And so the potato season begins...

Tomorrow I'll be setting/planting the first potatoes this year. I live on the Bjäre peninsula in southern Sweden, an area with ideal sand soils known for so called "new potatoes" (färskpotatis, nypotatis), i.e. early immature "primeur" potatoes. And especially known for being very early when it comes to harvest. For this, early varieties are used. They can vary over the years, with new varieties coming and old ones going. These last years, we've mostly worked with Rocket, Solist, Minerva and Swift.

It's a race to be the first one to harvest each year. Not just for the glory: the first kilos are sold very expensive to glitzy Stockholm restaurants. First man to begin the season usually get a bit of glory as well as it's always posted in the local paper. This year it happened on March 15th.

I think I might have promised someone last year to show some pics of the machine we're on. Most other potatoes are planted using automatic machines, but the primeurs are pre-cultivated and the machine can damage the sprouts (known as "eels", ålar) so instead farmers still rely on human labour. And that's where I and three others come in.





To plant them, potatoes are taken from the wooden crates and placed one by one in the cups moving on a belt in front of each worker. The potatoes fall to the ground when one ploughshare has first divided the soil and another -- under our seats -- fold the soil back over the potatoes. The tractor moves very slowly. So slow you can walk past it (it's a very dull job, keeping the tractor in a straight line and a pace that makes you fall asleep). But the cups move pretty fast for us and as a newbie it's hard to keep up with the pace.

The discs on chains that you can see on both sides of the machine are used to make a guideline in the soil for the tractor driver so he knows where to position himself (it's always a man driving where I work) for the next round. You lower the wheel on the side not planted on yet.




The field is long, about 270 m or so, but not as wide. Each row is going the length of the field because turning, especially with the big machine used for harvest, is cumbersome and time-consuming. So the longer, the better. You have to prepare the day's work by making sure you have crates in both ends of the field so you can "re-fuel" after each row. When we stand on one side of the field, we can barely see the other side (where those crates are stacked in the pic above).




It's always a bit of a gamble when to start: too early and the night frost will kill most of it, too late and you're not in for the big money as the price of primeur potatoes can drop fast. This race against time has also seen the invention of a practice everyone hates: it looks ugly, it's really really hard work to use and it cost money. The non-woven fabrics that makes the field as white as if covered with snow. They are several metres wide and the length of the fields. And we pull them out by hand. The edges are then covered with soil to keep it from blowing away. Usually some of it does that anyway. Before harvest, it all has to removed again. This time it's usually warm and sunny, which makes the labour even harder. But everyone uses it because they don't want to be left behind, harvesting weeks after the others have already begun...




My sis have a friend that's so used to always eating a proper lunch that she couldn't fathom that we don't eat anything but sandwiches when we work. Not a working class kid that one. Anyway, we eat outdoors or in the shed you see in the background. On warm sunny days it's heaven to eat breakfast and lunch out in the open. Birds singing and you can smell the sea, which is just a stone's trow away. When it's cold and damp it's not as much fun. But the rest of the time, sitting there without a worry I don't envy people that get much better paycheck but are stuck in office buildings all day.

There's a lot of details I could mention. Like how we have to bring a lot of crates, even on the tractor itself and how we constantly stop to move crates so we can reach them. Or how the cogs that moves the cups have to be changed depending on the size of potatoes used as it determines the distance between them when they drop into the soil. But that's probably bore you. (If you're not already bored by this text...)




There's a lot of work involved in potato cultivation, not just during the planting. The fields have to be prepared, which includes weeding, plowing, harrowing, rolling and fertilizing. We can't set the potatoes if it's too wet as the machine gets stuck and some weathers -- like an April snow storm -- are just to tough to work in for us sitting there on the machine, exposed to the winds and downpour. Then there's the covering of the fields, which is done after a first spray with pesticides. During the growth the cover may have to be removed if the potatoes grows to fast due to warm weather. Dry weather means the fields have to be irrigated. Before harvest, a substance that kills the foliage is sprayed on. Then harvest can begin. That's usually sometime in May or June depending on the weather.

If you want to read a bit more about the process of cultivation, check out the Wikipedia article. They don't mention what is probably the worst part of the job, though. It's called harpning in Swedish and is done during winter. A couple of workers have to work indoors with the potatoes dusty from the dried soil. Kilo after kilo have to be sorted into different groups depending on size (and variety, can't mix varieties) and distributed into crates. Second worst part is all the rotting potatoes you will put your fingers into both during planting and harvest. They stink like hell. And the smell gets stuck in you gloves and clothes. On a warm summer's day it's nauseating.




All these photos where taken on April 6th last year.

 Well, I better get to bed soon. Work begins at 7:30 tomorrow. Which is early for setting, but late compared to harvest when we've begun as early as before 6:00 some days.

Anything you still wonder about? Just ask and I'll do my best to explain the wonders of potato cultivation. ;)