Project Potato

So this is what you'll need for our potato project... potatoes!I decided to go with sweet potato as well, the boys like it a lot more than normal potatoes and you are always hearing about how good it is for you. I chose small ones too, and ended up planting three potatoes and four sweet potatoes. If they go well, I'll put more down next time.
The potatoes will sprout from "eyes", I've tried to capture them in the photos, I'm not sure how successful I've been there.
So we'll need somewhere to put these guys.

I needed to make a new garden bed for them, and made one of those no dig lazy garden beds.

The sunlight is limited in my backyard because of the poinciana, so I have to make the garden beds around the perimeter. I chose a spot next to another existing bed, and thought I would just join them up. First of all I had to cut down a few bushes though, I just sawed them off at the ground and covered them up with straw and soil later on. I left one lilly pilly bush there, I'm not sure if I'll keep it though, it might have been better to just cut it off too.

So first I laid out the perimeter of the garden bed with some wood I had under the house. The ground slopes a little, so I just propped one end up with a brick.

Next I laid down some newspaper to stop any weeds from coming through, and then I cheated a little. I didn't really feel like digging up a gardenful of dirt and transporting it from the chicken coop, so I grabbed a bale of straw and lined the bottom of the bed with it. Then I only needed to top that up with dirt, I've done this with other garden beds and so far it seems to work okay, hopefully it will this time too.
Then I popped in the potatoes sweet potatoes and put another wheelbarrow of dirt on top. Watered them in and raked over the soil a little to make sure it was even.
And voila, a potato bed!

According to this website our potatoes are going to be ready in 90 days. How much more exciting can life get?