Saturday, May 2, 2009

Potato Admiration

I was reading ATW's post about how he and his wife are having an herb contest and I can so relate! My husband and I disagree on just about everything (when they say opposties attract, we took it to the EXTREME). Usually with us, the person with more experience gets his/her way... not so with the garden.






Take the above photo. It is of my good neighbor's potato patch. See how close the rows are? See how close the plants are? SIGH. THAT's how I wanted MY potatoes to be planted. Why? Well, it works for my neighbor and it's space saving.



This photo is of 1/2 of our potato area. See all the missing holes? Complete missing rows ~ okay you don't know what's missing, but I do! I told my husband that we should plant like good neighbor, but noooooooo... we have to do it well spaced out. So, now? Now we get to double the size of our garden because we're out of room. (And, if you're wondering why I didn't plant the potatoes myself, well, we were working "together" that day and I let him have his way.)
It's somewhat hard to see, but Jerry is scalping the lawn about 15 feet out from the current garden. This will give us roughly 35' x 75' plus several raised beds that are in another part of the yard. I had wanted to enlarge it last fall, but it didn't happen - we were debating the merits of enlarging it... suffice to say, he came to my conclusion. *ahem*



Since you're here touring, let me show you what's growing...




See all the greenery in the rows between the raised beds? Can you guess what they are? If you said potatoes, you are the Winner! Winner! Chicken Dinner! (what does that mean, anyway? lol) When you don't harvest 100%, the ones left in the ground will grow the next spring. So, we have about 25 bonus plants growing in all kinds of odd places. If they survive the traffic patterns, we'll harvest them too.

Raspberry bushes are looking quite flush. Only 1 failed to sprout so back it goes for an exchange.

Broiler chickens are huddled together in the revised chicken tractor. It's chilly and drizzly today, but they are fully feathered so should be okay. At night, their tractor is covered and stays very warm. I only wish we knew how old they were - we bought them from Atwoods & all they could tell us was they were between 1 - 4 weeks old. So, they are now somewhere between 5 -8 weeks. We plan to butcher around Memorial Day weekend.

Strawberry beds are not as assalted with the poultry netting on, but the Chickens still get in and create havoc. We'll be ordering the electric poultry fencing. We'll either put it around the garden to keep the girls out or create a run to keep them in. It's being debated. :D
Speaking of keeping things out, I don't know if I shared a photo of the rhubarb rescue Jerry built. It has worked great at keeping the horses from eating the stalks to the ground. They keep trying, but they can't quite reach the edge to pull it over. Ha ha ha ~ foiled you!

14 comments:

ChristyACB said...

Looking good! What kind of potatoes are you growing? And are they the kind you need to keep burying to get or the kind that grow at one shot?

Jena said...

Lol, I guess everyone must have the same "disagreements". At least my husband stays out of my garden, until I really need something rototilled. The downside of that is that I don't think he has much respect for the garden or how much money it saves us. Your potatoes look great though! Mine are not up yet and I'm starting to get worried. Your raspberries and broilers look great too. I would guess them at much closer to 5 weeks than to 8, but just a guess. They should be a lot bigger at 8 weeks for sure. Very clever rhubarb cover. Darn horses!

Christy said...

I'm going to be getting a bunch of poultry netting soon to keep the goats out of some of the plants. Especially my strawberries. I don't know how anyone manages to grow those!

Judy T said...

I need to get something over my strawberries. We don't have horses or chickens but something has been eating the new leaves on my strawberries. Fencing it is tomorrow...
Judy

Unknown said...

Oh i envy you! I love your garden!! And your chickens they're soo cute!

Sue said...

Everything looks like its coming along good.
Hubby and I tend to disagree on many things too. Some ya win, some ya lose. There's always next year :)

ATW said...

Your garden looks great. I wish I had time to manage broilers. I would love to have them. And I have a question about blackberries. I planted Blackberries stalks and I am concerned if they are growing. Because the stalks do not have any sprouts on them. But there are leaves and stems that are coming out of the ground that are next to where I have planted the stalk. They appear to be blackberry leaves But I cant tell. Can you give me any insight?

Jena said...

ATW - I have that same predicament with the raspberries I planted last year. The two remaining sticks look dead but there are suspicious leaves around the base. I don't know what to make of it either.

The Three Little Bears said...

I also just want to tell you thank for taking the time to comment on my post today. It was hard for me to write and even harder to publish it. I love and admire my friends so much (especially since I am SO picky about who my friends are) that this has been weighing on my mind for a while. And it certainly is taking away from the pregnancy experience and I can tell that it is stressing me out because for the first time since I've gotten pregnant, my IBS (irritable bowel) is acting up and my braxton hicks contractions are also bothering me more and becoming more concerning.

But it really helped me SOOOOO much to hear the loving support from others. In fact, after I read all the comments, my husband walked in the room and I burst into tears and had myself a really good cry while he held me. It was the first time this whole pregnancy that I've done that and it was much needed! Because of that, it will be so much easier to move forward and keep my eye on the finishing line and beyond.

Thank you so much....

Phelan said...

stick some watermelon seeds between your potatoes. They do well together.

Did you break up with me?

Phelan said...

Hope you don't mind me butting in. Those of you that are having issues with your blackberries, those are suckers growing in next to your plants. They should grow just fine. You will find "dead" stalks, and they will need to be pruned down every year, but your roots are still alive and that's what really matters. (suckers are only bad with your stone fruits, like peaches)

Peter Daniels said...

Looks like you could use a few Wichita Rain Barrels! Go to wichitarainabrrels.com for more info or check out my blog at
http://wichitarainbarrel.blogspot.com/2009/01/why-have-rain-barrel.html


hope to see you soon!

Angie said...

Your garden and chickens look fabulous! I love "finding" those forgotten plants like your potatoes!

Kateri said...

I envy your space! I crowd everything as in as close as I can get. You and your husband sound me and mine--the only difference is, if it the garden or kitchen, I get my way, if it anywhere else outside or in the house he gets his...