Field Notes

“Be careful not to disturb the nest between the blueberry rows–there are 9 duck eggs in there.” I told my berry-picking crew. “No”  Gabriel said. “Once! There are eleven.” The clutch of eggs that a mother mallard had laid in the middle of an aisle between rows of blueberry plants has finally hatched. Although we didn’t see it, the mother undoubtedly led her ducklings in single file down to the slough, a few hundred yards away. This was a relief, because, as careful as we were not to disturb her, there is only so much we can do when we have to pick the berries on either side.

We started harvesting new potatoes this week. The first new potatoes are something I look forward to nearly as much as the first strawberries of the year. Their sweet, creamy and dense flavor and texture are far superior to potatoes that have been in storage for any length of time. Among the general public, there seems to some confusion about what exactly a “new” potato is. Often, people equate them simply with small potatoes, and occasionally farmers or stores will market them this way, adding to the confusion. Others think that it’s a particular variety of potato, like a woman at a south bay farmers market who asked with a British accent if mine were true English new potatoes. A “new” potato can in fact be of any variety, the name simply implies that the tubers were dug while the plant they came from was still very much alive, and that the potato skins have yet to “set”.  Most determinate potato varieties (those that essentially set most of their tubers at the same time, and then die, similar to what a determinate tomato variety does) aren’t harvested until the plants have completely died back and the potato skins have become tough enough to withstand machine harvest without getting scuffed up. Indeterminate varieties, including most russets, will continue to produce over an extended period, and are often killed back with chemical herbicides to induce the potato skins to set in time for harvest.

The main reason that you rarely see new potatoes for sale at markets is that they are very perishable.  Once the outer skin is scuffed up, as inevitably happens no matter how careful we are when harvesting and washing them, they will quickly turn brown and dry out when exposed to air. So if you get potatoes this week as part of the mystery, you should keep them in the bag they came in, and store them in the refrigerator. If you don’t receive potatoes this week, you will soon. We planted 2 plus acres here at our home site, and another acre at the Redman House site, and although that may not sound like much to somebody from the mid-west, it is the most that we have ever planted. And it is the nicest crop that we have planted as well. Despite the cool spring that we have had, the plants of all six varieties (Sangre, Romanze, Carola, Bintje, Red Gold, and Desiree) have grown lush and tall, and are now mostly in full bloom. That means lots of delicious potatoes to come.