A crop for Self Sustained Living

Potatoes, glorious potatoes! We're obviously potato eaters, roughly 10lbs a week here. The cost of purchasing a 10lb bag of potatoes every week adds up to roughly $15 a month here. Doesn't seem like a bunch of money but that's $180 a year I don't have to spend if I grow my own. There's tons of simple and easy ways to plant potatoes and you don't need a bunch of room to grow them. Car tires make great potato growers. I grow German Butterballs and Irish Finns, they both have wonderful flavor and keep well in cold storage. Not to mention I know for sure the potatoes I'm eating haven't been sprayed with some chemical or picked and stored in some unsanitary way. I also despise buying a bag of potatoes that have been frozen during shipping, yuck! A big concern for me, I'm not fond of e coli or any other of the various contaminants commercial food seems to carry. Call me a stickler over that if ya want to, I'm just picky! ;)

We've suffered thru some serious rain these past 3 weeks, 4 days it hasn't rained in all that time. Hard to get things to grow when they're drowned and not getting sunshine. The ground is very spongy here and I am thrilled to see that the potatoes haven't rotted altho I did suffer a small section that appears to be a low spot where I've apparently lost the hills.

It looks like I need to get going and finish the chicken pen, those dang hens are scratching my hills down! They can't help it tho, the soil is fresh out of the compost pile and teaming with yummies. The chicks in the house are doing well and they're close to being moved outside and I need somewhere to put them where the cats and misc wildlife can't make them lunch. So, it looks like chicken house work for this weekend even if it's raining. I hate working in the mud...