email archives		Why hasn't the lazy duffer updated his site in a month??? It's because he's trying to grow his own food of course! I don't want to starve when the oil runs out. Look at the picture above...those are potato flowers, grown by me - I kid you not. I bought organic purple potatoes at a farmers' market, let them go to seed, and stuck 'em in the ground. Two months later... Last year, on a whim, I planted a single potato in the abandoned back yard to see what would happen. To my surprise, it grew, producing a small plant which quickly died (without flowering). I dug up the spuds, and had my first harvest. OK, so it wasn't the greatest moment in the history of agriculture, but I was chuffed. Rocky, weed-infested alkaline soil had yielded spuds without any intervention by me - not even watering. Bear in mind that I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT GARDENING. I don't know the names of most of the plants in the yard. I'm an interesting example in that I am a agricultural ignoramus. If I can grow food, anyone can. BTW, note the extra 40lbs of lard in the photo to the left - gone in the images below. Keep yer fad diets and gyms - just get planting and you'll sweat off the flab. I've been inspired by the Dervaes family of Pasadena, who have responded to the odious phenomenon of Genetically Modified crops by growing their own food. Anyhow, back in February of this year, I decided to go nuts! I removed all the rocks and weed roots from the garden, straining them through a seed tray by hand. I filled the tray with ''soil'', shook it until the finer particles were gone, leaving rocks and weeds and dead roots. These I threw onto a pile at the back of the house. Before long, I had shifted a hundred and fifty cubic feet of soil, leaving me with a 12 inch deep hole in the ground: In the picture above you can see an earth mound - it's actually about four or five feet tall. The photo doesn't do it justice. I also filled two large bins with more of the filtered earth. When I was done, I filled the pit back in, now free of rocks and suchlike. To give you an idea of where we stand two months later - here is the garden as of July 17 2005: See how manly and handsome I look? None of your metrosexual shite for me. Of course, I amended the soil with compost, topsoil, greensand, etc. - all organic inputs, no miracle-gro or such garbage. I applied some rock dust also to add some minerals. The plants grow in raised beds, which keeps the soil nice and fluffy. Walk on the beds and you will be pummelled. Here's what the garden looks like from the other side, as of today (July 17, 2005) - 8 weeks after planting: In the foreground are the potatoes, now flowering. In the plots further from them are strawberries and pole beans, peppers (I shouldn't have planted them in the same bed, oh well...), onions, soy beans, lettuce, and bush peas. I'm fond of strawberries, so I've planted a few varieties (all bought from the local garden center). They're sending out runners like crazy, propagating themselves like rabbits. Strawberry flavored rabbits. To the left of the image above is an Alpine Strawberry - you can see the small white flowers beginning to emerge. I don't know what the one on the right is off hand - some freakish mutant, I think. I'm really amazed by the potatoes - I've grown them at a time of year that's really too hot for them - but they should be ready before the furnace of August (I hope). It's amazing how pretty they are up close - you don't associate potatoes with this: No Timmy, they don't grow on trees... On the opposite side from Spudopolis is a denser plot, in which I have mixed up a variety of plants - more strawberries, tomatoes, pole beans, green beans, soy beans, cucumber, zucchini, Tomatillos, peppers (bell and chili), lettuce (french heirloom and regular), onions, leeks, nasturtiums, marigolds, beet, carrots, brussels sprouts, broccoli, melon and bok choy. YUMMY. SHOW US MORE, GURU! - on to PAGE 2