Starting on New Ground

Maria, our intrepid leader, has itchy fingers and wants to get started on her garden.  We have a garden at church, I'll teach her how to clean it up for spring.  I'll give directions, and supervise.  However, since the ground is still very cold and very wet, we'll give it a couple more weeks of warming weather.

If you are starting on new ground that has never been gardened before, let me suggest potatoes.    The way I have grown potatoes the last few years has been the "minimally disturbed" way.  Not that I am "minimally disturbed, "  (shut UP, Maria)  but that the soil is not dug deeply.   I figure out where my boundaries are for my potato patch , and then lightly spade up the grass, it doesn't even have to come out all the way, just loosen it up a bit.   Or if you have a corner in already tilled soil,  just rake it to break the crust.  Then I make sure that I have a supply of organic material--straw, rotten hay from a neighbor's horse barn, leaves and "stuff" from flower beds.   You can watch your neighbor rake up leaves from his shrubs and garden in the next few weeks, and right before he loads it into the truck (keeping to minimal work for yourself), offer heroically to take it off his hands, saving him a trip to the dump.  He may even offer to bring it to you.  I have even dragged an old sheet to the neighbor's to collect stuff, and dragged it back down the street to my house.  

Go to the garden shop and buy your potatoes.  Most of the time, you must cut them up into pieces with at least three "eyes" or buds on them,  lay them out on paper to dry .   You can also just pick out small potatoes, and don't cut them.   When dry, take them out to your patch and put them down 18" apart, and in rows separated by about 2 feet.   Then gather up all your composty stuff, and fling it over the potatoes,  do a jig,  and cover up the potatoes with several inches of   hay, old grass, old leaves.   Make sure the potatoes are thoroughly covered, or they get green on them from sun exposure.  Water thoroughly. Keep watering if it stays dry.  The composty, mulchy stuff dries out quickly.  In a few weeks, you will start to see green stems popping up out of the mulch.  I probably won't do this until middle of April for central Indiana,  they just don't want to grow much when it is really cold. 
You should continue to add mulch as the season goes on because it settles.  One year I had a dump truck come to my house after they had cleaned up from the Strawberry Festival.  It was full of straw from wet ground.  It was great, it was free, it was smelly.  Next time I'll try not to put it in the front garden.  My dogs loved snacking from the bits that were left by messy eaters.  You can let the grass go a few days long and then mow and rake.  Use any grass you can get, just check to make sure it has not recently been sprayed with anything.  I have stopped guys in trucks that mow for a living, and had them dump grass for me.  I was walking once and a man was raking up old leaves that had composted all winter,  I asked for them, he came and dumped them on my garden.  People are usually happy to get rid of stuff and not to have to take it to the dump.  They can say "no,"  life goes on.  Be careful not to use walnut leaves, they can poison your garden soil, making it hard to get things to grow there.

In the middle of the summer, you will start to notice Colorado potato beetles eating on your potato plants.  These can be picked off, or you can use an organic spray or dust.

Digging the potatoes in the late summer is great fun, once the plants have turned completely brown and dry.  It's like a treasure hunt.  And new potatoes are the best!  Carefully pull back the mulch where the base of the potato plant is and dig, I prefer a garden fork.  A shovel can really damage potatoes. Eat those for supper.  The mulch you have used can be raked back over the potato patch.  If it was grassy before, all that should be dead by now, and the soil ready for a different crop next year.   I'll  update you on my patch as it grows this year. 

Oh, I just remembered that last year I grew potatoes in some old tires.  I threw the tires down in the garden, loosened the soil under them, dumped some more in,  threw in the potatoes, filled up the tires with mulchy stuff, watered, and when it was time to harvest, I just heaved up the tires, and there were the potatoes.  Fun!  I've also had potatoes come up in my compost heap before after I tucked in some "leggy" potatoes from the pantry.

Dianne, dirt and all.