ALBANY PARK — It's not exactly Hawks vs. Lightning, but the stakes in Patty vs. Plot 121* are just as high.
At least that's the way it feels to me. And things are not looking good for Team Wetli, people. We're on the ropes, in danger of getting blown away.
By Plot 121's potatoes.
I knew from the get-go that potatoes were going to be a tricky proposition, either making or breaking this gardening season.
Potatoes are going to make or break my gardening season. [All photos by DNAinfo/Patty Wetli]
They're the highest profile thing I've planted this year — even topping corn on the power rankings list — but while I'm super keen to see where potatoes come from, at the same time, I'm not super confident in my ability to help them along in their efforts.
There is, for starters, the whole "mounding" part, which is unlike any growing process I've encountered before.
Mounding, as I understand it, is the continual piling on of dirt or what-not as potato plants sprout stems. You cover the stems in several inches of dirt/mulch/straw, they grow upwards, you cover again. Repeat. The point is, the more of the plant is under the mound, the more potatoes you get.
Or something like that.
I've already had to jerry-rig a contraption to keep the mound of mulch from collapsing off the side of my garden bed. I constructed it out of stakes, landscape cloth and paperclips. Yo, "This Old House," call me.
My potato mound "containment" strategy.
"I think we need something more substantial," I said to Dave.
"How often do you mound it? Should you be using mulch? How high does it get?" he asked.
All valid questions in terms of calculating how to proceed. None of which I had managed to research in the two weeks since I said I would.
"I don't know, Dave," I answered, punctuating the "Dave" to somehow implicate him as part of the problem.
"Lemme see if anyone else is growing potatoes," I said, and off I went on a tour of the garden in search of a spud buddy.
I came across beds with lettuce, peppers and peas. No potatoes.
Tomatoes, basil and more tomatoes. No help.
C'mon, I thought, someone else please have taken a chance. I don't want to be in this alone.
And then, there it was. Plot 121.
A fellow gardener's far more serious attempt at potatoes.
Wow. Just ... wow.
Someone else isn't just growing potatoes, someone else is, like, farming them. I haven't seen this much straw since I went on a hayride when I was 8.
Who are these people — Mr. Ore and Mrs. Ida?
I mean, yes, I was hoping to find a plot I could glean some guidance from. But this, this was Major League. The only lesson to be found here was that someone else had done a whole lotta homework before planting, or simply googled "growing potatoes in straw," which apparently is a known method of cultivation.
I know gardening isn't a competitive sport, but it was hard to look at Ore and Ida's plot and not compare it against my own. Forget Hawks vs. Lightning, this was LeBron vs. some kid on the playground.
Back at our plot, we stared at our tiny mound with its ridiculously inadequate containment wall. What to do, what to do?
"Let me take care of this," Dave offered.
I bristled at the suggestion — now even he thought he was more competent than me.
No way, I told him, this is my thing, and I needed to figure it out.
But, I added, I would totally listen to his advice, and whatever enclosure-type thing we settled on he would be more than welcome to build.
I don't want to be in this alone.
*Plot number has been changed to protect the innocent.
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