A little bit of Dirt Girl in our backyard‏

Today, we planted potatoes. 


My three year old and I have been planning this for quite some time. I find the kids TV show, Dirt Girl, very inspiring. She has a fantastic veg garden and has all sorts of projects happening in her yard. And today, we wanted to bring a little of Dirt Girl into our day.

A while ago, maybe about 4 weeks back, we popped a handful of potatoes in a bag into the back of the bottom shelf in the pantry cupboard. I could only vaguely remember the process of getting potatoes to turn into potato plants, and I didn't Google a method for our project. I figured it would come to me as we did it.

So after about 4 or 5 weeks in the dark, our potatoes had all sprouted lovely little knobbly beginnings of plants. I must admit, today was the first time we'd actually looked at the potatoes since putting them in the pantry, so I was a little nervous about what I might find! Luckily they were perfect and ready to go in the soil.

We took the baby outside and popped him on a quilt in the grass to wiggle about, and we sat on the path with some pots filled with soil, the plastic toy spades, the potatoes and a knife. I had memories of cutting the potatoes near to the sprouts so the sprouts could be placed individually in the soil right side up. So I cut the potatoes, and Ava planted them in the pots with her plastic spade.

Next, I made sure they were all covered in soil and we gave them a splash of water.

I don't know for sure if we've done it right, but we'll soon find out when we see them grow (or not).

Considering a tomato plant has just popped up out of the crushed granite in our backyard, I figure these sorts of plants must be fairly hardy and easy to grow! And I'm sure it didn't require much effort when I grew potato plants as a kid.

If they grow, I'll let you know!