May 2019 – Garden Canada

Last year in heavy soil I dug deep. For potatoes. And dug some more. Then in these trenches, over weeks dodging rain, I hilled up more heavy soil dug serially from elsewhere (so bend, dig, lift to wheel barrow, lug, shovel horizontally, bend again, toss) to repeatedly build up coverage over the potato plants as they grew, …and grew, and I dug, buried, dug, buried. This exhausting process did produce the heavenly potatoes I’ve just finished consuming last month, but nevertheless, I am always looking for easier ways to do things. And on the all-powerful internet I came across a reference to a Ruth Stout (click to watch) who became famous for discovering in her 60’s a remarkable way to plant vegetables, including potatoes. And another video channel Back to Reality (click) of a beautifully lazy young couple who with great success, tried this with potatoes. A lazier process even than the currently de rigueur “no dig” method, it’s charm is a certainty. Toss seeds (or seed potatoes) on the ground, and cover them with hay. Lots of hay. And do it every year. That’s it.

Step One – find some hay (in my barn) or even straw

Anecdotal evidence indicates harvests surpass the digging, burying and fertilizing old ways. So I’m on it, even if two months late due to excessive mud and two traumatic burglaries, but I’m on it. Done. Thirty seed potatoes planted yesterday in about a half hour start to finish. The added beauty of this method is that wet ground is suddenly of no concern.

Step Two – throw some seed potatoes on the ground. And if you’ve more than one variety, label them – that would be the hardest part.

Step Three – put down the hay – about 8″ in all. I sprinkled on some dirt as ballast until it rains today, but I also applied a light watering. Make sure you can still find your labels, and water well if there’s no rain in sight.
Then go sit down and read a book.

Fifteen roses ordered this year, all perfumed with repeat blooms. And I have just come through three weeks paralyzed on the floor with an unrelentingly painful back. I haven’t been out of the house in that time, yet in my basement I have onions and peas ready for planting, tomatoes and peppers now graduating from flats into their own pots, and wildflower plugs fattening that I intend to place like jigsaw puzzle pieces into gaps on the front hills. If I am dreaming in technicolor … well, I’m not even exploring that possibility.

For the south facing barn wall two Souvenir de la Malmaison should over time climb nearly twenty feet each to meet in the middle.

When my prior supplier gave me the bad news that their Souvenir de la Malmaison had not made it through the winter, I thankfully found a supplier near Niagara-on-the-Lake to add to my resources. Kiss Me Kate too I pick up tomorrow from Palatine Fruit & Roses.

I have fabulous memories of my tour of Highgrove. Two years prior the rose garden at Kew was like a candy shop of David Austin varieties, and for scent none there could surpass Princess Alexandra of Kent. If they survive Gray County winters, it will be a small miracle, but try I must.