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  • From: Clansgian AT wmconnect.com
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Homestead] Knowledgeable Man
  • Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2009 09:43:50 EDT

One of my favorite old Dinsey flicks is "Darby O'Gill and the Little People"

When Darby traps King Brian and extracts his three wishes, first Darby
wishes for long life and health. Next says, "It might seem a small thing but
it
would mean a great deal to me. Me second wish is for a big crop of
potatoes."

Of course, after wishing his third wish (a crock of gold) Darby is tricked
into wishing a fourth wish. King Brian breaks out laughing and says,

"Three wishes I'll grant you, wishes great or small
But if you wish a fourth, you lose them all!"

Relating the story at the pub Darby says, "Now, wasn't I the world's own
fool letting him trick me into that fourth wish .... and me a knowledgeable
man!"

That's the way I felt on my way to the potato patch. During three years of
drought I'd plied the plot with many inches of horse manure, but because
there was no water, the effect was minimal. It had rotted away to a black
duff but growth there was minimal. Last year the map showed this very region
as the epicenter of the nation's severist drought and that was about right.
This year, though ..... I'd left the wheelbarrow upright and in two days it
filled to the brim with water. Here in August, where last year it was as
dry as death and we had to haul water to the cistern, this year we've been
getting more than an inch of rain nearly every day, and so we have all summer.

The result was that the potato patch could not be properly hilled and
moreover the weeds, responding to three years of heavy manuring, grew like
trees.

So as I made my way to that potato plot, I felt as if all my fervent
wishing for rain last summer was my fourth wish and I wasn't even going to
get my
modest wish of a big crop of potatoes.

With scant expectations, I pulled up the 1" diameter pig weed, smart weed,
and lambs quarter growning in the row over the dead potato tops and put the
fork into the ground.

Holy Idaho, Batman!

I dug up only one plant in each of two rows and here is a picture of the
potatoes I got from those two plants:

www.geocities.com/eleutheroi/spuds.jpg

That's a 14" serving platter the spuds are on, nine pounds of potatoes from
two hills.

James





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