Potatoes

I read a couple of interesting things about potatoes tonight.  First, potatoes are not mentioned in the Bible.  No french fries.  No baked potatoes.  Certainly no potato chips.  They say it is because potatoes are a New World thing.  Sir Walter Raleigh is credited with bringing potatoes (and tobacco) back to England with him after returning.  Others say that the Spanish beat him to the punch with both potatoes and tobacco.

We'll have potatoes in less than a month now.  The weather has been perfect for spuds with just the right amount of rain.  I planted potatoes on the high side of the garden and that helps, too.  A few years ago, we caught some untimely rains that caused many of the potatoes to rot in the ground. By the looks of it, we should have a bumper crop.  Benjamin was asking me when they would be ready to dig this evening.  He always likes digging them up.  They are like buried treasure.

We planted five rows in soil heavily amended with rotten leaves and composted chicken litter.  They were mulched with live oak leaves chopped up by the lawnmower.  That serves as a good barrier to keep weed growth down.  It also preserves soil moisture and a haven for earthworms.  Next year it will be part of the soil.

Potatoes are very commonplace and not much to look at, but I think the potato blossom is stunning.  and regal-looking.  Potato plants bloom toward the end of the growing season and that signals me to assemble my potato-digging crew.

It is said that the average American eats 126 pounds of potatoes each year.  That is a lot of potatoes!  It sounds like a lot at least.  I looked at the blog post from the 2016 harvest and read that we dug up 144 pounds of potatoes last year.  We'll weigh them again this year to see if we can beat that record.  This is a new variety of potato we're growing this year, so we'll have to wait to see if the yield is similar to last year.  Lâche pas la patate in Cajun French means "Don't drop the potato." I've heard it said to mean "Don't give up easily" or "Don't let go."  We're not going to give up and we won't let go...  At least until all the potatoes are dug up!