What is it about Digging Potatoes?

Deni here; reporting for Park Place

Not sure how it became November; I remember cutting and planting potatoes just the other day… now, we’re eating them!

What is it about Digging Potatoes that makes people so happy?  It must be the magic of not seeing anything above ground and finding buried treasure that drives people to squeal in delight.  I’m not sure how many times this has happened to me but it’s an annual thing in my life.  I live to dig potatoes with non expecting people.  It can change lives!

In 1988, I was in a small garden in Rhode Island with a guy I had just met.  I asked him to help me dig potatoes… “Where are they?” he asked.  “Right here” I said and handed him a fork.  “WOW”.  We got married a few years later and have been farming ever since.  We’ve planted hundreds of rows of potatoes together; all different sizes and colors and still, each fall it is still magical when we bend, squat and sckooch along the ground to pull tubers from the earth.

As I watched the Tech GYRLS uncover pounds of beautiful potatoes I laughed on the inside as I wondered “Which of these girls will do this again?  Whose life has changed this time?”

Thanks Grow Appalachia; for allowing me to extend the magic to more and more people each year.

   Mashed potatoes anyone?