An Eye Examination

The first two weeks of February usually marks my goal of having potatoes in the ground.  Tricia went by our local feed store to inquire on seed potatoes.  We usually purchase 15 pound of Red LaSoda potatoes to plant.  The feed store employee said, "Would you look at this?"  He pointed to a notebook of names of people interested in purchasing seed potatoes and the corresponding amount of pounds.  He flipped the page to reveal the other side.  "This has never happened before," he remarked.  People feel like something is up.  More and more people are growing their own food.  The clerk told Tricia that there is no guarantee that we'll get what we order as the supplier sometimes cuts back the order.

Well, fortunately, we got a call.  "Your seed potatoes are in!"  Tricia saddled the mule and laboriously traveled into town.  Okay, I exaggerated for effect.  She actually got in her vehicle and made the 5 minute trip to Parsley's Feed Store in Jennings and picked up a box labeled as such:

I opened the box and admired a fine looking bunch of potatoes.  I immediately noticed that I was greeted by a number of eyes staring right back at me.

Most of the eyes were only a quarter of an inch in length, but that's better than some years.  They'll be easy to see for cutting.

I pulled out a sharp old Buck knife that I inherited when my uncle Don passed away.  It came in a nice leather scabbard.  As I was about to get to work, I paused and thought of  Don.  What a great guy he was!  My uncle Don kept a sharp edge on his knives and that was about to make my job a bit easier.

The job was to cut up the seed potatoes.  Rule of thumb I use, although it depends upon size, is to quarter the potatoes ensuring that there is at least one eye on each quarter chunk.  I originally intended to count the chunks of seed potato.  However, I'm easily distracted and lost count and didn't have the discipline or motivation to go back through and recount.

Normally I leave the cut potatoes to cure or scab over on the back patio or in our closet indoors on a high shelf.  However, a wise gardener from my church shared that he puts them up in the rafters in his attic.  He finds that's the hottest place and allows the eyes to grow and the cuts on the potato to scab over.  I figured I would listen to wisdom.  Here are our potatoes in a box in our attic.

I'm glad I listened.  In a mere 3 day period, the potatoes were scabbed over and the eyes had grown.  February 13th!  Time to plant!  Sometimes when I plant, the Mardi Gras floats pass by our house during planting, blaring french music.  This year that happened a day earlier.  I grabbed a can of composted chicken litter, a bucket of composted wood chips, and a digging knife and headed out to the garden in the side yard.

With amendments of chopped up leaves and composted wood chips each year, the soil just continues to improve year over year.  It's not compacted at all anymore and teems with earthworms.  It easily yields to the knife's penetration to a four inch depth.  At the bottom of the hole, I add a pinch of chicken litter, add a bit of fresh topsoil, drop the seed potato in, cover with composted wood chips and cover with topsoil.  Potatoes are planted four inches deep and 12 inches apart.

Tricia soon came out to help and it went faster.  I'd dig and add chicken litter.  Tricia would do the other steps.  Efficiency!  I love it. 

We were done in no time at all.  We now have a 45 foot row planted four deep.  It'll take a little while for the potatoes to break the ground, but I'll be checking regularly.

Nothing like digging in fresh soil on a beautiful early-spring day.  Nothing like anticipating the harvest of fresh potatoes that'll be dug in May.  Nothing quite like eating them, either!