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Happening
at the Crossroads
November 3,
2008
by Coggin
Heeringa
Last
spring, as a part of the International Year of the Potato, members of
the Sturgeon Bay Home and Garden Club, assisted by students from
Sturgeon Bay High School and Max Martin of the US Potato Genebank
(located at the Peninsular Research Station) planted heirloom potatoes
in the Heritage Garden at The Crossroads.
In spite of the fact
that they were using Max's ingenious antique potato planter, the
kids wanted to know if Door County pioneers planted potatoes.
Indeed
they did. In fact, during several severe winters, when other food had
been consumed, a number of early European settlers survived solely on
salt and potatoes. They most certainly would have starved without them.
So in pioneer times, these tubers were no small potatoes. [Actually,
heritage potatoes were not small potatoes. They are much larger than
the ones we grow today.]
This time of year, pioneers would have
harvested potatoes and apples and carefully stored them in root
cellars. But though root cellars were the perfect place for these
life-saving vegetables, the parts we use are stems.
Stems? They
grow under the ground. Wouldn't that make them roots? In potatoes,
botanists call these underground stems “stolons.” Potatoes
are the most familiar
example.
When the potato plant grows, it sends off a number of stolons just
below the surface. When the ends of these stolons become swollen
with stored food they are called tubers.
The potato tuber has a
protective covering called a periderm [cooks call it the peeling,
which in itself is a strange noun when you think about it.] The
tubers also have a number of buds in the axil of scale leaves
which gardeners call the "eye." Cooks also called these nubs "eyes" and
are well aware that they can sprout.
So though we call them roots, and in spring, we buy a mess of seed potatoes, we really are talking about stems in both cases.
Potato
plants do produce flowers, fruits and in the fruits seeds, but plants
grown from these seeds are often disappointingly different from the
parent plant. If you want to grow a certain kind of potato, you
cut up one of the desired type, plant the eyes, wait the summer, and
then dig up potatoes that look like the one you cut up.
Clones! Most of the potatoes that are grown today are clones. And
when you consider then number of potatoes grown worldwide, that is a
lot of clones of a very few varieties of potato.
For now, that
is fine. But what if a disease or insect pest would decimate the
potato? It's happened before. What if our potatoes were unable to
adapt to climate change? It would be foolish, in light of the potato's
importance in feeding the hungry world-wide, to put all of our
tubers in one basket.
On Tuesday, November 11, at 7:00 the
Master Gardeners of Door County will bring Max Martin to Crossroads to
present a lecture: "The International Year of the Potato" in which he
will explain his work with the US Potato Genebank.The salvation of the
world (heaven forbid it should ever be needed) may be right here in
Door County .
The Door County Invasive Species Team will hold a
Land Maintenance Forum from 2:00-4:30 in the Lecture Hall of the
Collins Learning Center . Landscape professionals, property managers,
municipal maintenance staff, neighborhood leaders, property owners and
interested citizens are all invited.
Whether you are with a
landscape company looking to expand business, or you are a landowner
who wants to keep your land healthy and your property values high,
don't miss this opportunity to increase your land management knowledge
and capacity.
Some of the topics covered will include an
overview of Door County 's top 15 invasive plants, invasive species
identification and treatment tips, management perspectives,
presentations from invasive species control professionals and more.The
forum is free and open to the public. For information, contact Bob
Bultman at (920) 746-5955.
Crossroads at Big Creek is located at
the Intersection of Highway 42/57 and County TT ( Michigan Street ) in
Sturgeon Bay . The Collins Learning Center and Wisconsin Wildlife
Exhibit are open 2:00-5:00 PM daily.
Crossroads
is a donor-supported learning preserve providing programs for lifelong
learning in science, history and the environment. It is located at 2041
Michigan (County TT) in Sturgeon Bay. The Collins Learning Center is open
2:00-5:00 daily.
Many of
the Past News articles may be retrieved from this directory,
indexed and named in the following manner: 080101-news.htm
where
the first two numbers are the year, the second two the month and the
last two the date.
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