Like you, I’m a gardener. I’m not being presumptuous here. I know you’re a gardener for two reasons. One, you’re reading this article and let’s face it, the only people clicking through on a potato-related headline are gardeners and starch enthusiasts. Since the latter is something I just made up, it must be the former.

The second reason I know you’re a gardener is that we live in the Catskills. Everybody gardens. You can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a chicken wire and black locust fence around here. We’re your basic rural community, except that parts of this rural community probably have a few more bathroom bidets than most. Per capita.

Regardless, we garden, which means we are in touch with the land and with the food we produce. Not me so much, otherwise I probably would have noticed that a five-pound bag of the same potatoes I grew this year only costs $3.99 at Adams. And that’s not on sale.

Honestly, it’s depressing. After nearly 90 days of watering, weeding and spraying with organic stuff that I don’t really understand, I was proud to display the roughly four pounds of potatoes I harvested. It’s been a long journey, but I made it. Keeping the weeds at bay was onerous to say the least, but we also suffered a hostile incursion of beetles and slugs. I don’t know if these two invaders were colluding, but the effectiveness of their battle plan was nearly devastating either way. A mixture of vegetable oil, neem oil, and Dawn dish soap sprayed on the leaves seemed to drive them off well enough. A bit of homemade shock and awe, as it were. Don’t ask me what neem oil is, I haven’t the foggiest. Also, don’t ask me why these DIY repellent recipes always specify Dawn dish soap rather than any other brand. That’s a mystery to me as well. Maybe there’s something in there we don’t want to know about? Perhaps Dawn is super-toxic or something. Seems possible. Is the EPA monitoring this column? (Of course, they are.)

Anyway, after an afternoon of digging up beds and another hour spent cleaning my below average-sized spuds, I was able to make something my kids devoured in one sitting. Calling it a sitting isn’t wholly accurate either. More of a snack they grabbed as they passed through the kitchen. A tater fly-by.

But wait! It’s not about convenience. Or efficiency. Or economics. It’s about a movement towards making our food locally, organically, and with great care. I love these potatoes and will swear up and down they tasted better than the store-bought variety. Whether they did or not is irrelevant and, honestly, it’s impossible to determine. After they’re cut into wedges, run through the air fryer, ’cause oil … ewww, and dipped into ketchup or barbeque sauce, they’re more of a sauce and garnish deliver system to three children who don’t really chew or even taste their food anyway. But it doesn’t matter! They’re amazing! At least that’s what the kids told me because there wasn’t enough for the adults to have a serving.

See, my potato garden is kind of a one-to-one type of deal at this point. It feels like I put one potato in the ground in spring and then harvest one in early fall. Bury 10 potatoes. Get 10 back. And they’re usually smaller, which is weird if you think about it. Supposedly there’s something you can do with towers and levels to get them to grow more but who has time for that? And I must confess the potatoes I put in the ground each spring are purchased from somewhere locally like, say, Adams, so it's kind of a Mobius strip for tubers. Still, gardening is a rewarding endeavor. You should see the beautiful rainbow chard I grew this year. I hate chard, it makes me gag, but they sure look nice.

And thus, a summer’s worth of work resulted in a snack my kids chomped as they ran downstairs to play ping-pong or whatever they do in the basement. I have no idea and I’m certainly not going down there, but hey you kids, watch out for my canning jars! I’m going to pickle beets. If I have time. Although Adams has 16 oz. jars of pickled beets for $2.29. Hmmmm …