TGIF May, 2012

Small Cat is right now fighting with the dinning room drapes. I don't know if they said something or they looked at him funny or what, but Small Cat is really giving the the sheers and the drapes what for. So cute when he's acting like he's mentally ill!

Changing the subject. Today I harvested potatoes and strawberries! But not at the same time. or the same place. It really wasn't  a harvest situation as much as it was "take as many as I can get" moment from Alphagal and Broskeys garden. It was either me or the bugs and the bugs are just going to eat them for food and not really appreciate the fact they are locally grown, organic produce. Bugs are such trash. I'm also pretty sure that the bugs voted in mass for amendment 1, with the rest of the  bottom feeders.

These turned out much better than the same variety that I planted in the front, they are bigger and look healthier, also the plants were clearly much more productive. I decided to harvest them a little early because the stalks were beginning to wither and they had been fallen over for a week. The literature suggests that the stalks be all dead and brown prior to harvest but I haven't found that to be completely necessary to harvesting spuds that have reached term. The plants were done though, as it turned out. there was no sign of the original seed spud and I have decided that that is a sign of a ready to harvest crop. The test plants I pulled on the Yukon Golds last week still had seed spud, so I gleaned from that experience that seed spud still there = not ready to be harvested - not that you would know that until you pulled it up but its a way of knowing You Just Made A Mistake.

This time, no mistakes made, it was time and I pulled them out. I also found a couple of enormous grubs and if I had let the plants stay in the ground any longer, I'm sure they grubs would have gone to town on them. Thank you Santa for the gardening gloves because without them I would have never been able to remove them from the bin much less take my time finding a good place to deposit them before I found something substantial to squish them to kingdom come. Barehanded I would have been squealing and jumping up and down and throwing them around like squishy confetti. I would be getting thank you notes from their millions of descendants for years.

I thought about just putting them out on the drive way and letting the birds get to them, but the little beasts can propel themselves and I didn't want them to get away. So, squish.

Speaking of the potatoes, I think I might make this dish over the weekend. Except with fewer potatoes and substituting a thin cheese sauce for the heavy cream and foregoing the parchment paper