On Saturday morning I bought potatoes at the store for the first time since digging up our potatoes in the garden the previous September. Our harvest had filled a ten-gallon crock, and we ate those delicious spuds in soups in the fall and as mashed potatoes at holiday meals and whatever other way we wished through the coldest months. We finally hit the bottom of the barrel a week ago, leaving a couple handfuls of the smallest potatoes to plant this spring. Nature provides recycling at its most basic. And those baby spudlings have been growing some mighty long, skinny sprouts, as if they know it is almost planting time.
So Saturday morning, with a tinge of sadness, I was forced to go back to store bought potatoes. It was OK. Part of the cycle. Those potatoes at the bottom were getting kind of wrinkly and soft anyway (just like Bob and me - ha!). The weather had turned warm way ahead of schedule, being mid-March, and we were planning on grilling some steaks that night ... and at our house, steak requires a decent sized baked potato to accompany it.
I spent the afternoon pulling weeds from the big vegetable garden, getting it ready for Bob to rototill. There were a lot of weeds. As I was on my hands and knees digging into the dirt under those feisty weeds to get to the roots, my trowel unearthed something unexpected. A potato! A beautiful, decent sized, firm and pretty nearly perfect potato. I could not believe it. I have found some surprises over the years in the soil of our garden plot - including my long lost engagement ring (a story for another day). But that potato appeared as a little miracle - surviving a Midwest winter in glorious, mouth-watering condition.
I ran to show Bob the treasure I had discovered. He shook his head in amazement with me. I placed it on the back step, wondering how we would decide who would get it for dinner that night. If it was by arm wrestling, I knew I was in trouble. I was back on my hands and knees pulling up weeds again when I decided it would only be fair to each have half. But a few minutes later, the dilemma was solved as I dug up a second, equally fine potato. How could that be? ! Well, that night we ate those potatoes, sprinkled with the first chives of the season, and considered ourselves well blessed.
I know from now on, as I do my ritual springtime weeding in the garden, I will remember “one potato, two potato” and keep my (potato) eyes open for more.
