Saturday, February 20, 2010

A Tale of Gardens Past

In the mid 80s I grew a small garden. In this garden I grew bush beans, onions and potatoes (don't remember what else). The onions were a Spanish yellow type from sets. They got to 2 inches or so and were very pungent. The beans multiplied about 10 fold, not a great success.
The Taters, oh the taters are a tale. I grew two beds (4 X 12), one bed planted in ground, the other under straw. They were both planted in staggered rows, 12 inch spacing, the in ground 4 inches deep. The mulch planted ones were half their diameter in the ground, then covered with 6 inches of straw. As the summer progressed both beds showed growth, the mulched better than the in ground. In the middle of August the ground planted ones were under attack, the tops laying on the ground, the taters gone. MOLES. Not 3 feet away the mulched plants grew on.
I harvest 25 pounds of nice large clean taters from the mulched plants, 0 from the ground grown, the critters got them all.

1 comment:

Annie*s Granny said...

I've never tried potatoes under straw. I have grown some humongous Kennebecs by filling a trench with aged horse manure, then planting potatoes on each side of the trench a couple feet away from it, and keeping the potatoes hilled up. That was in my big garden at our previous house, no room for it any more.