Time Waits For No One, and Neither Do Seed Potatoes

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Lately, I've been overbooked. The velocity of all the transition going on in my life right now is burning me out. Last week as I sprung forward, off the tracks I went. It's spring planting time. The calendar and nature sure are on schedule, perhaps nature is a bit ahead of schedule. It seems March is the new May around here, which adds to chaotic feel of things here.

So last week as I was swirling around in the chaos, which works well for my creative process and nothing else in my life, I opened a cabinet door to get something I rarely use, and wa la, there are Purple Majesty potato plants growing up from the bottom shelf.

Oh yea. Seed potatoes. Now what? Perplexed to start. I've never grown potatoes before. I thought when I ordered them, they shipped a bit early. When they arrived, I put them in a dark, comfortable place. I hoped they would be ok until my community garden plot became available on March 24, 2012. The potatoes, which have no concept of man's imposition of time on nature, had no desire to wait for me, or the community garden regulations. Can't say I blame them, when you have to sprout, you sprout.

Inspiration strikes. I have to get them in soil. I can be brilliant at times like this. I stopped what I was doing, and headed out to find some peat pots. The larger the better I thought. It was going to be a challenge for the larger peat pots. The local stores are just getting up to speed with their spring planting goods. I couldn't find the larger round peat pots I wanted, so I got the largest square ones I could find.

My thought was to get the pieces of potatoes into a peat pot. The instructions with the potatoes said to cut the potatoes into pieces with a minimum of 3 eyes on each piece to be planted, cyclops style I suppose. Some of the pieces ended up with only a pair of eyes, which I hope will see them through to sprouting.

When it comes time to plant in the ground, the soil will be compacted from being in the peat pot. I won't have to remove the contents from the pot. I could place the pot in the ground, and I can cut the pot down the sides and peel it away.

I assembled thirteen pots, some showing signs of responding well a week later. I'm glad the potatoes are responding well, the gardener on the other hand, is trying his best not to end up as a compost pile.

I'm very fortunate and grateful that so much is going on my life. It's a very fertile time, and the potato plants growing in a cabinet prove that. I bought an iris last year called Banish Misfortune. I planted it, and asked it to work it's magic. It did evidently. I will say when it bloomed I was ready to banish it to the compost pile. The magic wasn't immediate, wasn't in the form I thought it should be and as a storyteller, you would think I would have recognize this.

I recognize it now. It goes to show that the person who encourages you to live your life as a story you write everyday, that said person being me, needs to tells a story about his life to open his eyes to his own process from time to time.