On May 6th I attempted to hill the potatoes for the first time. I say attempted because I really did not have a clue about the best way to do this or even how. I dug holes in the dirt in the corner of the potato area and used that dirt to cover the stalks. I figured you need to pack the dirt around the base and build up for the dirt to stay around the plant. Even then the larger potato plants had stalks over a hand high above the dirt hill. (I forgot to take pictures)
In the new garden plot we did not add any outside dirt when we planted and that appears to have been a mistake. The ground was rock hard where I watered, I could see a difference in soil color and I could not break through the dirt. I don’t know how the seedlings will be able to come up.
On Saturday May 8th Mom and I went to a composting class hosted by Green Omaha Coalition. [Omaha people look for upcoming events http://goc-features.blogspot.com/ ] GOC has been doing a lot of great events this year in part from being the World Enviromental Day host city in 2009. Check out the above link for more info.
The first speaker’s topic was on outdoor composting and he did not have much new information for us. We have definitely decided against having a plastic tumbler to compost and agree that we need at least 2 compost areas, one to add to and one to “cook”. The next two speakers spoke on their experiences with vermicomposting/ vermiculture which is using red wiggler worms to compost kitchen waste. The first guy was hilarious with his nonchalant attitude towards the worm, “if they die, well, they’re just worms.” The second lady had a very different approach and was very involved and attentive to her worms. The best part though was the raffle at the end. I won a book and Mom won some worms- please ask her about them 
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