When I Saw Ruth's Potatoes

do you know what happened next?

I watched her toss a potato to the ground - it had ugly sprouts sticking out all over. She casually but intentionally threw some hay over top of the seed, taking enough care to make sure that it was covered completely but not much more.

Ironically, I shoved some potato soup into my mouth as I watched, my first-born who was just six months old at the time squirming around at my feet. I quickly glanced out the window of our small rental house - suburban enough to be very close to a school and other homes, but rural enough that our landlord had allowed us to put five raised beds in the yard a few months prior. Not knowing what I was doing, or being careful enough to figure it out completely before diving in, I had also casually but intentionally filled our beds with whatever vegetable starts I could find at the hardware store - not paying attention, really, to seasons, preferences, or plant requirements.

So far, things were okay-ish. I patted myself on the back a bit and finished the video of Ruth’s spring planting.

Long before the millions of videos that now exist on YouTube, at this time, there was just hundreds of thousands. A small enough offering that one could find a fairly vibrant collection of how-to videos, documentaries, and television recordings of shows long-ago-aired. This potato-planting-video that I’d stumbled across was the later.

The woman’s name was Ruth Stout. She was a champion of ugly-and-easy gardening, focused on getting the most harvest with the least amount of effort as possible. Ruth influenced (before that was a thing) an entire generation of gardeners to feel like it was possible. She wasn’t testing soil, measuring beds with rulers, or fussing over - well, anything really. Instead, Ruth encouraged others to simply try. Oh - and mulch the garden well.

I took her advice to heart and began mulching my garden beds - I can picture them now, densely planted, mis-matched, scraggly. But that was Ruth’s way, so that could be my way too. Ruth made gardening feel more like a lifestyle with a purpose than a fanciful hobby.

When I was introduced to vegetable gardening, it was addiction at first sight. Yes, it’s a lovely way to pass time. And yes, it’s lovely to be out in nature… it’s therapeutic to have your hands in the soil and to hear the sounds of the birds… yes, of course, it’s wonderful to know where your food comes from and on… and on… and on…

Yes, and Amen… but….

I used to dream of the days when it would be more than that. Ruth, in many ways, started those dreams. I watched her gather up baskets and baskets of potatoes, simply raking the straw aside that had been covering the beds and plucking up the autumn root harvest. It was as beautiful to me as anything I’d ever seen.

I didn’t just want to garden for the pleasure of gardening. One can do that with fussy plants and flowers (of which I have many). But I wanted to garden for harvest. With aspirations of root cellars stocked for winter time, my gardener’s mind went into overdrive on what could, maybe, be possible.

I dreamt of tomato passata… dried bunches of herbs… tubs of new potatoes, storage potatoes, sweet potatoes… jars of elderberry syrup and echinacea tinctures… heads of cabbages lined up in a row… bins of carrots, purple onions, and yellow ones too… bowls of shallots and garlic… jams & jellies… pickles and preserves.

I dreamt of harvest.

If you doubt anything I speak here, or can relate in anyway to my goal, you simply must read this old blog post from thirteen years ago. I couldn’t have said it better myself (I wait… I wrote that post…). To feel better about any of your own gardening, browse around the 2011/2012 blog archives and enjoy how terrible (but motivated) I was.

I used to spend my free moments dreaming up recipes that I’d make with my bounty and learning new methods of preservation. (I would, after all, grow so much that I would need to be creative with the bounty.)

… do you know what happened next? Of course you do.

My obsession with vegetables and dreams of harvest has carried me through fifteen years of learning. Our dreams are no longer dreams - they’re our lifestyle. I can face two-hundred pounds of sauce tomatoes with confidence and excitement. My arms have grown strong from stacking lugs of alliums, apples, carrots, apricots, and cabbages.

If we’ll get a harvest is no longer in question. The question instead is how much.

Hallelujah!

A gardeners hands must be trained to their soil, their seedlings, their needs. Watching gardener’s hands that know when to pull, when to push, and how to twist is a delight indeed. A simple fingertip pressed into the soil is all that’s needed for an experienced gardener to gauge temperature, soil health, and moisture levels. A quick glance at the foliage can diagnose a need or pest. A slight squeeze of produce can determine when to harvest. Have you ever seen how often a gardener looks up from the ground and looks to the sky? They understand weather, of sunlight and shadow, of rain and drought. Not necessarily because they read it in a book or were instructed in a particular way, but more often because their desire was enough to push them through years of getting it wrong.

That being said, I’ve yet to meet a gardener that does so in isolation. Many wonderful gardeners have directed me along the way: Scott, Aunt Vicki, Kathy, Grace, Marcè, Charles, Monty… Ruth.

Though some of them have walked my vegetable rows and others never will, all have bolstered up my love of not just gardening, but of harvesting.

Ruth had no idea what fire she was starting in me when she kicked that ugly ‘ol potato into the ground. And neither did I.

I pulled a russet potato out of the ground last week that I joked it was the size of a small school bus. Though I’ve yet to pull up the entire potato harvest for the fall (I’ll wait until right before the last frost to do that), I expect it to be a good one if the few that we’ve dug up thus far are any indication of what’s to come. The potato harvest is always our last major crop to come out of the garden beds before winter, and in many ways, the one that makes the whole process feel complete.

Not only because it’s a storage crop that we will eat on for the next six months, but because Ruth’s potatoes were where it started. The vegetable that made it feel possible. The humblest, dirtiest, most wonderful crop there is.

Someone once asked me why we go to such great lengths to grow this produce each year - with all the tending and weeding and harvesting and preserving.

My response was simple:

Someone’s hands need to know how. They may as well be mine.

And Ruth’s.

And yours.

Cheers,

Shaye