The First Round of Potatoes Are in The Ground

Months ago I read that it is better to plant things in the evening after dark, or early in the morning before sunrise. I am going to do that this season. Rather than planting seeds, potaotes and repotting plants around noon to 3 pm, I will do it sometime between 11 pm to 1 am. For me, that’s a much more relaxing time to do it and it works better with my schedule.

Sometime after midnight I put on my cold weather gardening gloves and went outside. It was time to plant the first potatoes.

I checked the soil bags that I had prepared before winter. One had some compost that hadn’t entirely turned into soil. I will be using that bag for the compost loving 4 sisters. As a test, I filled one of the potato buckets with soil from that bag. I filled the other four with soil from one of the other bags. I planted about two chitted potato-pieces into each pot. I have enough for a handful more, and I will plant them later this week.

I realised that it is because of my meticulous planning last year that I am now having the easiest growing season yet.

My preparations

Before winter came:

• I washed all of the potato pots and stacked them up and stored them during winter.
• I washed all my pots and containers, and placed them in storage.
• I layered soil and bokashi compost in large, double garbage bags and tied them up snugly.
• I drained the bokashi tea into the fertiliser fermentation vessel and the fertiliser has been fermenting since then. I also started a new bokashi that I will now be able to use for the 4 sisters and the tomato plants.
• I placed my seed potatoes in cold storage and I laid out sawdust and straw over all of my perennials. I prepared mushroom buckets and beds that could go dormant over winter and start inoculating in the spring.
• I planted a lot of garlic, leeks, green onions and yellow onions and covered them with sawdust, mycelium and straw.
• I ordered near all the seeds I would need for three growing seasons at a discount.
• I organised all of my seeds in plastic sleeves with holes that I keep in ring binders.
• I washed my gardening clothes and tools, packed them up neatly and placed them next to my folders in a moving box that I keep in my storage unit.
• I made sure to update my excel files and I rounded up all of my notes from the year. From the notes and my excel files I could decide what I would do more or less of next time.

How it paid off

At the end of March I was able to very easily take out the seeds for the season and arrange them in a way that worked for me. I planted some outside and started the rest on the fibre mats. I added those mats to my order when I purchased the seeds last year.

Yesterday I was able to fetch as many of the clean potato pots as I needed from storage. I carried them easily and placed them in front of the bags full of the homemade soil. Now during the night I merely needed to put on gloves, open the bags, add some soil in the buckets, plant the chitted potatoes in the soil and tie up the bags. It took less than 10 minutes.

This season, all I need to do is to:

• Rearrange things to make sure each plant has enough room. I have friends who will to help me with this, so it won’t take long. (30 min to 2 hours tops)
• Plant the seedlings outside when they’re big enough. (a few hours at most and not all in one go)
• Harvest. (as needed)
• Fertilise and water when needed. (about 10 minutes each time)
• Check my excel files, note how many plants I now have (thanks to propagation) and decide how many more plants I want of each variety.
• Propagate accordingly. (about 3 hours of work in total across the season)
• Prune at the end of the season. (about an hour or two in total)

Most of the perennials are old enough to do their own thing. The propagated plants will need larger pots eventually, but I have more than enough clean pots and containers, so that’s not an issue.

How do you plan and prep for your growing season?

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