Greetings from the End of the World

Holy hell y’all! It’s been ages since I sat down and wrote a blog post. Seeing as the entire world is on pandemic lock down I figured if not now, then when? Get one last one in before the End Times officially kick off. Before the dead rise from the grave to feast upon the living. The huddled masses with wonderfully cleaned asses all sitting at home just looking for something to digest that has an ounce of intrigue and excitement. A story of truth and glory in a world saturated and riddled with misinformation and fear-mongering. The story of the ages.

This post will have none of that.

I’m rusty you see. Haven’t put pen to paper in many months. Words no form so good in squishy brain. But I shall endeavor to try nonetheless. I’ve been on lock down for the last nine days, as most of the world is. Everything is closed except essential businesses. People are fighting for toilet paper for some reason. Who would’ve thought that the apocalypse would begin with TP hording!? No mention of that in my zombie preparedness manuals! Stock markets are crashing, people are freaking out, jobs are being lost left and right. But everyone has the cleanest assholes since the dawn of time. So there’s that.

But enough about those things we cannot control. I’ll just say this, remember to breathe and remember to be kind to people. Don’t let paranoia and fear turn you into a grumpy prick. And stop hording for god’s sake!

I will also say this, my stock portfolio is rather heavy with yummy eggs. My chicken investment was a wise strategy in these dark times. Especially when many stores have empty shelves in the egg department.

So much has happened in my life since last we spoke. Some good, some bad. All strange and interesting though.

Let’s get the sad part out of the way. I haven’t been able to find the strength to write about a rather large loss. The official Mind Your Dirt mascot, and my favorite and eldest chicken, Piper, was taken by a hawk last December. Heartbreaking and devastating to lose that sweet girl of mine. My little covergirl. Here’s one of the last videos I took with her…

She was my very first hen and has had just a huge roller coaster of a life. If you slapped her name into the search bar here, you can see that her life was filled with a lot of ups and downs. But the last few years she was on the gravy train with biscuit wheels. Happy and healthy all the way to the end. She was just pure love in a poofy floofer package.

In order for me to get over the loss, I immediately went out and got two brand new silkie hens. Kinda like therapy. Or distracting myself from grief. One of those things. But now I have Roxy and Raina to help me heal.

Roxy and Raina

Adorable little poofballs! Here they are having a little dust bath yesterday…

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The Sweet Potato of Infinity

This is by no means new information but I’ve recently propagated a bazillion sweet potatoes and was blown away by how quickly and easily I was able to get a ton of slips ready for the garden.

I’ve been giving my dog, Sasha, rather elaborate homemade meals for her hip dysplasia. Anything that’s healthy and a natural anti-inflammatory goes into this powerful meal. Fresh catfish nuggets oozing with Omega-3 fish oils, sweet potatoes, phytoplankton (puts the Omega-3s into those fatty fish), glucosamine , and CBD oil to name a few.

As you can imagine, this can all be a bit on the pricey side so I was looking for any way to ease up the pocket book pains a bit. That meant finding a way to get good organic sweet potatoes by growing them at home. So I started with one solitary store-bought organic sweet potato.

Sweet potato with support toothpicks
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The Poor Man’s Potato Tower

File this under: What Not To Do. A rather fat file in the Mind Your Dirt Corporate Offices of Information and Enlightenment File Management Room…

Where all the MYD mistakes are stored.

I’ve gone ahead and accidentally and massively over-planted the tiniest of my tiny garden plots.

I did it with a sense of deliberate defiance too. Reaping what I’ve sown has quite literally left me bush-whacked and frantic the moment once forgotten seeds began pushing sprout.

I basically planted some old ass potato spuds that I found in a box whilst cleaning out my garage. For nearly a year they withered away their prime months in the hot and dry SoCal un-ventilated garage. Amazed by their tenacity, I just slapped them into the ground in jubilant and ceremonial awe and fervor.

The only problem is I had also planted several heirloom pumpkin seeds the month before in the same bed. Oops. When the long atrophied synapses in my brain began firing again, I realized that this situation was only going to get worse. Steps Jerry! Steps will need to be taken.

Whoops!

So here’s what my caveman brain came up with as a solution. If growing outward isn’t a viable option, then perhaps upward is the only way to grow. I’ve seen potato towers in action before, but have never tried one. I also didn’t want to spend any paper money for lumber or fabric bag towers so I noodle scratched for a spell. Then it hit me, What about that collection of cheap 5 gallon pots I have stashed in the backyard?! A bit smaller than a standard tower, but the total cost is zero of dollars so, what’s to lose?

The potato tower is claimed by many to be able to increase yield while decreasing square footage in your garden plot. I don’t believe that the former is true at all and there’s no real evidence that yield is increased at all. As this is my first experiment, I’ll gladly share my findings, but I don’t have a control so it’s not a true experiment. I just had a sudden risk of crowding and thought this was my best shot without pulling plants out. Having said that, Mind Your Dirt is NOT claiming any additional benefits from using potato towers apart from space saving. I’m just testing the waters and turning a potentially bad situation into an interesting one. Maybe. Read this for further info.

-Mind Your Dirt Corporate Law team (aka me).

Apart from the above video, here’s some more detail shots of the steps. I’m really not sure if this is a good idea or not but so far the plant is growing like gangbusters so I’m sharing it anyhoo.

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