“Pleasures of the Season” is a series of posts which appear from time to time. They focus on something special that occurs only seasonally, often fleeting, and something we anticipate. In some cases, the season is quite short, other are longer. The posts are sometimes food related, sometimes not, but highlight moments of what I’ve learned about living with the seasons since moving to Southern France.
It’s a pretty cool moment the first time every year when we notice the potatoes finally breaking ground. The garden is vast, and for the last few months it has been fallow. Tilling always stirs the excitement, but then there is a waiting time. We wait for the rains to subside, the weather to warm, and for the right moment to plant the potatoes. Then, we wait for them to finally push upwards to the surface, dotting the empty garden with green plants that quickly claim their space.
We planted the same two varieties as last year: Charlotte and Rosabelle. Charlotte is extremely versatile, like an Idaho potato and the Rosabelle is a firmer, red-skinned potato excellent for sautéing. Both can be eaten as new potatoes, or stored for the winter months. We had a bumper crop last year and are hoping for the same results this year. The crop was so generous that, in fact, we didn’t buy potatoes until February and I still have homemade gnocchi and fries in the freezer made from our own homegrown.
It will be several weeks before all the plants are big enough to be mounded and then not until early July when the first are dug up, but potatoes are an early vegetable, so they signal a definitive change in the season and a change in our daily rhythms. We welcome this as we slowly wean ourselves off the daily chore of bringing in heating wood and replacing that with tending to the garden.
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