A Cautionary Tale of Seed Potatoes.

During the bleak winter months, when the world is cold and gloomy and you're inundated with gardening catalogs, it's a natural survival instinct to start ordering items for your garden. That happy garden, the one that will bring you hours of bliss and bushels of produce.


Then, as winter melts into spring, your orders will begin arriving. Boxes will be delivered, whether or not you've finished building the six new raised beds in the garden.


You'll tuck away the boxes in the garage, unopened presents, until your garden is ready.


Finally, as the last bit of soil is added to the new raised beds, and you begin to design the contents for each bed, you remember the box that arrived more than a month ago, and you retrieve it from its dark, gloomy home.


Inside, you will find this:

Your seed potatoes sent shoots through the mesh bags, causing much entanglement.

You will spend two hours cutting through the mesh, careful not to remove the shoots, to free the parents of your future mashed potatoes.

And, after two hours, you will give up--because two bag of potatoes still remain to untangle.

Your bags will sit on your kitchen counter, awaiting your surgical skill.

A friend will stop by and give you strange looks for keeping shriveled, sprouted potatoes in the kitchen. She recommends composting them.

You wonder why you started this whole gardening thing anyway. Then, you remember how delicious homegrown fingerling potatoes taste.

You persevere. The seed potatoes will be freed. 

But, you might say some foul words along the way. And realize it's time for new glasses.

More raised bed adventures coming soon...

XO ~

Julie