smashing pumpkins 265fl ower- fruit-seed botanical time lapse I initially posted as the “vegetan-
nual rule” for thinking about what’s in season. A handful of food plants
are not annuals, but biennials. Their plan is to grow all summer from a
seed, lay low through one winter, then burst into flower the following
spring. To do it, they frugally store the sugars they’ve manufactured all
summer in a bulky tuber or bulb that hides underground waiting for
spring, after their leaves have died back.
Humans thwart them opportunistically, murdering the plant and rob-
bing its savings account just when the balance is fattest. Carrots, beets,
turnips, garlic, onions, and potatoes are all the hard- earned storage units
of a plant that intended to live another season in order to fulfill its sexual
destiny. As a thrifty person myself, raised to trust hard work, I feel like
such a cheat when I dig the root crops. If I put emotion in charge of my
diet I would not only be a vegetarian, I’d end up living on air and noodles
like a three- year- old because I also feel sorry for the plants. In virtuous
green silence they work as hard as any chicken or cow. They don’t bleat or
wail as we behead them, rip them from their roots, pull their children
from their embrace. We allow them no tender mercies.
But heaven help me, I eat them like nobody’s business. Root crops are
the deliverance of the home- food devotee. Along with dry beans and
grains, they bring vegetable nutrition into months when nothing else fresh
is handy. Because they store well, it’s easy enough for gardeners to pro-
duce a year’s worth in the growing season. Some of my neighbors grumble
about the trouble of growing potatoes when a giant bag at the store costs
less than a Sunday newspaper. And still, every spring, we are all out there
fighting with the cold, mucky late- winter soil, trying to get our potatoes in
on schedule. We’re not doing it for the dimes we’ll save. We know the
fi fty- pound bag from the store tastes about like a Sunday newspaper, com-
pared with what we can grow. A batch of tender new Carolas or Red Golds
freshly dug in early summer is its own vegetable: waxy, nutty, and sweet.
Peruvian Blues, Russian Banana fingerlings, Yukon Golds: the waxy ones
hold together when boiled and cut up for potato salad; others get fl uffy
and buttery- colored when baked; still others are ideal for oven- roasting. A
potatophile needs them all.
The standard advice on potato planting time is the same as for onions