I started small - retrieving 4 willow sticks that were Monty's chewy sticks, I trimmed their ends until they were sharp as pencils with my Mora knife.
Kneeling down as I pressed the sticks into the edge of the garden and lawn, Spring assisted me with tying string to make a very straight line. I carefully edged the lawn and tossed the turf fragments towards the compost heap. Looking around again, I decided that the bag of potatoes that I had brought with us from our last home - alive with tendrils and eyes poking from their slightly shriveled bodies - was ready for planting.
Kneeling down again, I removed my knife from its Kydex sheath, muttered a prayer to the potato god, and gently yet firmly bisected the firm potatoes one by one. Carefully carved potato corpses littered at my feet, I then dug three 8-inch deep rows in a section of the garden soil, and implanted each segment eyes-up, before shoveling the soil back into the rows.
I then pulled up the string, retrieved the sticks, cut off the points, and returned them to a very relieved beagle who chewed each and every one, as though to put his mark back onto them. I wiped and then rubbed some olive oil onto my carbon-steel Mora knife blade and into the birch handle, to keep it rust-free and clean.
I have no idea when the potatoes plants will come up green and bursting with leaves and tendrils and stalks - but I can't wait for the first crop of fine Yukon potatoes. I'll take photos in time.
Cheers,
Mungo
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