Potatoes

My father loved to garden and he always had a large vegetable patch. On late spring evenings and weekends, I helped him with the planting, sprinkling the seeds just the way he told me to into long, straight furrows below taut strings stretched from one end of the garden to the other. The most fun were the potatoes. My father bought seed potatoes and cut them carefully so that each piece had just one eye, and then let them dry thoroughly in the sun before we planted them. He dug the holes and I placed the piece of potato eye up in the bottom of the hole. Then he covered it over with soil.


I loved harvesting the spring crops, especially asparagus. The tender green stalks were the first fresh vegetable of the year, and they arrived before the weeds took control. Hunting for the green sprouts against the brown soil was a joyous search down the long asparagus bed, hoping not to miss a stalk that was just the right height for eating, finding and slicing them off just below the soil line. 


But potato harvest was the best - a time of mystery, exploration, and surprises. 

Paul Allen with his shovel,
used for many things, including
planting and harvesting potatoes

Throughout the summer, as the potato plants grew, my father mounded soil around them, creating small "hills." Some time in August the weeds always gained the upper hand. Perhaps my father lost the desire to keep up with them, but from then on we had to search for the vegetables among the weeds. At that time of summer, the leaves of the potato plants could easily be discerned among the weeds, but it was still too early harvest the potatoes. We might find green beans, but for potatoes we had to wait. 

In mid-to-late autumn potato harvest time would arrive. One by one, we searched out the dead or dying potato plants among the weeds. Sometimes we couldn't find any trace of a plant remaining, but my father was certain there was a hill of potatoes just about "here." He was usually correct. Once we located a potato hill, my father dug down into the rich soil, trying to be at just the right spot - not so close to the center that he sliced through a potato and not so far away that we missed them altogether. 

My asparagus patch needs weeding.

With excitement, I pulled out the large potatoes that rose upward with the shovel. I pulled out others peeking out through the sides. And then we reached in with our hands and searched for more, still hidden behind the sides of the hole my father had dug. The best potatoes of all were the "doll potatoes," the little ones, just right for little girls and dolls. Those I treasured. Those were for me.

By the time we were finished we usually had several bushels of potatoes. After drying in the sun, they were stored in our cellar and provided sustenance for our family for many meals during the cold, short days of winter. 


One potato, two potato,
Three potato, four,
Five potato, six potato,
Seven potato, more!               --Nursery rhyme


You open your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing.  --Psalm 145:16