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Last year I planted potatoes in Emilia's yard as a combo effort to get rid of all the overgrown grass and weeds. But this year Emilia's yard has a rain garden and an asparagus mound and where were my potatoes to grow?

Enter Stephanie North. I roomed with Stephanie North (she's one of those people who I just say both names all the time) during a summer in the 90s in Amherst, Massachusetts and we ran into each other a year ago. She had just bought a house in Cully and so we have been doing yard things in both of our yards. She mentioned that she wanted to get rid of the grass on the south side of her house and to put in berries, but the grass task seemed overwhelming. I told her about the easy (though long) way to get ride of grass that also gives delicious potatoes. We agreed to plant potatoes in her yard.

Here, we have made mounds and trenches.

A closer look at the trenches where the potatoes will be planted, along with the actual seed potatoes.

Another long view. We plant the potatoes in the trenches, then as the vines grow we will hill up the dirt around the vines, so what was trench will be come hill and what was hill will become trench. The grass will naturally get broken up as part of the hilling process and at the end of the season we will unbury the mounds to get the potatoes, which will leave us with (hopefully) a good crop of potatoes and a side yard free of grass.

That side yard can be planted with clover over the winter while it waits for spring and its new berry crops.