10.14.07 POTATO GOLD

Underneath all that dill mentioned yesterday lay a bed full of gold. Yukon Gold potatoes!

07.04.07 A NEW INDEPENDENCE

Bringing up the produce of the garden to the house one day this week, I feel a bit of independence from grocery stores and the long line of merchants and producers they represent. One small potato planted a couple of months ago has produced all of these potatoes from one plant, the hens contribute some lovely eggs, and believe it or not the broccoli is still producing like crazy. A sweet country supper.

05.31.07 POTATO BLOSSOMS

These unusual flowers have just started blooming on the potato plants. Yes, they do look a bit like tomato blossoms, a bit larger and in two colors, though. Potatoes and tomatoes are in the same plant family, from one we eat the swollen root and from the other we eat the fruit. Remarkable food from a peculiar plant.

05.23.07 THE POTATOED POPULATION

Reading this line in an eighteenth-century book of British natural history, "Potatoes have prevailed in this little district, by means of premiums, within these twenty years only; and are much esteemed here now by the poor, who would scarce have ventured to taste them in the last reign.” I am reminded that without the potato this population explosion which has coincided with the Industrial Revolution would never have occurred. The introduction of the American potato to the masses of Europe was an intentional act by the landed and wealthy to alleviate malnutrition and starvation. And from these survivors come the descendants who are filling out this fragile world. In my lifetime from less than 3 billion at my birth to well over six billion as I turn fifty.

05.02.07 SPUDS SPROUT

May Day's warm weather also encouraged the potatoes, which had been rumbling and rambling underground for a month or more, to poke out their leaves and begin to enjoy the warmth and light of summer!