Potato Party

It’s that time of year. A random handful of snowflakes flit past the window, and the very top of the soil is a little crunchy some mornings. Even though we’ve been digging a bit here and there all late summer and into fall, the inevitable has arrived—it’s time to harvest the potato patch.
Yes, the whole patch. All 100 x 30 feet of it.
In the spring, we mass-attacked the planting process, taking on our hilariously beloved roles of “Doug, Chuck, and Phil” as one person dug the holes, the next chucked in the spud, and the last filled in the hole with loose soil. All summer, Kara diligently picked off those nasty potato beetles, allowing the plants to grow tall and the crop to flourish below the surface.
When all the plants have died back, it’s time for the biggest treasure hunt of the season! Sounds like a party, right? Well…sort of. Our epic potato diggings have come to carry their own notoriety over the years, as we’ve clawed through frozen chunks of soil, slogged about in the rain and mud, and bundled up against pelting sleet. Yup, a real party. I guess you could call it a garden version of mudding.
But this year, we really lucked out. Instead of jumping on the digging process through all those weeks of wet and chill we’d been experiencing, we waited. Some years, that’s a gamble—like last year’s wet stretch immediately transitioning to frozen winter. But this year offered the merciful sunny stretch that warmed our backs and the soil one last time.
Potato digging festivities are one of the big jobs on the farm where it’s especially helpful to have more hands on deck. This year, Jane and Tom Precht (members of our CSA program) were eager to be on the potato team. They were missing their garden and happy to help bring home crop that would soon be appearing in their weekly produce pickups.
Steve had been busy in the farm’s workshop, refitting broken potato forks with fresh handles, so a small army of tools were at the ready for the appointed day. Armed with boots and gloves, overalls and jackets, it was time to descend upon the patch. Already, I had every crate and cardboard box conscripted for the project, stacked by the fence or stashed in the porch or garage.
We were expecting a good harvest this year, but the crop outperformed last year’s yields by at least two-fold. I kept having to find more and more boxes, as we’d haul another load in the utility golf cart down into the root cellar-like basement of the old farmhouse. One day, you’re swimming in cardboard, only to find yourself evicting every available right-sized box of its contents. If the patch had been any bigger, we’d have been loading into paper bags!
“Bonanza!” Jane exclaimed excitedly as her fork brought a whole mound of Yukon Gold potatoes to the surface. “I just hope I didn’t spear any of them.”
At lunch break, Kara cooked up some of those occasional speared ones, along with steaming bowls of homemade squash soup and cheesy pesto melt sandwiches.
“You know what,” Tom offered as he forked one of the chunks of crispy potato. “This is the first time I’m eating potatoes that I’ve helped harvest.”
We made a toast to that one! How much more of an appreciation is gained for the effort and dedication it takes to bring real food to the table, when we’ve had a chance to put our own hands and back and shoulders into the process!
With half the patch to go, Jane and Tom returned the next day and power-housed their way through with Kara, returning triumphantly (and stiffly) to the table after the last of the boxes had been stowed away.
“We did it!” was the grateful cheer, as I dished up stuffed sweet dumpling squash and homemade applesauce. There’s nothing like working hard in the fresh air all day to make an eager appetite. And what a wonderful feeling indeed to know that all that crop was safely in the cellar, ready for enjoyment throughout the whole winter.
If you ask me, real food security comes from things like a basement full of potatoes, onion, squash, and garlic; a chest freezer full of pasture-raised meats; and a pantry filled with homemade jams, canned tomatoes, and dried herbs. It’s a satisfying feeling, knowing all of that summer’s work is now stored up for the long dark season, brightening up even the frostiest of days.
I clomped down the old wooden steps to the basement just a few days later, fetching a loaded box to bring to Farmstead Creamery. All around were the boxes and crates, waiting patiently. And as the latest batch of wintry weather pelted past the window, I was also immensely glad to have yet another year’s potato party checked off the to-do list.
Now I just have to finish pulling the carrots before things really freeze up. See you down on the farm sometime.