Our potato experiment

It could have worked. Next year, it will. There's a patch of natural weeds to the south of our garden spot just begging for some attention. Since there's not need to till your garden each year, I talked JC into helping me with the potato experiment.
Because I cannot resist seed catalogs I ordered 25 sets of red, white and blue potatoes. (The hummingbird is behind me.) We do not have room in the garden for all those plants so we thought if we could make use of the little property beside it we would learn a few things.
So we thought if we used some Roundup to kill the weeds, dug some holes (85 in all) and planted potatoes, we could super mulch and the weeds would stay away and the potatoes would thrive. We have sandy river-bottom soil.
Well, it began good and well, but as the days passed the weeds became stronger and stronger. We are thinking the weeds were not thoroughly killed and they came back, with a vengeance. Even after mulching with straw and paper; almost creating a paper mache around each plant, the spurge and showy milkweed among other natives just wouldn't give up.
The potatoes survived, at least most of them, but by comparison to the ones in the garden in town, they are tiny.... and that's too bad, I was really looking forward to some awesome colored spuds.
So yesterday while roaming around in the jungle of a garden I thought I would see what was under those tiny plants. Well, guess what, there's potatoes down there. Not huge, but we got a late start. I was very excited and so plans are to pull those at the end of summer and begin the kill system again... somehow, we should be able to get some thing to flourish and extend our garden, our local eating and our work. It's okay. The reward of fresh food outweighs anything that closely resembles work in the garden.

Pesto

Yep, made three batches this evening using a recipe from a cook book I have had in my possession for more than 20 years. It was called the International Cookbook and I think it was Better Homes and Garden. I have used many recipes from it including a German Easter bread that rocks. However, since it is not Easter and I had lots of basil I made pesto.

I bought some fresh garlic from Marv Baker of Carpio fame, picked the basil, added olive oil and grated Romano cheese, a tiny bit of salt, pepper and toasted pine nuts. Yep, got smart, toasted the pine nuts and use the Little Oscar to blend it up. I'm thinking my freezer is filling up with some good stuff for the upcoming winter, which appears to not be far behind this beautiful fall day.

We are going to see my parents this weekend and my mom has been saving the things from her CSA that she will not eat for us... turnips, beets, etc. I cannot wait. I'm making roasted potato salad with my potatoes, Marv's German garlic and some dill instead of the basil in the recipe. YUMMMMMMMM. Time to eat a bowl of those vegetables you can see in the photo on this site... that's where they ended up on Saturday and they just keep getting better and better.... it was a fine day in the neighborhood.