The final season of gardening is approaching. You’ve picked out the seed, you have taken the time to plot your garden, till it and line up the sticks and the string to create straight rows. You have carried water and gotten down on hands and knees to crawl through the patch picking the pesky weeds that keep appearing. Prayers were sent when messages were heard that bad weather, not just rain, was imminent. Hail, wind, heat & cold; all that mother nature could throw at a crop of lettuce, tomato, carrots, cabbage, corn, beets, peas and beans. Yet, still there is hope. Just like any farmer, there is hope – year after year!
Now the fruits of your labour can be taken from the field with memories of the time the dog chewed on cucumbers, the cat did its business next to the peppers or other rodents and bugs ate the leaves and the roots of parsnips and turnips. And if you didn’t have any luck, you might be like the rest of us and give way to a trip to a local market garden. Visit a market you’ll be able to pick only what you need. The fruit that is brought in isn’t over handled and the veg are brought in from the field frequently and fresh. If you start to question the price, remember how much work goes into producing the produce. And think, do I have the time to do this job? Do I have that kind of patience?
Today, it is Potato Day! A day to celebrate the humble, noble potato. Tasty at any time of the year whether it is a steak and baked potato loaded with chives, bacon bits, sour cream and butter OR it is French fries with a tasty piece of fish, you cannot go wrong! The vegetable that every kid should know how to cook. Baked, boiled, a tray of baby potatoes on the BBQ, mashed with gravy, cubed, shredded, whipped with cream, seasoned with dill, double baked in an oven, added to a curry. Let’s all hail the potato on this very special day. Let’s celebrate its diversity.
Scrub them and add an olive oil sheen for a crispy fry, perhaps a peel and prepare for a giant bowl of mashed potatoes that allows you to make potato pancakes the next day or maybe just a volcano of mashed with gravy flowing from the top. The potato has been a constant in our life. So whether you have a few hills in the front or back of the house or a whole potato farm that you harvest and donate to food banks, thank you for being a potato provider.
Now, please, pass the spuds! Thank you!
PS – did you ever plant potatoes in your front yard?
