The reminder popped up on my calendar this morning-order bulbs from Breck's. Yesterday's mail brought the Irish Eyes catalog in with all the pretty pictures of potatoes. I know what's going to happen-I'll order several hundred bulbs to fill every spot where I seem to remember no flowers this year. In my head, I will see blankets of yellow daffs running everywhere I look. Never mind that my soil is rock covered by more rock on top of a thin layer of dust that is currently baking in triple digit heat that has been going on since June. I will see a spring time where our yard looks like the front cover of White Flower Farms. My central Texas yard will suddenly transform into Connecticut or Oregon and we will all forget we live on the face of the sun. Actually, this spring, for some reason, every bulb I ever planted threw riotous flowers everywhere and for three wonderful weeks, it did look like a photo shoot. So, for the three wek reward, I will order the biggest, brightest, most unusual flowers I can find that might possibly grow here. At least bulbs require only that you make a hole, drop in the bulb and pray for rain.
Potatoes on the other hand, require a commitment -first I need to build a growing space. I'm thinking several cages makes a whole lot more sense than trying to make more permanent beds. The Irish Eyes website has a step-by-step plan for a cage where you harvest from the bottom up. I'm a little confused by the logistics, but I have a couple of months to figure it out. The problem will be that by the time I choose one pound of potatoes of each color, I'm going to end up with five to eight pounds of tubers, which means fifty to eighty tubers that will need to be planted somewhere. Last year I gave them all away because I hurt too much to do any gardening. This year, with the new knee scheduled for September 1st, I expect to turn into Ms. Greenjeans by November 1st.
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