Grooving. On a Thursday Afternoon ......
With apologies to the, Young Rascals for that title.

After being surprised to find that I was supposed to work yesterday, yep, they called and said "Do you know you're supposed to be at work?"

I hate when I do that. My regular schedule is every Saturday and Sunday. Since I haven't been able to pick up any extra days for the last month I just forgot that I had a Wednesday tossed in there to work. DUH!

Oh well. I was a little late, but made it. It rained all day anyway and I'd already gotten the garage cleaned up and that was probably about all I was gonna get done anyway. So being able to make a few extra bucks was all good.

Today I was sure there were no surprises in store like that.

Called one of the local farmers who sells straw and ran over & picked up 10 bales for Potato mulch and Chicken House bedding.

One of the advantages of country living is when you need to know who to talk to about, say buying straw, you ask most anyone and you find out. I've been dealing with this guy for 4-5 years now and he cuts me a deal even on the small amounts I get.

My Potatoes have really taken off in the last week and it was time to get with the program of maximizing them as I Talked about here

I've had pretty good luck with this method in the past for getting the most from a small space.

Here you can see where I mounded dirt all up around and over parts of the plants.







This will give the new growth some good soil to take off in. I took my time and tucked it all in well and gently.

Next I got some old ratty chicken wire I had stashed in back of the barn and strung it around a few stakes and packed the straw in tight around the plants, basically burying them.





I'll add a bit of dirt to this in a week or so and keep up layering the whole mess till the sprouts reach the top of the fence.

With any luck, I'll have multiple layers of potatoes filling each bed.

We'll see anyway. It's worked well in the past so it should work again.

Check out the Maters in the Hoophouse -




They are close to 4 foot high & several have blossoms on them now.

This is cool.

Ok. That's it for now. I gotta go take a shower and wash my nasty self.