About Potatoes

Uncle Carl under the farm programs of the 1930s also grew sorghum, and various clovers (which he sometimes harvested for seed). He had also before we ever moved to the farm engaged in growing potatoes.

Potato culture entailed two disagreeable tasks that had a lasting effect on all of us boys who had any contact with them. The first involved the preparation of the potatoes for planting — this involved removing the potato sprouts that had started to grow from the eyes of the potatoes and then cutting the potatoes into pieces of appropriate size (preferable with a single eye to each piece). The second involved the harvesting of the potatoes. The potatoes were dug by the mechanical digger but were then discharged onto the ground from where they were picked up by hand — a back-breaking chore.

Another disagreeable aspect was catching the potatoes as they came down the metal chute into the basement storage, catching them in a suitable bucket and tossing them onto the pile of stored potatoes. My brother Verner has a vivid recollection of this — along with the time he and Marold were asked by my uncle to leave school one cold wintry day to aid in helping finish the potato harvest.

Uncle Carl grew his potatoes primarily in some low-lying peat ground either in the southeast corner of the south 40, or across the fence in some land he rented from another farmer. The dust in this peat ground was especially disagreeable, being capable of causing much itching where it collected on neck, legs or arms — perhaps because of the decaying vegetable matter in the soil.

The first year or so we were on the Peterson farm, my uncle Carl gave my father the use of a four-acre plot of land to grow potatoes on. The plot was one of several fenced areas directly east of the barnyard. I think my father peddled his potatoes to neighboring farms. That is the way my uncle marketed his potatoes.

The potatoes were stored under non-freezing conditions. On the farm they were stored in the oldest part of the basement under the house — the part that was lined with bricks on the floor. One time my uncle stored some of the crop in a small room in the preacher’s house — I have no idea how this was arranged, it sounds to me like a very peculiar arrangement. The potatoes did not keep well there, the house was too warm. During the time the potatoes were stored they tended to “sprout” — new growth from the eyes of the potatoes. These sprouts had to be removed before the potatoes were sold or used for seed — another disagreeable task.

Although uncle Carl peddled some of his potatoes he also advertised and people came by to purchase them. I recall once a farm by the name of Joe Johnson bought 10 bushels of small potatoes that =ad been sorted out for $1 a bushel. This was the same Joe Johnson that Jean and I bought the first farm acreage we have from. Two of his several children were in my confirmation class — the twins Harris and Delores.