The baby kale sparkled with dew this morning. And the potato blossoms were smiling when I went out to the garden to gather produce for today’s Bow Little Market. Their anthers are such a brilliant yellow.

I’m studying Rebsie Fairholm’s book, “The Lost Art of Potato Breeding”. The nature of potato genetics means that if you grow potatoes from seeds instead of tubers which is how most people grow potatoes, you have no idea what kind of potatoes you’ll get from those seeds. From a single potato plant, you can get a variety of potatoes. As a result, the chances of ending up with potato varieties no one else has, is what makes potato breeding a worthwhile endeavor.

Digging potatoes is a highlight of summer and fall. You can do it a million times and still be awed when your hand digs into the earth and uncovers a potato. It’s awesome how these plants use solar power to create sugars and starches out of water and carbon dioxide, and store this power in the ground. And they don’t just make one kind of potato, they make hundreds of varieties of colorful potatoes.

Eat the weeds! It works when onions are the weeds. Last fall, I let some onions do their thing, go to seed, and let them fall where they may. I ended up with a bed thick with onions. I thinned them out today, gathering a bowl of baby onions for cooking.

Elephant garlic and shallots are worth growing for their flowers. The elephant garlic’s purple flowers are about to open, and the shallot’s white flowers fringed with green are unfurling. Such beautiful flowers. I’ll let these go to seed and start the long process of growing them from seed.

The dogs are in training to be calm around chickens. It must be difficult for these hunting dogs to have chickens walk around them without being able to catch them, but they are keen on wanting to please us. I do wonder what is going through their minds. “All these birds … why aren’t they eating them?”