Due to Covid-19 and all the regulations which came with this virus in 2020, I was a little late planting our potatoes this year. I always look for ways to include the community somehow in the work which has to be done to make it a Community Garden. Luckily Anne Snel, a former math teacher from secondary and Anneke a student from Leipzig University who likes to help in the garden from time to time, joined me in the beginning of May to plant the precious potatoes we had ordered: Bamberger Hörnchen and La Ratte d’ Ardèche from Brittany. I had heard that these are special old kinds of potatoes. So, we wanted to give them a try.

Our school garden community took good care of them over the summer, watered them frequently and also checked for potato beetles. The potatoes were growing just fine. At least what we could see from above the ground.

In September, Jennifer Pritchard and her second-grade students signed up to harvest the potatoes. That was very exciting. Most of the children were doing this that for the first time. And actually, saw for the first time where potatoes come from and how they grow. Every student wanted to help. We had to take shifts. Thanks to Mr. Stephan, their educator, the organization went smoothly and we were able to dig out quite a lot of potatoes. Not as many as we expected and certainly not the size we expected. Some of them were the tiniest potatoes we had ever seen. But size doesn´t matter, taste is what counts.

After a long weekend the students were all curious what their potatoes would taste like and they got to enjoy them in their snack break. Result: Tiny, but very yummy.

I think we’ll try it again in spring 2021!!
Who wants to help planting potatoes?

Gitte Vogel-Sirin

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