Thursday, September 24, 2009

Gifts from the Compost....

Sometimes ya get lucky... sometimes it's an onion or some sort of brassica, maybe a tomato... or even a suprise pumpkin.. the compost pile often offers some suprises... for me this year.. a small crop of wee red potatoes.... mmmmmm spuds... well for a lot of people it's mmmm spuds.. i'm not one of them, but i make an exception for little potatoes!! Tinier the better.. mmmmgood....
so back to how i got the little potatoes... a friend has been saving me weeds, grass clippings and other assorted 'goodies'.... one such bag of goodies way back in June was a bunch of old potatoes... on the compost they went with all the other treasures... a generous helping of several inches of soil and the compost pile was left to it's own devices....not a drop of water was spared to it.. the sun beating down relentlessly for weeks... and still those potatoes sprouted and grew tall and eventually flowered and died back down to earth..... the other day i went out to pile up more goodies and unearthed a small potato, upon rifling through old decomposed leaves and bits of hay.. more potatoes... an ice cream bucket full.... not bad for neglect!!

mmm dinner comprised of fresh green beans, frenched and sauteed with red pepper, hot habanero pepper and garlic, tomatoes sliced and alternated with Mozzarella cheese and chopped basil, lightly drizzled with olive oil...

and because several family members including me are sick... today's fair is turkey soup
with new potatoes......