YOU may recall my experiences last year growing potatoes.
I dug up a useless, time-consuming lawn and planted a potato crop instead.
It not only put an end to mowing, but produced more than one tonne of spuds.
All from a previously neglected bit of grass about the size of a large room.
Potato plants have been used for generations to clean up soil.
What this means is they are marvellous for getting rid of weeds.
Potato plants - apart from producing lovely, nourishing food - grow a very dense cover.
The foliage excludes the light so effectively that any weeds trying to compete - after spud plants have got going - simply cannot do so because of insufficient light.
This is why a good potato patch, after the crop has been harvested, is surprisingly weed-free, even of persistent, perennial weeds.
So over the last couple of weeks, I have been very busy planting and sowing a range of root-crops into this same, ex-lawn piece of ground.
I first went over the ground with a fork to loosen the soil and to get rid of a few potato volunteers that were popping up.
Then the area was raked and cross-raked to work the surface to a good, fine tilth.
It didn't take too long because the soil had been deeply dug and broken up when I lifted the last of the potato crop in autumn.
I used a three-metre long garden stake to mark the planting drills, simply by laying it flat across the bed and sliding it back and forth to make several shallow grooves.
I used the width of the head of my rake to measure a reasonably accurate distance between the grooves - roughly one third of a metre.
After mixing Manchester table carrot seed with a cup of sifted sand in a coffee jar, I was able to dribble the mixture through a finger-sized hole I'd made in the lid.
Being bone dry, it flowed out directly into every second drill with the seeds wonderfully spaced.
I did the same with a packet of yellow-fleshed Lubyana carrot seeds.
The drills in between were sown with parsnip seed and bulls blood beetroot seed.
The only difference was that the beetroot drill was treated to a weak solution of boron (two teaspoons in a watering can of water).
This mineral is essential for growing big healthy beetroot plants with fat, tender roots, especially in sandy or coastal soils.
I also sowed two rows of swedes - one Champion Purple Top and the other Best of All. These too were treated with the heavily-diluted boron brew.
If swedes or turnips are grown in boron-deficient soil, (common in many parts of Australia), they develop brown, spotted centres that look unsightly when cut open.
I also planted a row of leek seedlings - the perfect companions - between two rows of carrots. I bought a punnet of excellent seedlings for $3 and it contained more than 100. That's value. All I did was walk along a groove making 150mm deep holes about 100mm apart.
Then I grabbed the tops of all the leeks, pulled them from the punnet, washed the soil from the roots and dropped one into each hole.
Then I used a hose to fill every hole with water, leaving the tip of each leek seedling just sticking out above the surface.
No other backfilling is needed.
I also took a chance with a punnet of red onion seedlings - good, small plants.
These were laid flat on the ground along a straight groove so the roots dangled into it.
It took less than a minute to run the rake along to cover the roots with soil.
What has happened since then? Brilliant news.
All the carrots, beetroot and swedes are up. So they should be.
I watered them three times every day to make sure the soil didn't dry out.
The parsnips are lagging behind - but that's normal.
The onions are already standing up and the leeks look very happy indeed.
Now for the hard part.
Carrots, swedes and parsnips always come up too thickly, so they have to be thinned - otherwise all my efforts will have been wasted.
