10.7°C Sunny 
Welcome to planting season, growers of food and flowers. May the nice weather stick until everything is in the ground, and then may it rain gently every night, and be sunny every day.
Things are pretty late this year (remember the mud?), which means we jammed the whole potato planting process, which can take a month in some years, into a week and a half from first tractor pass to last spud in the ground. Possibly a record. Now that the potatoes are done, we can catch our breath (quickly, please) and turn our attention to tomatoes, cabbages, celeriac and everything else.
It always feels so good to get potatoes in the ground. I love seeing the seed pieces disappear under the soil as the discs hill them up. My mom always wants to “bung ’em in” as quickly as possible and finds delay frustrating. On the other hand, dad likes to make sure that we are planting at the correct depth, that the soil is properly prepared and that the initial hills are not too high, which slows things down a bit. Sister Jennie and I are a charming mix of both. Can lead to the odd contre-temps as each person’s idea of efficiency is expressed — both an internal and external struggle. Working with family, and all that. Anyhoo…
As a sort of in-between-sized Pemberton farm, we have some of the large equipment required for large volume potato production, but we lack some critical pieces. Consequently, some steps along the way take a lot longer than they would if we had a Seed Cutter machine, for example. But on the plus side, there are pleasant hours spent under the shade of the barn, cutting potatoes up for planting. For this job, we are seated, knives nailed to the end of saw-horses in front of us, and on the left we have the uncut large spuds while on the right bins of cut seed, each piece complete with an “eye” from which the new plant will grow.
Without the Boom Elevators, Even-Flow boxes, and Live Bottom Bulk Bins that our seed suppliers employ, we are sooner or later forced to dangle 2,000-pound bags of seed potatoes from the tractor loader, trying (sadly, often in vain) to control the surging tide of potatoes as we fill more manageable 30-pound bins. This almost never goes well and we find ourselves picking up after some sort of spud flood. Tempers can flare at the sight of hundreds of pounds of potatoes on the floor. One becomes more and more thankful that one is working with family — people who tend to forgive poor behaviour in advance.
And now all the potatoes are planted, and in record time, which makes the “bung’em in” crowd happy. All 18 varieties. Possibly we are taking this diversity thing too far? We worked hard to let our customers know that there are more than Red, White, Russet and the highly exotic Yukon Gold varieties and now they specifically have to have such and such variety for so and so dish… A foodie monster of our own creation, and a thriving business because of it.
This falls into the “variety is the spice of life” business model that seems to be a little lost in the mainstream agricultural industry. When it comes to food, you can have what you want — ask your grocer or local farmer. If someone won’t grow it for you, then you might have to do it yourself. Happily, both are possible. Works well in Pemberton, that’s for sure.
Anna Helmer can name 30 varieties of potatoes, and eats porridge every day for breakfast, day after day, year after year.
