is the second sending. Apologies to anyone who received this twice)