Tater Nation Benefit

One of the many great benefits of living in Tater Nation is gleaning potatoes each fall. The potato diggers are very efficient but no matter how fine-tuned those giant machines are, they always leave untold thousands of potatoes lying in the fields. We simply drive to the edge of the city and they are--waiting and hoping to find a home in someone's pantry.

 Very few people actually bother to glean potatoes. It's a bygone cultural activity that was once very popular in leaner times. About the only folks who actually glean potatoes any more are people who want to help the local food banks or soup kitchens. Those folks go out by the van load and fill trailers full of potatoes to donate.

 As for ourselves, we simply enjoy gathering perhaps 50-100 pounds depending on our mood. Today, we picked up another maybe 40 pounds to go with the 30 pounds we gleaned earlier this week. We will probably pick up another 30-50 pounds over the weekend.

 Bear in mind, we walk over hundreds of small potatoes while looking for the "keepers." We want the Number One's--and the bigger #1's the better. Every now and then the potato digger machine has a "hiccup" and drops some real nice #1's in a group. That's what the top photo shows. It's a potato windfall! The bottom photo shows Susun with her own #1's that she found one-by-one. It's way more fun than Easter Eggs!