Re: --Mulching 101 Gardening--

I rototilled grass and weeds last October on a newly acquired farm. I applied per acre: 1 ton Cal-Phos, 1 1/2 tons Calcitic Lime, 5 tons stockpiled turkey polt litter (lots of shavings and enough manure to make a stink). then I tototilled this in and seeded trunips. In March, I rototilled the trunips that I had not eaten (some of them had a 10 brix with a fuzzy line and were delicious). I planted potato pieces on top of the soil and mulched with broom straw and weed hay. I have applied blackstrap molasses and fish emulsion in a very dilute solution with a "weed and feed" device on the end of a garden hose a couple of times to the plants and mulch. There are some Colorado Potato Beetles on the leaves. The potatoes have been blooming for a couple of weeks. Today, I pulled back the mulch from some of the plants. Some of the potatoes are slightly larger than a golf ball. I removed some from the plants, washed them and am dicing them. Will mix olive oil, garlic and parsley and put them on a baking sheet in the oven. Will plan to eat them with eggs for breakfast tomorrow. They smell so good that they may not make until morning. The mulch was wet and slimy at the soil surface. A lot of rather large earthworms moved out of the way when I picked the potatoes. I also harvested broccoli, radish, onions, beets (both greens and beet roots), carrots, red oak leaf lettuce, sugar peas and sugar smap peas. Brix readings are not yet very high (4.5 with a fuzzy line on broccoli, 4 on leaf lettuce). We soak the vegetables in peroxide containing water overhight.