Potatoes - And a Ton of Dirt.,,

 So I decided to try growing potatoes.  Decided to do it in burlap sacks.  Over the last few months I ended up with too many potatoes that started sprouting before I got them cooked, so mostly the seed potatoes were just potatoes saved from the compost pile, although I did get some seed potatoes from the Resource Center over at the Garden Project https://greaterlansingfoodbank.org/programs/programs-home/the-garden-project/ as well.  I had  total of 4 types of tatties, and I also got the burlap sacks from the Garden Project (leftovers from Coffee roasters. 

So, I pulled the trailer full of dirt up to the area of the driveway nearest the spot I was planning to use, put down some landscape fabric, and tucked in.  As you can see in the pictures I used a cardboard box with the bottom flaps cut open to keep the burlap bags standing up while shoveling dirt into them.  I put in about 4 inches of dirt in each of the 12 bags, planted potatoes about 8 to 10 inches apart in the bags (4 in each bag, the bags are 24x36 inches when flat so about 1.5 feet across when full), then covered with another 4-5 inches of dirt.  And as I was getting to the end I was hoping I had enough dirt.  Eventually poured the last dirt off the tarp into a bucket to finish filling the last bag, and had to steal a little dirt from a couple of the more full bags to make sure the least filled bag was full enough, but that did it.  So I have used the first trailer full of dirt.  My trailer can only officially handle 900 pounds, but I had bought a half-yard of dirt, which depending on moisture content can weigh half a ton plus or minus a bit of water.  Luckily it was pretty dry when I bought it, but I have now shoveled over a half ton of dirt this year, as this isn't the only shoveling I've done.  I was just saying this winter that I needed to add Strength Training to my walking workouts, and I think Gardening is adding that strength training in the form of shoveling and, well, I've also poured a full bag of Perlite and fifteen 2 cubic foot bags of Potting Soil.  Well, 30 cubic feet is more than a cubic yard, so I guess I've moved 1.5 tons of dirt this year, some of it more than once (container gardening means you can change your mind on what goes where).