Yo what's up haulms?

Today, man what a day, it has stopped raining every ten minutes, and the temp is in the high 70's and the Springfield like sky that would have made Homer happy. I have been digging new potatoes all day today. Making food is lots of hard work, so come and hang out at Kennett Squares Farm Market this Friday with me or Big D and Amy on Sunday at Headhouse. 

I love digging potatoes,  not grabbling them, but really digging them. I love potatoes because they have there own lexicon. Grabbling is the act of digging 'new potatoes' while not digging up the entire plant. so you dig in rob some new spuds and let the plant keep on keeping on. Haulms is the English term for the green above ground part of the potato and new potatoes, does not mean that I genetically modified them, it means (with most varieties) that when the Haulms flower you can dig the spuds and eat the best thing that comes out of the ground.

Also potatoes make me feel like a Hobbit, maybe because my feet are filthy, or my brain is sun baked. I love the hard work and smell of the soil and how every time you turn the soil and there is this mass of tubers and my 4 year old niece standing next to me yells every time, like she is opening a birthday present. 

Here are some of the prizes of the day. Starting in the upper left hand corner is a new one for me, it is called Inca's Gold. BOOM! this is a long season storing spud, but I lifted them now. The plants where about 4 feet tall and the root system is massive. The flesh is bright yellow and the skin is yellow with stripes of purple. The ones on the bottom is purple viking, this wonderful looking spud is pure white on the inside and purple and pink on the outside. This potato really needs a new marketing rep. it should be called purple haze or at least techno viking. 

The one in the upper right hand corner is Ozette. OK, so Spanish explores picked up this potato in Peru and took it with them as they traveled up the coast, they gave it to the Makah Indians in Washington State and some how it ends up in my dirty little hands.

Later