Fruit of the Earth
One of my favorite autumn garden tasks is digging potatoes. I love to be outside, playing in the dirt, with the warm autumn sun and the bright October sky. It's like digging for buried treasure. Or, maybe, collecting interest on what I put away in "savings" last spring (when we planted them). Funny how the first task of the garden season is often planting potatoes and the last task is digging them.
Now if you were to rewind to July and ask me to dig potatoes, my response would not be polite (and certainly not allowable to be published here!). We've been told to dig potatoes when the plants start dying, or anytime after they have started blooming. I'm sorry, but I'm just not digging potatoes under the sweltering July Kansas sun.
Therefore, we leave our potatoes safely hidden in the ground until the days are in the 60s, rather than the 90s. We probably lose a few to grubs, and some do rot, but we still get way above the average of 10 pounds harvested for every one pound planted.
We love potatoes cooked many ways: fried, mashed, boiled and buttered, and baked. There's nothing like a big baked potato, covered with cheese, homemade chili, and sour cream on a chilly autumn night!
Many people like to bake their potatoes in the microwaves. In fact, a lot of newer microwave ovens even have "Baked Potato" settings, just for that. It's quick and easy. Just poke a few holes in each potato with a sharp knife or fork, and distribute evenly on a plate. It takes about 10 minutes to bake potatoes this way.
The tastiest method, in my opinion, is still to cook them the slow way in the regular oven. Wrap the potato in foil, or rub the outside of it with cooking oil or bacon grease, place in oven and bake for about an hour at 350 degrees F.
The Problem with Autumn
There is only one problem with working outdoors at this time of the year, and that is Asian Lady Beetles. They're nasty little orange and black things that swarm on the most otherwise-perfect days of autumn. They swarm by the hundreds. They get in your hair, on your skin and under your clothes. While generally more of a nuisance than harmful, they do bite, especially when up a pant leg or a sleeve. Plus they stink if you squash them. Chickens won't eat them, and I don't like to spray, so they're pretty much here until cold weather sets in for the year.
From what I've read, these beetles are believed to have come into the United States from China/Russia/Japan on a sea-going vessel, via the New Orleans port, in the late 1980s. Prior to that there had been attempts to introduce them to control insect pests in agriculture, but none survived until this group in Louisiana. Now they're here to stay.
They swarm in the autumn because they are looking for places to hide for the winter. Asian Lady Beetles especially like to crowd together inside buildings, where there can be thousands of them packed together inside the walls. They look for cracks in walls that give them access to protected locations. Thankfully, they don't seem to breed inside buildings, so once they're settled we don't see them. They will remain there until the first warm days of spring, when they move out and return to their summer feeding and breeding areas in fields and forests.
But for now, it's nearly impossible to work outdoors on sunny warm afternoons, such as today. So I guess I'll go clean house and leave the potato digging for tomorrow morning!