Part 1 (Read Part 2)

After more than fifteen years of farming, I don’t feel less enthralled and amazed by the process, but rather more.

How food comes into being-- this system of seed and soil and photosynthesis and underground living networks-- is unbelievably complex. If one stops to think about all the specific actions that must happen in a well coordinated and timely manner - water, sunlight, blooms, pollination, steady nutrition- that must occur for even ONE potato to come to fruition, it’s simply impossible to not be overwhelmed with gratitude for the abundance of food at hand.

**

This year’s potato crop thankfully makes up in abundance what it lacks in good looks.

We’ve suffered the misfortune of being the recipients of poor quality seed that was purported to be disease free but clearly wasn’t. This has resulted in blemished, knobby skins and brown, damaged patches. I can’t really put into words, nor do I like to dwell on how discouraging this is for us farmers. It’s truly a tough hit when we work so hard to care and cultivate a loving landscape.

And not that we hang our hat on appearances, but we really enjoy the sense of culmination that comes from the harvest of a healthy, radiant crop. Furthermore, it is so disappointing to Brad and I when we can’t deliver the best produce possible - produce we bend over backwards to try and make possible.

A customer once told me, “You can’t taste ugly.”

When I shared this recently with a CSA member who was raised on a farm, she replied, “I grew up thinking that ugly DID actually taste better... from my grandmom’s pound cake (which was AMAZING, but always seemed to fall and, well, wasn't very pretty) to the tomatoes we grew. I honestly believed that ugly meant it tasted better. And, I'm still pretty convinced it's true.”

Ah. Someone who understands the importance of knowing the stories of one’s food.

Professionally, an “ugly” potato crop is a tough thing to swallow.

Personally, I’m grateful to have enough potatoes to see me and my family through the winter; I won’t bat an eye at their appearance, because I trust what’s inside.

After eating from my land for all these years, I’ve come to trust food that has-- how shall we say, “character.”

In my family, the blemished, bruised, sunburned, has all found a home in the kitchens of my extended family. We don’t call these farm offerings seconds, or damaged goods or leftovers or any other derogatory term that lessens the perceived value. Instead, we simply refer to this type of produce as ‘utility’ or ‘farm’ grade.

Sometimes, this is the produce that takes a little longer to prep or clean, which means one gets to practice patience.

When I’m standing at the sink cleaning a bucket of windfall apples or trimming split or cracked onions or yes, peeling knobby, rough potato after potato, what I think about is how grateful I am my plants persevered - how totally impressive it is that living beings weathered tough challenges, suffered injuries and still managed to provide nourishing gifts for my benefit.

That’s the gift of farm grade produce - it's a visual reminder to take a big step back from exacting perfection and stand firmly in a place of exultation and amazement that anything at all came to fruition.

I’m not kidding you.

Remember this. All food is a sheer miracle.

**

One of my earliest agrarian goals took root with my first potato harvest.

I wasn’t a commercial grower yet. I was farming short rows of a little home garden. But I can still remember how proud and happy I felt the night I sat down to supper that featured a side dish of ‘my’ potatoes. I remember it being a very gratifying experience to be nourishing myself through a partnership with nature.

The complete and utter satisfaction I found in a simple meal of boiled potatoes my hands had sown and cultivated and hilled and watered and harvested and washed and cooked… well, it’s indescribable. Nourishment may be an overused word, but there is no other way to describe the reverential experience and pleasure of eating food that one is so intimately connected too.

I also very clearly remember thinking to myself - if this is how good it feels to be eating just one thing I grew, what would it be like if I could sit down to a plate of food that came entirely from this land and my efforts?

That sentiment - that question - was never written into my mission statement or added to my business plan, but the desire lodged in my heart and every fiber of my being. It has been a subtle but powerful driving force for all my efforts hence.

In retrospect, the appearance of those potatoes didn’t matter one bit. It was the depth of substance, the shared experience, the story of those spuds that really filled me up. ~AJ