This year, we had decided to grow our potatoes in one of our new patches next to the new ponds which the digger had created out of wetland at the end of last year. The soil is very rich in organic matter and dried out sufficiently in the early months of spring, it looked perfect - but some vital ingredient is obviously missing as the potatoes just did not want to grow as vigorously as usual. The potato plants started dying off in July, and soon, weeds and grass took over and started to cover the ridges.
So, it now is very hard going with the harvestign plough to cut through a thick matt of vegetation to get to the spuds, of which there aren't that many either...Winnie and Henry tried hard, but the plough got stuck many times and required us to hack away the vegetation blocking it.
Anyway, we got an initial sad half-bucket of spuds out for dinner and stopped to chew over things...Another attempt later today!