It’s time to study. Two books that I’m studying are Rebsie Fairholm’s The Lost Art of Potato Breeding and Carol Deppe’s Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties. I’ve learned that a reason you only see seed potatoes and never potato seeds for sale is that due to the genetic complexity of potatoes, potato seeds don’t grow true. Which means, that when you plant potato seeds from one plant, you end up with a whole variety of different potatoes. It does mean that developing varieties of potatoes perfect for your specific garden is possible. Plant enough potato seeds, see which of them do best in your garden, and then keep replanting the tubers of those selected potatoes, and you will have your own unique variety of potatoes no one else has.

I had some tomatoes for Bow Little Market on Thursday. They sold out quickly. The only ones who got any were the early birds.

This year I’m severely pruning the tomatoes as they grow, limiting each tomato to a single main stem. I’m also removing half of the flowers to limit the number of tomatoes which develop. It’s working. The tomato plants are very manageable, and the resulting tomatoes are nice and plump, up to a pound each. A few more weeks and I’ll have a full basket of tomatoes for the market each Thursday.

Writer Evelyn Waugh is said to have said, “Punctuality is the virtue of the bored.” I chuckled when I read that in a BBC article about the punctuality of the Swiss. Many of my ancestors were Swiss. When I visited the farm in the Jura mountains where one of my great-great-grandfathers once lived, I couldn’t fathom why he decided to leave. The area was a paradise of forests and green pastures. It turns out that he left because a tavern opened a mile or so away from his farm and he did not want his children to grow up so close to drinking and dancing. I don’t think his decision to move all the way to rural Ohio was the best choice, but who am I to judge. His action didn’t work as there is beer in my fridge and wine on my shelves.

The need to be punctual fails me when I’m at my desk in the garden. I’m never bored, so maybe I’ll never be good at being punctual.

The dogs are never bored either. They always find something meaningful to do, like trying to rip the weaving off a lawn chair. I give them the benefit of the doubt that they are just wanting to take it apart to see how it is made. Dogs are curious that way, you know.

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.