You say Potato, I say Potato, too!

Here's sending a big thanks to my brave, brilliant, and hilarious group of advisory girls who came down the hill on Sunday to help with potato planting at the farm.  Thank you, thank you, thank you!

 Transplanting onions and shallots-- some new varieties this year: Rossa di Lunga as an Italian red storage type, and Prince in place of the old standard, Copra.  

 After a quick tutorial on proper shovel usage/technique, the girls were unstoppable with the trenches.

 We planted over 250' of Yukon Golds (I was a bit late on my ordering this spring, so we'll have to wait for next year for the Kennebecs and Adirondack Reds)... with an eventual yield of around 500# of potatoes, hoping all goes well.

 The intrepid farm crew.  What am I going to do without you seniors (and Canadians!) next year?  

Elle, we missed you!

 The freshly-transplanted onions and shallots all covered up in anticipation of heavy rain moving in Tuesday.  Surrounding the reemay row covers, the winter rye is happily cover-cropping away, providing "green manure" when it gets tilled and worked back into the soil.  I'm going to try leaving some of the winter rye in the aisles between beds this year and mowing it at intervals-- which really just translates to spending a lot of time sharpening rusty push mower blades.  The upshots are better moisture-holding capacity, and creating super-mini microclimates that may also serve as mini-windblocks.  Plus, I'll take any headstart for growth that I can get on switchgrass!

To the left, you can just make out two rows of sugar snap and snow peas.

Parting shot: Jim Hand-- Angle of Repose.  That's one happy guy.