Community Potatoes
One of the reasons I got into gardening, was because of the community. Gardeners share gardening tips and plants and harvests, they create beauty in their front yards for the enjoyment of passersby, and they may even sneak onto your property and share in the labour. One day, I asked a man at the Community Garden how he was growing his potatoes. He shared with me his 200-year old technique as passed down by his Irish grandmother. He told me to dig a deep trench (about 2 ft deep) and put sprouted seed potatoes in there, sprouts up, then cover the potatoes with a little dirt just so that they had just a light blanket of soil, spouts showing through.
So, I went to my plot (which was about 100 meters from his) and dug my trench. He came over to inspect my work and pleased with my trench, he took my seed potatoes from me and poured them out on the garden edge. He took his 60-year-old gardening knife he started hacking at them (hey, wait a minute!): he cut some of the seed potatoes in half (Aaa! My potatoes!), and then made deep gouges into the other ones (this isn’t what it said on the package!). Yet despite my alarms I gave into his help and guidance and made an effort to trust this man, his 200-year old method, and his grandmother. I planted these scarred and bleeding potatoes in my newly dug trench, tucked them in for the night with some soil, and put some sticks on them to prevent the birds from snacking. Every few days or so, I was to come back and mound the soil up over the first few leaves of the plant. My new friend said he would “bring me some sand from his beach” to improve my soil and he picked off any large sticks or bark in my soil and swore at them. He then brought me a handful of worms and said, “My grandmother always told me that if you give someone worms for their potatoes, they will have a bountiful crop.” I was so very touched as I accepted the worms and set them free into my new potato trench.
A week later, my potatoes had grown a little so I added a bit more soil and some sand I had collected from the beach. Another week when I went to top up the soil again, I found leaf mould around the edges of the bed. And another week there were chunks of burned wood scattered around the plants. Now, a month or so later, my trench has turned into a hill with huge healthy potato plants above and I suppose about 500lbs of potatoes growing below. I have not seen this man since he taught me to plant potatoes, but he has been at my garden plot watering my potatoes, mounding the soil, and adding his own special brand of magic. It is this sense of community that I love about gardening: that a man I’ve only met once parents me and my plants while teaching me so much more than just how to grow potatoes.
August 17 2009 | Community Garden and Growing Food | 2 Comments »
