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Hilling Up the Potatoes

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We decided to try something different in the garden this year, and are mounding dirt up to almost the top inches of the potato  plants. I don’t remember any of my relatives doing this, but we have seen others do it, and decided to give it a try.  It is supposed to increase your potato  yield. The guys in husband’s Friday morning Bible study were pretty skeptical when he told them about it, but just the other day I drove past a garden where someone had done it. I suppose it would be difficult  to do if you had a whole lot of potato plants, but we only have eight hills, so it is doable.

The garden is coming along pretty well, although it has been battered by the relentless southeast winds we had lately. We need rain.  There are a couple of errant bunnies who are leaving all the greens alone.  I keep my eye on them, as do the dogs who live in the  on three sides of our house.

Given all the recent weirdness, stress, and uproar in the world, I would rather stay home and  pull weeds all day instead of go to work. Gardening is a refuge right now

How is your garden coming along? How are you coping?

44 thoughts on “Hilling Up the Potatoes”

  1. I did some bunny observation last evening. They really like munching on this large clump of Italian Oregano that comes up every year in the lawn in the front yard right next to the veggie garden.

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    1. Rise and Shine Baboons,

      I was impressed with Ben’s garden report yesterday, especially the kohlrabi progress—ours is doing very well, but the bulbs are just starting to form. We will be crunching and munching on them in a few weeks. The raspberries have come roaring back after a crop failure about 5 years ago. The chicken poo and careful tending have been effectively. We have a large crop setting on.

      The garden looks excellent overall-tomatoes look vigorous with many green tomatoes having set on. Carrot came up. Radishes all bolted in the hot weather. We have had a lot of lettuce. The irises and peonies were spectacular—the peonies are at their end now. The hot windy weather is hard on the, ending their season too early. The early lillies are blooming already.

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  2. I have heard of people stacking tires around their potatoes (sidewalls cut out) but have never tried that myself. I hope this works well for you.

    I picked another handful of radishes last night. Normally I plant way too many and I’m tired of eating them and there’s still a lot out there. So this year I only planted two rows about 4′ long. I’ve just about finished one row. Some of them have split – not from size, maybe growing too rapidly? But they’re still good.

    We didn’t get any lilacs this year; all the buds froze off back in May. That was a shame; it’s happen other years too. Bummer.

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  3. Husband is in charge of the garden this year. He planted ten, yes, I said ten, tomato plants, I have no idea how many beans, corn, kale, a couple of cucumbers, various peppers, bok choy, radishes, lettuces, carrots, and who knows what else, and it’s all looking great. He’s putting a lot of energy into it, and watering and weeding and admiring his work. I love that he’s finally interested in gardening, just wish he’d heed advice from experienced gardeners (not necessarily me), but he’s doing it his way. Last year was his first foray into gardening of any kind, other than occasionally mowing the lawn, so I’m glad that he’s finally getting how satisfying it is to plant something, nurture it along, and harvest the fruits of his labor.

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      1. Thanks, Renee, but that would mean that he’d have to read. He’s more interested in doing at this point This social distancing thing is really hard for him.

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        1. Any canning that will need to be done in this household will have to be done by him. I make and freeze things such as tomato sauces. As it become evident what vegetables we have to preserve, I’ll do some research and figure out how to turn them into something we’ll actually eat. I suspect some of it will go to friends and neighbors. He’s enjoying his gardening so much at the moment, so I’m just letting it be. We’ll figure out how not to let it go to waste. In the past I’ve also donated fresh produce to the local food shelf.

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  4. Most of it looks great, and we’re eating the lettuces, radishes (some of ours split, too), etc. We’ve realized we need to toss some old seeds that are no longer viable, so we had to replant a few things – kale and chard.

    Anyone need any dill weed?

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  5. OT: Just finally had time to read through yesterdays lively discussion on Joyce, et al. I’m sure I had to read something short in high school, but never anything else. Now I’m tempted to try The Dubliners… Hmmm… might be good for BBC? if we ever get to do that again…

    To quote Renee: “One thing I enjoy about the Baboons is our capacity for lively conversation be it waffles or James Joyce.” And it is nice to have Clyde pop in occasionally like this.

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  6. I have a small vegetable garden compared to some other baboons but it is doing well. I have tomatoes, basil, three kinds of peppers and bush beans this year. I actually have tomatoes, beans and a very small jalapeño on the vine although it’ll be a while before they’re edible. But the garden that is really flourishing this year, thanks to my furlough attention, is my yard. It looks like a small jungle actually from the street. The lilies are going to start blooming any second now and so my front and backyards are about to become a riot of color.

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  7. i really miss a garden
    we are talking about staying put a while here so maybe next year
    i wonder if youtube has videos on how to stuff in the garden
    i would imagine
    i never had any success at veggies but i have visions of becoming a hosta and lily guy again in the future
    social distancing is a reality that will be interesting for years to come
    movies concerts shows airplanes sporting events but what about libraries buses air bnb
    hotel schools shopping walking around the lake
    bars beaches etc
    dating is interesting for my daughters and son

    did you see mpr gave garrisons replacement the boot today as a cash saving measure supposedly

    looks like their day may finally have officially passed
    blogs and podcasts online stuff and news/classical/ pandora options are making their dinosaur offering be questioned
    they’re blaming the virus but i suspect their focus on classical news and head banging on their three channels is not cost efficient and after they strip it down it will look a lot like radio heartland with computer generated pandora like rotation and will soon take them the way of the newspapers regional airlines and their blue haired audiences

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    2. That show never caught on, and when Chris Thile took it out of Minnesota I thought it wouldn’t last long. Does anybody remember the first attempt to replace Garrison’s show? Good Evening was hosted by Noah Adams, who had been an All Things Considered journalist. Didn’t last long.

      I wouldn’t be skeptical of the MPR claim they are worried about money. They probably should be. They’re letting go of some good people, including Kate Moos and Eric Ringham.

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        1. I listen to a lot of radio and MPR/NPR podcasts. I do think that MPR failed to establish any meaningful experimentation with programming after they became satisfied with the programs they had. It will be a challenge for them.

          I do continue to believe MPR did not treat Dale or aging listeners well. They also had their heads in the sand about GK’s sexual behavior for many years. That added to their difficulties

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      3. This reminds me of the time I was flown out to Pennsylvania with a group of people to try and help the Franklin Planner people figure out how to rejuvenate their business. For years they had made large profits selling printed filler sheets for their planners but with the advent of Blackberries and other digital organizers, nobody was buying the filler sheets anymore. They wanted us to come up with another product they could manufacture for 15 cents and sell for 5 dollars. Because they had had this incredible cash cow for so many years, they never bothered to plan for what comes after. I think that’s the way it is with MPR. They had all their eggs in one basket and its success kept them from diversifying and developing new customers (or audiences) when they should have been. Then again, maybe radio isn’t even relevant anymore. I couldn’t tell you the last time I listened to the radio.

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        2. I have the radio on hours / day. Whether it’s streaming Radio Heartland or playing MPR News to keep raccoons out of the chicken coop.
          In the car it’s always SiriusXM except weekends it’s NPR.

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        4. I think MPR knew they needed a replacement for PHC. After all, GK quit several times. Good Evening was a serious attempt at replacing PHC, but it failed badly. PHC was an example of catching light in a bottle, a rare hit show that rose up from the peculiar talents of a peculiar man. Hard to clone that. When I was volunteering during pledge drives in the 1980s MPR badly wanted a replacement. They just didn’t know how to do it. While MPR had moments when they downplayed the appeal of PHC, Pledge drives relied so heavily on PHC that you could tell Kling and his crowd knew how dependent they were on a mercurial and independent guy. Pledge drives pushed the idea that “you can’t get a show like this anywhere else, so please contribute to keep it on the air.”

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      4. Well, I, for one, am sorry to see Live From Here go. I’ll miss it. I found Live From Here a lot less predictable than the old PHC show, and it consistently had a great variety of really good musicians on. PHC in it’s heyday was inspired radio, very creative and lots of fun; toward the end it had lost some of its appeal to a lot of people. When GK left, he retired of his own volition, and everyone, including GK, realized that it was an iffy proposition to try to keep it going. It wasn’t till a year or so later that they changed the name of the show because MPR and APM cut all ties with GK because of the alleged sexual misbehavior.

        I think Chris Thile did an incredible job of stepping into some really big shoes. It was entirely predictable that the show would lose some of the listeners to the PHCS, but it also attracted new, younger listeners and live audiences. If you listened to it, you could hear that they had a very lively and appreciative live audience. Losing that during the pandemic had to be rally tough.

        I get that baboons still hold hard feelings toward MPR because of the cancelling of the Morning Show and the shabby treatment of Dale. Now Steve is complaining about MPR letting people like Kate Moos (who has been in and out of there for years) and Eric Ringham go, and tim is lamenting the dinosaur offerings and focus on classical news. So which is it that is causing the problem? That they’re changing things up, or that they’re staying the same?

        Though I don’t intend to dye my hair, I suspect it’s people like me tim is referring to when he describes MPR’s blue haired audience, and that’s fine, but it’s just not accurate. The Current has attracted a sizeable younger audience that appreciates music that I and most baboons don’t care for. It has established itself as a premier station for progressive music. Whether or not they are contributing or sustaining members of MPR, I don’t know. But I’m glad to have such a quality public radio station here. I’m wondering how much longer KFAI can hang on?

        Stepping down from my soap box, gingerly. At my age falling can be hazardous to your health.

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        1. One additional point in response to Steve’s comment. I have my very sincere doubts that it was Chris Thile “took” the show to New York. That decision had to have been made at the corporate APM level. Chris was a very small cog in a very big wheel.

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        2. Where did you get the idea I was complaining about letting Kate Moos go? I just noted the fact they let her go. When times are hard, organizations have to let go of talented people.

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  8. the concerts i have gone to the last couple of years are mostly full of old people. i wonder why then i go to the restroom and notice when i look in the mirror that i look just like them .

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    1. I suspect that says more about what kind of concerts you go to, tim, than anything else. Loots of bald and grey heads at the concerts I go to as well, but you couldn’t drag me to a concert at the Xcel Center or other large venue if you paid me. Just not my cup of tea.

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  9. Speaking of gardens and growing our own food, I collected eggs tonight. Had 12 plus a duck egg (a low day) and then sat on the step and played with the dogs. I set the egg basket waaay over there to be safe.
    And then Bailey jumped over me right into the eggs. Dang it!
    Two survived, 5 totally smashed, 3 for an immediate supper and three cracked that will make it to tomorrow.
    Such is life.

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