Spring doin's

A couple of days ago I posted a snap of a snake repeller enhanced with a sizable wombat turd.  To refresh your memory (although I would understand if you'd rather forget the image):
I poked this off with a stick, but the next day another large brown cube was evident.  That does make it rather difficult for the solar panel to work.  Also, over Winter,  one repeller was broken when the marsupial backed up to do the business.  So I installed a deterrent.
Not only wombats cause problems with renewably sourced energy. (No, I haven't been graced with a visit from Senator Malcolm Roberts, the man who stood for village idiot but was over-qualified.) I have erected a few fairy lights as a bit of fun on the lawn and somehow a passing Eastern Grey stuck its size 97 (UK system) feet into the wire and snapped it. 4 days later I found the solar panel and 2m of wire about 40m away. A bit of insulating tape and we're back in business. 
A further protectif has been installed!  (The arrow indicates the solar panel.)
It seems to have finally stopped raining, and even getting 10+mm of rain does lead to massive run-off.  So it seemed to be time to get back in to gardening.  The first job that was required was to plants some spuds.

I am not sure of the economics of growing spuds as they only cost $1 per kilo for basic bags, and our rat-attracting sack of most excellent Sebago from Atherton was about the same.  However the normal market stuff is pretty tasteless and it costs too much to drive to Atherton.  So we got 500gms each of King Edwards and Pink Fir and Frances had kept a few chats from our Kiflers form last year.

As a result of the rain the designated patch was rather weedy.  Here we have before and after in one snap.
 My guess is that as I dug I was getting 3 worms per fork-full.
 Now having a bunch of worms suggest that the soil has a good supply of organic matter, minerals, oxygen and water.  Basically what plant roots like.

So I reckon the spuds have no excuse for not going gangbusters. Especially since I added some compost and blood and bone to the bottom of the trench.  Here we have the King Edwards ...
 .. waiting to be reburied.
I don't have a rubber turkey on hand, but declare this to be Mission Accomplished!

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