EARTH APPLE

We are never going to starve here. When all else fails I can always find a potato to dig up.

Up until the 1960s part of this property was a potato farm and, while we don’t grow any edible plants in that part of the garden, the back garden sprouts spuds like other gardens sprout weeds. It’s a legacy of a long history of productive gardening.

This persistence of potatoes is why they were both a blessing and a curse in the 18th and 19th centuries in Ireland. Potatoes became a starch staple as they grew easily, resprouting from small bits that remained in the ground and growing productively in the same spot year after year. They could also be stored through winter and eaten for