After rebuilding the fence around my whole garden, I turned to getting the rows between the log terraces cultivated and planted.
But first a payoff from some previous work- Potatoes coming up in my potato towers- after I thought they were no-shows. Pontiac red, Burbank Russet, Yukon Gold; all made their appearance. I bought these last winter before I had an idea where to put them, and hid them in a pool dark corner of the garage- they sprouted of course and many were lost.
To add injury to injury I had chitted them and left them out in the sun on a warm day, and killed many of the new sprouts. But the survivors I put into these refurbished bins on May 24 with a speculative shrug- and here they are sprouting up
But the main effort today was breaking up the sod, broadforking a 30 foot row with wood ash, bone meal, and bacteria supplement. With so much clay, this is an exercise that must be undertaken at the right moment, when the ground is not hard and not sticky. Hanging on the broadfork to get it to loosen the sod, I also broke up some tree roots over an inch in diameter, which was a pretty good payoff for the work. Then covered with two layers of cardboard and later I will add topsoil and compost to make my first "outside" row. I guess this garden will have to work a bit at a time, which means it will probably be next year before I get the whole thing planted. The picture after I replaced the cardboard layer that blocks out sun and suppresses the grass does not show the work I did, but it's ready now for a layer of compost and topsoil and finally some seeds.
The potato tower is built out of 2x6's made into stackable frames. The idea is to "hill up" the potatoes you only have to add another frame and six inches of compost once they have grown six inches of stalk. Harvesting is made simple- just pull off the frames and pick out the potatoes.
This stack of two is ready for soil. The bottom frame has cardboard and hardware cloth attached to keep out moles and weeds. You can see the chits I'm about to lay out and bury in the first six inches of topsoil.
I failed at my first attempt to grow potatoes this way due to overwatering. That was in LA. We'll see if I can make it work at Folly-up-the-creek. I do know that the native soil is like concrete when it gets dry, so potatoes would be very hard digging in the fall. This might work if I use compost to fill the frames.
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