Recycled potatoes

Saturday, 7 April

No racing today in western WA or OR, so O.A.D. and I went for a little spin on our tandem toy. 93 miles (no racing tomorrow for us, either). A few tiny spits of rain, but all in all it was a good ride, although we felt really slow. There was that one screaming steep descent on Dubuque coming back into Snohomish where I was told that we hit 60 mph. Then he realized that was our distance, not our speed. The max speed for the ride was 81.2, which I assure you we did not do for anything more than an inch or two. For future reference, we were told we were not welcome in the bakery in Sultan. Something about our shoes, but they didn't ask us to take them off or walk carefully or not mark up the floor. They outright told O.A.D. they didn't want our business. So, if you ride to Sultan, stop at Vinaccio for your coffee, not the bakery. You don't need the donuts, anyway.

All this springtime weather has reminded me that my farming endeavors are a month behind, so I had an hour's rest (a.k.a. eat and make hats) when we got home, then headed out to the west 40. The vegetable patch doesn't grow nearly as many weeds over the winter as it does during the summer, but I still have to spade it up, pull out the weeds and infiltrating grass, add compost and other "amendments" (thanks, Starbucks, for the grounds for my garden--which were moldy!). So my ride recovery was two rounds of turning soil with a spading fork in this here vegetable garden. The rhubarb plant is probably older than I am--it is huge. And the great thing about parsley is that it seeds itself and just keeps on growing. My marjoram got blitzed this winter; I'm not sure it will come back.

Funny thing. When we were in Sultan today, we passed the local feed store, which was advertising seed potatoes. Now, I happened to need some seed potatoes but I couldn't quite see hauling potatoes all the way home from Sultan on the bike (never mind that I don't think the tandem's captain would've even stopped the bike for them). Much to my pleasant surprise, when I was spading up the garden, I came across some wee bitty spuds that were left from last year's crop. They'd wintered over just fine and had started to sprout roots and, in some cases, leaves. (The most exciting thing I've ever found in my garden is a stone spear point, but recyclable spuds were the best thing in recent years.) So I spaded that section more carefully and gathered enough to plant in my special spud box for a spring crop. You stick them in the bottom in a few inches of dirt, then keep adding more dirt as the foliage grows until your spud box is full. You are supposed to do this in a 30-gallon garbage can, but given the economies (?) of scale in my urban garden, I use this 8?-gallon bin instead.

Now it's time to go seed shopping!