garden – Naomivaldivia.com

So I wasn’t able to post a foodie Friday post last Friday, but it was my birthday and I was vacationing with the family. Much needed! Anyway, I’m posting today with my first potato harvest! The picture above was what I pulled out of the orange laundry basket I used to plant potatoes. Didn’t take too long, about 6 weeks and I had lots of little potatoes. The orange basket negated any gophers getting at my papas. I had planted about 3 small organic potatoes, and these are the ones that grew-and very quickly! I also threw in 3 non organic potatoes. Those did NOT grow at all. They just took up real estate and rotted. They smelled awful! Like chemical rot and bad breath. From now on I am sticking to organic. I learned my lesson! I put some of the stalks back in the basket with more soil because there were a lot of little mini potatoes just starting to grow, so I’m looking forward to harvesting more potatoes in a few weeks. Not bad for my first potato experiment!

At the Farmer’s Market, we tried a shot of wheatgrass from one of the vendors. She kept telling us how great the stuff is for teeth and gums, which of course made us look right at her mouth. Her teeth and gums looked really healthy! Her skin also looked very clear. You could tell she wasn’t wearing much makeup at all if any. I’ve been reading about growing wheatgrass for a while now, so we ended up buying some seeds from her that were already sprouted. Only $4.50 for a giant bag! I planted quite a bit, but still have a lot left! I need to make more growing trays. Anyway, this is my first time growing this, and I created a makeshift tray out of some leftover tomato plastic containers from Fresh N Easy:

I cut them in half and then poked holes for drainage:

My second tray ended up better.

Filled it with rich soil and compost that i had mixed together earlier. I added water to make sure it was a nice moist mixture, kind of like brownie batter!

Originally I placed too many seeds…

The tray on top of the other half to allow for drainage…

Pretty wheatgrass trays all in a row…

Watered it, and the drainage system looks like it’s working well…

Covered them up for the night…

I’ll post progress pics of success or failure. 🙂

Took a little break from the computer to go check on my plants. Came back refreshed! It’s amazing what growing things can do for you when you show them some love!