HOW TO PLANT POTATOES

I don't have to plant a garden this year.  I remember ordering from garden catalogs and asking myself, "Do I really want to do this again this year?"  My garden usually looked as pitiful as – well – my blog rough drafts.  The difference is that I know how to fix my rough drafts. 

Back in 1978, I believe it was, I almost learned how to garden.  I went along with my best friends, Jackie and Ralph, out to Ralph’s parents’ farm to plant a vegetable garden.  His whole family came to watch.  My first lesson was about potatoes.  You don’t plant potato seeds.

Feeling a little dumb after that lesson, I tried to keep a low profile.  After all, Ralph’s parents thought Ralph himself had become a “city slicker.”  So that put me in the category of a UFO, I guess.

Well, I proceeded to watch the “goings on” in the field.  Ralph and his sister disagreed on how to cut the potatoes.  Then his brother told him how deep to plant them.  Then his brother’s wife, his other brother, his father and his mother voiced some pretty convincing arguments about how and why the potatoes should be cut a certain way, or not cut at all, and why they should be planted at this depth or that one and at exactly what angle, and when to plant them.  (They must have agreed on that one, since we were all in attendance.)

You’ve probably guessed by now that Ralph planted the darn potatoes exactly the way he wanted to, and for many years after that his family talked about the day the city slickers planted a garden.