Potato Harvest

This year we tried the "Ruth Stout" method of gardening. You use hay for mulch. You lay hay down in your garden area up to 8 inches to start with. You keep adding hay when you see a weed pop up. you never have to hoe, plow, weed, water...it's like a dream come true! You can have a garden and not have to to all that hard labor of weeding and watering! Well I thought I had this garden in the bag this year! Then When I got my garden planted in June, I got sick and had to go to hospital for two days. Then after that spell, of being in hospital, my energy just slipped away! I couldn't function! I could barely take care of my little girls. All I wanted to do was sleep, and I still couldn't get enough sleep to actually function right. So my garden went by the wayside for the summer. I never went back into my garden since I had planted it, and it sadden me.

The summer went by fast, and I enjoyed the good days when I felt pretty good and could do a little housework and take care of my little girls. As I did the dishes, I'd look out the kitchen window and see my poor neglected garden calling me to come take a peek. But I never did. I just figured that nothing was growing because I didn't do anything! Not even put hay on top of the weeds, and I could see the weeds were doing very well, and it sickened me to know that I spent all that money on seed potatoes and bails of hay for my hopeful beautiful garden I was dreaming of!

Now it's September. Summer is finished up here in the north land. The trees are turning their beautiful burnt orange, deep red, and brilliant yellow hues. The air has the smell of fall. Maria always tells me, "Mommy, come outside and smell how beautiful smells like!"

I'm feeling better now at least I have my energy back. I can take care of my little girls, and take care of my housework. So yesterday, we went outside to play baseball with Maria's new bat and ball. We took turns hitting the ball with the bat, and had a good time playing.

We were taking a break, sitting on the steps and I looked over at my neglected garden. It called to me to just come look..... just maybe something grew...yeah right, I said to myself. Well curiosity got the best of me, so we went to venture over to the garden ..just to take a look.

I saw dead potato plants, weeds everywhere, mostly morning glory chocking the potato plants. "They didn't even have a chance!" I said to myself. Maria was walking around the dead potato plants and she pulled a plant out of the dirt, several small potatoes fell out with the plant. We both looked at each other, and Maria said," look mama! Potatoes!" She scrambled to pick them up. I then started poking around another dead potato plant and found more good size potatoes under that hay mulch. So we went to the garage got a pitch fork and two plastic milk creates, went back to the garden and started digging up the mulch and finding potatoes! Some were chewed on by a family of mice, but we were hopeful to maybe find some potatoes that the mice didn't get to and sure enough we soon filled the two milk creates with potatoes! Some potatoes were huge for a garden that was totally neglected the whole summer!

After we finished digging up all the potatoes and came into the house to warm up, as it was chilly. I said some prayers of thanks to the Lord.
We harvested two milk creates of potatoes, I keep thinking had I took care of my garden and mulch as I saw the weeds come up, just think of the harvest I could of had! But I am still thankful of what the Lord did provide for us!



“If I’d learned anything from experience and from Ruth Stout’s books it was to experiment….try different methods, be open to the ideas of others, but always temper those ideas with common sense…..Gardening is like cooking: Read the recipe and then use your head.” A dash of skepticism can do no harm. Go lightly on caution, heavily on adventure and see what comes out. If you make a mistake, what of it? That’s one way to learn, and tomorrow is another day.” Ruth Stout