LivinLightly Permaculture solutions for sustainable living

I am growing my potatoes around the edges of my garden using Jackie French's suggestion of just laying the seed potatoes on the ground and then covering them with mulch. As they emerge from the mulch, you just keep adding more, leaving just the tips exposed. This is because most of the potatoes are produced above the original seed potato. To harvest, you just put your hand under the mulch and pull them out. The only problem is that mulch is pretty hard to come by, because of the drought - I try to produce all my own mulch.

On the left are my first parsnip plants. I dug a couple today, but they were disappointingly small. I think I will dig most of them soon and just leave 1 or 2 to go to seed. Again, according to JF letting them self-seed is the easiest way of propagating them, as sowed seed often has poor germination rates.

Our aged Barnevelder chook has been broody recently, so yesterday I put her apart from the other chooks to see if she can hatch the 5 eggs I left with her.