Peter Cundall and the no dig potato method

I love Peter Cundall, perhaps almost as much as he loves Kale.

I frequently quote his suggestions - "well Peter Cundall says this....., Peter would do it this way, hmmm that's not what Peter would do"

boring all those around me.

C'mon guys. The man knows his stuff!

Who can resist that warm voice,

his genuine smile,

his environmental ethics,

his health tips,

those decades of gardening know how,

his infectious enthusiasm,

he's irresistable,

how I miss him on Gardening Australia!

I was going to write about Peter's method for growing potatoes on grass as he suggests in this issue of Organic Gardener, my favourite magazine. 

Fortunately Suburban Tomato has done a wonderful job of it for me -  looks like a more professional potato patch too.
http://suburbantomato.com/2011/09/peter-cundall-more-potato-experiments/


I planted my potatoes while the sun shone last week.  I found it hard to get the straw and manure to the prescribed height of 50cm straw.  At $12 a bale they will be expensive potatoes! Two bags of sheep manure on mine and it barely made an impact - need to get some more. Like Suburban Tomato I couldn’t leave the grass, mostly invasive couch, it felt wrong! The grass surrounding the bed is actually native wallaby grass so my partner wouldn't let me come any further out. It is pretty special to have a big patch of wallaby grass, the heads look pretty in seed come summer. I gave the ground a fair hack with a mattock too - it's heavy clay, the mattock bounced on a tree root and hit my knee.  Ouch, that will teach me for not following Pete's advice. Actually the whole technique felt a bit weird, but Peter has never failed me before. I’ve had poor results with the potato in the bag technique – the soil on my first try was too dry (ok small potatoes) and then the following too wet (rotting poatoes). 


I planted kipflers, dutch creams (donated to me by my lovely neighbour), purple congos, pontiacs and King Edwards.  All chitted or found resprouting in old patches. Cross my fingers this technique works.  Should have a great garden bed post potato harvest in any case.

Just checked out you tube and he can explain it better that I can, wish he'd mentioned the newspaper in the magazine. 

And that, my friends, is your bloomin lot!

Op shop finds and no seeds

Went to pick up an item from freecyle (will write about in another post) and as a bonus had a lovely day op shopping.

Didn't know about the bonus zip until i got home - think I can take it off.

 Sieves for seed sorting

 A tray to paint with blackboard paint - idea I saw on Pinterest

Kids clothes $1, half price orange tag - work clothes for dad and mixed basics.  Big one ran off with her cowgirl shirt and shorts before I could take a picture, dad wore his cords to work today.

 Biscuit trays, came up well for a good scrub - we never have enough

have a couple of friends in mind for these ones 

 there's been a few breakages at our house lately, some new ones to add to the selection

 Not new but sits on our bench all the time, was looking so pretty in the afternoon light

 Middle one was all set to be my helper finding seeds in the mutato.

The cupboard was bare! Note the disappointed face. No more zuchinni travel pillows for us. This one produced late in the season so there mustn't have been enough flowers around for good fertilisation - just a theory anyway.