It was fall, I went out to harvest what was left in the garden. It had been a brutal year. Spring had come late, seedlings of tomatoes and zucchini were put out only too be killed or stunted by frost. The corn never recovered. The only thing that thrived were the chickweeds, and although edible, they guaranteed diarrhea.

From a cold dry spring we had a cold summer, and an even drier fall. When the heat came there was no merciful rain to quench the plants. The rain barrels designed to catch run off from every roof were now emptied. Wasps were dying in the water bowl set out for the cats.

In one week we found no fewer than six dead bats. Undoubtedly they starved to death as a result of there being no mosquitoes. The cats wouldn’t even eat the bats, poor things.

One night all the swiss chard, which had been looking poor already, was eaten down to the ground. The following night most of the carrot tops were gone too. What remained were a few straggly looking tomato and zucchini plants, and some potatoes.

photo by author

I really begun to regret planting so few potatoes. In the past we had too many so cut right back to only a dozen plants this year. They had been hilled up once but were otherwise neglected as I spent most of my time trying to control the weeds, and trying to get water from the still good well, to anything that I could.

We had gathered all the crap apples we could but it became more and more clear that the garden would not give us enough for the coming winter. Still one day in October I went out to gather what remained.

The ground was rock hard, a combination of me walking on it so many times to get the weeds, and because of the amazing dryness. In the air there was the smell of smoke. Somebodies field must be on fire, with no rain to put it out, all the men would be there throwing dirt on the fire to control it.

I dug into the earth, having to jump on the shovel many times to get it down into the dirt. I tackled the remaining carrots first. What I got were 2 semi-rows of finger length carrots. With the tomato and zucchini plants long dead from an early frost, that left the potatoes.

With negative, worried, thoughts in my head I dug them up. If things could not be worse, many of them were green. Green potatoes are the result of not being hilled up enough. Green potatoes are poisonous. As I dug through the earth I found I was getting a 50/50 division of good spuds and bad ones. Thoughts went through my head.

Clearly this wasn’t enough food to last us the winter. Potatoes are one food a person can live off for a long time but with 12 plants and only some good tubers, I couldn’t even see what we had lasting a month, much less getting us through to next year.

I had three choices.

One. Starvation. Probably not a good way to go. Slow and painful death to be certain.

Two. Eat the poison potatoes. I do not know exactly how they would kill us but at least our bellies would be full.

Three. An option I least wanted of all but it looked like it was the only remaining choice. With deep, deep, shame I might have to go to the store and buy food, and admit I could not live a self sufficient lifestyle. After all, this isn’t the 1800’s.

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