With frost appearing on the pumpkins around the county a few times last week, the time had come to finish up one of my final garden tasks. The final harvest of the year, if you don't count the few scraggly tomatoes that cling to the withered vines, is always a dirty affair. Yes, digging potatoes is something to which it is hard to look forward, but eating all winter is easier to appreciate.

With the forecast calling for rainy weather all this week, it would appear that the task was finished just in time.

I always wait until October to dig the potatoes, but it usually isn't this late in the month. Since there really hasn't been a 'killing frost' around the house, I just hadn't gotten around to doing it. Potatoes are like a lot of other things around my house that have been somewhat neglected due to my building habit.

I've heard of methods for growing potatoes in hay bales, under straw and even in tires. But I stick to what I know—plain old dirt. I do enjoy watching the potatoes appear out from under the soil and it gives a sense of satisfaction to put away my harvest. But a potato fork and a few hours on my knees give me plenty of reasons to complain. The potato is the antithesis of mankind. It lives below ground and dies above ground.

How in the world someone discovered that potatoes are good to eat certainly is a mystery to me. They aren't easy to find, they aren't pretty and they really don't taste all that good until they're cooked. I guess if a body were hungry enough, digging in the ground to search for food wouldn't be a bad idea in the middle of winter. Roots likely would be about all that would still be edible in January.

I'd say that's when they were first discovered by someone with a healthy appetite and an empty cave somewhere long ago. I'm not positive, but the potato beetles may have found out about them before the humans. I know they usually get the first meal out of my potato patch. If you aren't a beetle, the plants aren't exactly inviting, and, being in the nightshade family, I think they're poisonous. However, take hold they did and many a family for many a generation has survived through the winter on little more than potatoes to get by on.

When I was growing up, beans and potatoes were the two basic food groups around these mountains. They usually were served with 'seasoning' (fatback, or pork side meat if you're a yankee) and a big slab of corn bread with real butter.

In the days before refrigeration, dried beans and cellar-stored potatoes, turnips, carrots, apples and onions gave folks a way to keep themselves fed in the cold months.

I can say that I definitely come from what may be a very long line of potato connoisseurs.

My grandfather was often called 'Spuddy' for his proficiency at growing large potatoes. Sadly, his trade secret for growing over- sized spuds followed him to the grave. I think it might have had something to do with the fertile patch of flat land that he and my grandmother cultivated alongside a small creek in a big holler. The land was elevated up high enough that the creek didn't flood it often, but it got the benefits of a flood from time to time. The creek also was close enough to water the garden if the need arose. I wish I had that creek alongside my garden this year. Canned foods were also important. Green beans, October beans, corn, cucumber pickles and other vegetables were often found in our house year round. Pepper relish, which we called chow-chow, pickled beets and sauerkraut were choice side dishes since they were easy to preserve.

With the drought this year, canned goods are in short supply this year. Only the green beans and zucchini produced a good crop; the corn and tomatoes didn't do much. Thankfully, unlike our forefathers, we can drive down to the grocery store. A dry year like this one would have been disastrous for those dependent on their crops.

In looking back, it's hard to imagine that people once survived with little more to work with than a big garden and a few animals around the yard.

While most of my garden didn't do diddley this year, the potatoes still produced a pretty good crop. From my two rows I excavated some seven five-gallon buckets of potatoes.

The quality was very good and the size of the potatoes was much better than last year despite the dry weather.

At any rate, even though I am usually careful, I did spear more than a few potatoes as I dug them out. That means the menu might be a little limited for the next few weeks. So, if you plan to eat at my house any time soon, be prepared. The menu says "mashed potatoes, 'tater cakes, potato salad, boiled potatoes, 'tater soup, baked potatoes and fried potatoes."

It's best to start with lots of boiled potatoes on Monday, since they can be mashed on Tuesday, fried on Wednesday and turned into 'tater cakes on Thursday. By the weekend, we'll be ready for potato salad and baked potatoes. Next year, I think I'll dig more carefully.