I’m embarrassed to say that until today I did not know what a potato flower looked like. Or that there was even such a thing. In fact, when I started my garden this year and my grandma told me to “just cut some potato eyes out and put them in the ground facing up” I thought that nothing could possibly result from such little effort.
You see, I kill plants. I grow humans. And kill plants. No plant here gets out alive (cue Jim Morrison). I’ve tried countless times with many types, all to no avail. They are all dead. If yet another plant were to come here it would simply drop dead with fear from the lingering smell of murdered plants before it.
I digress. So I planted the potato eyes (it seemed rather ridiculous at the time) on March 26th. Come late April I was doing a mental “I told you so” to my grandmother because nothing was happening. I nearly planted flowers over the potatoes, so sure that nothing would grow. Then, it happened. A sprout. I jerked it out of the ground thinking it was the invasive ivy that pops up everywhere in our back garden. Upon closer inspection it was a tiny leaf I’d never seen. The next day, another. And another. And another!!! Long story short these big beautiful green leafy plants shot up everywhere in the area I’d planted the potato eyes. It was amazing. Then yesterday, these popped out:
I keep going out back to stare at them like a newborn baby’s face that I can’t get enough of. Aren’t they stupendous!! So apparently once the flowers die (noooooooo!!!) and the greens are wilting the potatoes are ready to be dug from their warm little dirt nests and boiled, roasted, baked and fried in my kitchen. A miracle of nature! Now hopefully my heirloom tomatoes will burst forth with black, red and purple orbs of delight in another month. I’ll keep you posted…..
