Lliam ran the tractor over the garden plots before Blain and Evan worked them. He pulled the disc parallel to the rows to comb out the stalks. Then he went perpendicular to the rows so the individual discs could chop the corn stalks and pumpkin vines into lengths short enough that they would not wrap around the shaft of the rotary tiller.
Then he went back to the lumber mill and building project.
“Why don’t we just plant the potatoes over there?” Evan asked Blain, pointing to last year's potato-patch that the disc had fluffed up and leveled out quite nicely. In contrast, the field that had been planted in corn the year before was still in-the-rough, even after Llaim had tilled it both ways.
Blain had asked Sarah the same question. It seemed like make-work to plant potatoes, the first crop of the year, into the fields that needed the most work.
“Did you ever hear of the Great Potato Famine?” Blain asked Evan, sharing the info Sarah had given him.
“Maybe. Wasn’t that in, like, the 1970s?” Evan asked. For him there was no difference between 1970, 1870 or 1470. They were all impossibly long ago.
“Nope. It was in the late 1840s. Between starvation and people leaving Ireland, it almost emptied the country” Blain said.
“They planted potatoes in the same plots of land year-after-year. And they planted nearly all of their plots to just potatoes. A disease that killed potato plants came and there was nothing to break the cycle of disease” Blain said.
“For five years in a row, all of the potatoes in Ireland turned to slime before they could be harvested” Blain said.
“Big deal” Evan said. “So they didn’t have any potato chips to eat. Why didn’t they switch to corn-chips.”
Blain looked at Evan to see if he was joking. He wasn’t.
“They didn’t have corn to make corn-chips. You are missing the fact that maybe ¾ of the calories they ate came from potatoes…just potatoes and nothing else. It would be like me only letting you eat half of your breakfast and then expecting you to work all day without anything else to eat” Blain said.
Evan shrugged. “I still don’t see why it was a big deal.”
“Day-after-day?” Blain asked. “You would lose three pounds a week and would be dead in months.”
Now it was Evan’s turn to frown. “But you said there were still people alive after five years. How did THAT happen if they would all be dead in half a year?”
“Some of them lived in port cities and they could buy food brought in by ships. Others lived by the ocean and maybe they could catch fish or dig clams or eat seaweed” Blain speculated. “Others might eat grass growing beside the road hoping they could get some nourishment from it.”
“There were still rich people in Ireland. Poor people probably went through their garbage looking for scraps of food. Or they might steal grain from the barn that the rich people were going to feed their animals” Blain said.
“OK, I get the picture. We don’t plant potatoes in a field where we grew potatoes the year before because diseases would wipe them out” Evan conceded.
Evan was able to till ground faster than Blain could follow up with planting the potatoes. Sarah insisted that the rows be precisely spaced so there would be plenty of room for the tiller to pass between them. She also insisted that the plants be 24” apart within the rows so the potatoes would be large enough to make them worth peeling.
Evan shut down the tiller when he finished tilling the plot and walked over to Blain and asked “Where do you want me to till next?”
“I want you to help me plant potatoes” Blain said.
“But I like tilling” Evan whined.
“Nope. We finish this plot before we move on. Besides, you need to learn all the parts of planting, not just running the tiller” Blain said.
Sarah was very firm on planting the pieces of seed-potato with the skin-side-up. And since that is how Sarah did it, that is how Amira’s (and Walter, Abe and Evan’s) plot was planted as well. There were faster ways to plant potatoes. Blain had even seen a gizmo in Roger’s shed for planting potatoes but the pieces were not inserted at an even depth nor was there any mechanism that ensured they were skin-side-up. So they did it the slow way.
“I still don’t get why I can’t keep running the tiller” Evan badgered.
“You can, after we finish planting this field” Blain said for what felt like the tenth time.
“But what is the point of finishing before moving on?” Evan asked.
“Do you watch football?” Blain asked.
“I have a video game that I play. Why?” Evan asked, taken off guard.
“Do you get points for moving the ball to the five-yard-line?” Blain asked.
“No, stupid. You have to punch it into the end-zone or kick a field goal. Everybody knows that” Evan replied.
“It is the same deal with this patch of potatoes. We can put all kinds of work into it but it really isn’t worth anything, as far as feeding your family, until it is completely planted. Getting the ball to the five-yard-line isn’t good enough” Blain explained.
Evan grudgingly marked the rows of potatoes by placing a rock every 9th hill in case they needed to be tilled for weed control before the plants poked their shoots above ground.
Evan had just started tilling the next patch when the rain started...
---Notes---
Modern, commercial potato farmers plant much closer together than that. For "new redskin" potatoes or for potato chips they might plant as close together as 6" apart in the row. For those market outlets, large size is a defect and planting close together limits the size of the tubers to what the market wants.
For baking potatoes, they might plant at 12" apart in the row. Again, different markets want different sizes. Home owners might want smaller sizes that microwave quickly while restaurants desire a size that fits nicely on the serving platter.
Subsistence, low-input farmers will plant farther apart so each plant has a greater volume of soil to "mine" for nutrients and moisture.
Combining the wide plant spacing with the poultry manure fertilizer will result in rampant vines that sprawl and make tilling difficult. It will also result in very large tubers, many will be knobby and some of them will have a defect called hollow-heart.
The upside is that if they had been getting 1000 pounds of potatoes per 70'-by-70' plot they might get three times that with the additional fertility.
Typos- Paragraph 1 “He pull(ing)ed …”
ReplyDeleteThanks! That was a last second change of tense to make the next fewer paragraphs more clear.
DeleteWas going to post this on PCC posting but:
ReplyDeleteFor a mind exercise, you're tilling up the tater patch, other fellow is discing the corn stalks.
Noisy, dirty, dust all around. WHERE IS YOUR PERSONAL WEAPON? Will you be noticing the dogs barking up a storm about odd visitors?
Just how dirt ready are the printed carbines? Where does little Suzi put it when she's doing the chicken house? Weeding the garden?
Someone was asking why the Israeli rave party had no security nor folks carrying personal weapons. Socially they were near naked and partying. No fear of trouble. The IDF and that SUPER SECURE Wall had been a long-term security blanket.
Only Kibbitzes with a History of remembering terrorist threats maintained armed members and suffered far less from the attacks. Once the terrorists started getting return fire they withdrew. But even at those kibbitzes the element of surprise cost them, until survivors got to the weapons.
Pre-IDF kibbitzes kept armed personnel on hilltops keeping watch as the rest worked. I understand they rotated duties as it was restful BUT you were NOT to snooze up there. Workers often had weapons nearby where they'd not get run over by the tractors and such. Tractor operators often had a carbine inside a feed sack to keep them clean.
History lessons for the near future?
Study the rebuilding of Jerusalem's wall in the time of Ezra. Weapons within reach. This farming biz would be akin to very light combat pioneer work. Personal weapons can be protected by a wrap of cloth, and slung across the back. I have already suggested the birdWatching tower...perhaps a bell made of pipe, and flares,or whistles, or bugles would serve for alert signals....for whatever emergency drills are planned.
DeleteWhistles and a well understood code is a cheap way to spread the alarm. Even for a accident chopping firewood.
DeleteEasy to keep around the neck and different whistle tones can ID the whistler.
Michael
I carry a pistol at all times when I leave the front door of my home. My wife does as well. There is often a carbine mounted on the front of our quad as we move around the homestead. When my weapons get dirty, I clean them.
DeleteWe have also recently introduced a radio network on the property, and surrounding areas.
I have a pistol on me or no more than 5 steps aways at all times. Full stop.
DeleteThe further I am from home, the larger the pistol gets and the more reloads I carry. Overnight trips have started getting a long gun with reloads. Plus I'm doing the best I can to avoid all crowds and trips to metro areas. Things are simmering, and I'm concerned about the weather
One of the long term storage we use here on our little Homestead is drying. We dry a portion of everything from tomatoes to potatoes, beets, greens, onions, herbs. Just a thought on harvest time.
ReplyDeleteYou gotta plant tatters with the eyes up. Grampa said. Woody
ReplyDeleteEvan gets one chance to use a pejorative on an elder. He already used that chance by cussing.
DeleteWhile opinions vary, an important part of parenting is "selective deafness".
DeleteIf the overall objective is to plant the potatoes and to teach the kid to be results oriented then it might be a good time for Blain to "miss" that comment. Verbal habits are difficult to eradicate and even the best of us "slip" when we are distracted.
If the overall objective is to totally remake the kid from the ground-up (process oriented) then the pejorative should be addressed.
I opted to have Blain exercise selective deafness.
Making a study of famines in the last 100 odd years might not be a bad activity.
ReplyDeleteThe famine in Ireland was highly political in cause and result. Ireland exported more than enough grain in the 1840s to have sustained it's people through the potato famine but the people that controlled the country wanted to reduce and control the population no matter how many people they killed. Sort of like what has been going on here.---ken
ReplyDeleteLooked up hollow heart, an issue when a Potatoe goes through a dry spell with no growth then a lot of moisture and sudden growth. MSU describes it as "splitting it's pants".
ReplyDeleteHappily, doesn't affect its storability or eating aside from odd looking Potatoe chips if so processed.
SNIP from MSU : Hollow heart does not affect the taste, quality or nutrition of the potatoes. It may affect their use because potatoes with hollow heart are not suitable for making potato chips. With plenty of butter, however, hollow heart potatoes make fine mashed potatoes.
On armed working parties.
ReplyDeleteBLUF: stacked arms with magazines removed is common and useful. Individuals stow magazine in a pocket. Unloaded weapons can’t be turned against you, but can be made ready in short order. That’s one of the main advantages of box magazines versus tube magazines found on lever guns and some rimfire rifles. This works for FPCON Bravo. Higher threat conditions might warrant establishing dedicated observation posts, even at the expense of reduced productivity on essential tasks.
-jojn
John, you're assuming the trouble doesn't have plenty of his own firepower.
DeleteI RECALL that Ft Jackson SC (what did they rename it to now?) lost several stacked arms to an armed pair with a pickup truck. The Drill SGT had a loaded 45 but a pair of shotguns was a better hand.
Again, referring to the Kibbitzes mentioned earlier, UNTIL the hostiles are receiving fire your folks are targets.
While it would be AWESOME if the hostiles were always so nice to low fly a drone noisily across your farmstead the evening before the attack...
An armed overwatch in my opinion is always needed. One alert person with a rifle can give warning of trouble and allow the folks to get to cover and arm themselves.
Blain is offering valuable lessons to Evan. Critical path management is important. We’ll see if Evan generalizes the lesson beyond the tater patch.
ReplyDeleteGreat story ERJ! The little details are appreciated.
-john
The 'question' is, will the lessons 'take'?
ReplyDeleteI concur with everyone who said 'great story'. It puts me in mind of parts of 'Triple Ought', something I read online a lot of years ago, especially the safeguards in place and under discussion.
ReplyDeleteStay safe