What Can Be Put Off

Did you ever have one of those days when you were so angry at someone, avoiding them was the safest solution?

I just had a few.  We won't re-travel that road, today.  Couple that with my chronic insomnia and you can see why I might not be responding to natural remedies.  Don't imagine me better than I am.

So I put a few things off: blog posts, produce deliveries, picking the produce, feeding the chickens.  Starving the chickens would be bad stewardship.  The solution was to let the chickens loose in the field to eat the tomatoes that I was too lazy to pick.

I still have half a bushel of tomatoes rotting in my kitchen.  They may become sauce today if I wash the pot from the last batch of sauce.  Then I will have an empty basket to pick more tomatoes.  The chickens will have to go back in the coop, which they love because they are lazy chickens -obviously a learned behavior- and when they are in the coop I bring them food.  Slacker chickens. They hate foraging.

How can you aspire to be a Happy Hipster of Laziness?  By reading these posts and not planting the pots I am demonstrating.

But I have urgent news for you: Plant some broccoli and potatoes.  TODAY.  Here's why...


Potatoes don't like heat.  Don’t believe those Yankee Gardeners.  They don't know what heat is.  We travelled thorough the Midwest this summer.  They had the AC on and it was only in the 70's outside.  We had to wear coats.

Potatoes are kind of picky.  If it gets too hot, they die.  If it is too cold, they won't grow.  Plant them at this exact moment and you will get some small, tender potatoes that are really tasty with butter.  I'm not a potato lover.  If I'm saying they are good, they are awesome.

And the broccoli.  If you can find bedding plants, get them and plant them.  Do the math first to be sure you are not spending more than the broccoli would cost you.  So there you have four steps to planting broccoli now: 

1.Calculate costs - don't forget the cost of time.  You are not saving money by planting seeds if you don't get broccoli. 
2. Find the plants or seeds is harder than it sounds.  The gardening world is run by Northern Companies that refuse to believe or supply many things in the seasons they grow in the South.
3. Get the plants or seeds.
4. PLANT the plants or seeds.  In my garden this is the step that never gets done.

You want to plant the broccoli as soon as the cool weather starts.  Broccoli will grow all winter in many parts of the South but as other food sources die back for the winter hungry deer will eat the broccoli.  They will chew right through the expensive, thermal row covers and eat it all.  The leftover stubs will freeze.  

How do you think I know that?