Potatoes, Horseradish, and Other Gifts from the Compost Pile

A few years ago, when winter was coming to an end and spring was still soggy and cold, I discovered a lone organic* potato in my kitchen. It is important to specify organic here because conventionally grown potatoes are much less likely to root and generate offspring. It was dried out, wrinkly, and way past edible.  At least six baby roots were beginning to form on the skin.  I decided to try an experiment. I cut that potato into six small chunks, each containing a single rootlet. I dug a trench in the garden on the far side of my backyard, and dropped the pieces into the trench, about 1 foot apart. I covered them with dirt and waited. A few weeks later, when potato buds began to push up through the mud, I covered them with more dirt and waited again.  I kept covering the buds until I forgot about them completely, distracted as I was by other projects. Later that summer, I found a group of straggly potato plants on the far side of the backyard, and when I finally got around to digging up those potato plants, I discovered many beautiful, golden-skinned, new potatoes, perfect in every way.

I know I shouldn’t have been surprised but, even still, I was. It’s not that I never did anything like this before. Yet it still created a sense of wonder. All that stood between me and those new little potatoes was a bit of effort. I already had the potato (such as it was) and, despite the fact that it was no longer exactly edible, it still contained all the raw materials necessary to create new food, sustenance, satisfaction and joy. The whole experience reminded me of the children’s folktale, “Something from Nothing,” about a little boy whose tailor grandfather continues to craft for him progressively smaller articles of clothing from the remains of other, cast-off pieces.

Our family has an exquisite Passover seder plate, a treasured gift of blue-and-white porcelain that hangs on the wall of our dining room 51 weeks a year. After seder, I don’t clear it from the table; it stays as a centerpiece for days afterward.  It’s obviously not its appearance that keeps it there, but rather what it means to us. So it remains, in fading glory, long after the parsley, horseradish, beet, and charoset [a mixture of apples & walnuts] become dry and unappealing. A few years ago, when I finally removed the plate to the kitchen sink to be cleaned, I got the idea to plant the dry chunk of horseradish in the backyard garden. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, but remembered that friends where we once lived would always arrive days before Passover with a large jar of homemade horseradish, the most fiery I ever tasted, and prepared from horseradish that they themselves had grown. Well, if they could do it…

Sure enough, a few years later, by which time that undisturbed horseradish root had given rise to dozens of 2-foot vertical leaves, I dug up a large chunk of root, scrubbed it, tossed it into the food processor with vinegar and salt, and stood back. The horseradish continues to stimulate penetrating conversation every year since.

Like my mother, I have maintained a compost pile wherever I have lived. All the coffee grounds, egg shells, corn husks, apple cores, leftover green beans, nut shells, used tea bags, fruit pits and seeds, carrot peels, old refrigerator-drawer oranges, and other food waste go into it. Leaves and grass would be okay, too, but I happen to put those in a different place. Because the pile contains absolutely no meat, dairy or egg products (other than calcium-rich egg shells), there is never a problem with pests or rodents. It is located out back, behind a particularly lucky spruce, in a spot initially demarcated by shiny chicken wire wrapped around four 4-ft-tall metal posts, each sticking a couple of feet out of the ground. After almost 20 years, the rusty chicken wire is mostly gone, and the spot is identified only by habit.

An aside about that spruce: When we arrived at our new home late in the summer of 1996, it did not look well. It appeared to be fading, and I made a mental note to have it removed the following spring. Much to my delight and amazement, the new growth on each branch the following spring registered more than a foot. It wasn’t dying; it was hungry! The compost pile had saved it.

In the spring, and at other times when I am planting, I push my shovel down deep into the compost pile to pull up a shovelful of rich, black dirt, as fertile as soil can be. I might toss some into a hole before planting a bulb or seed. Sometimes I spread it around my herb garden and dig it into the top few inches to enrich and improve the soil. Then nature takes over and the magic begins. Some forgotten seed, lying dormant in the compost, germinates and begins to grow. One year, we got grape tomatoes, green beans and gourds. Another year it was zucchini and roma tomatoes. Once a gorgeous broccoli plant grew. Once, incredibly, a tiny date palm began to grow, oblivious to the fact that the weather in Cleveland, Ohio, would not be friendly. My friend Amalia, a knowledgeable beekeeper, calls this annual experiment “compost gardening.”

Life hides in all kinds of unexpected places: a wizened old potato, a dry piece of horseradish, a spadeful of soil from deep within the compost pile. I planted more horseradish last week. And a dried out piece of ginger, too. You never know exactly what surprises are hiding within, but you can guarantee that, whatever they turn out to be, they will be flavorful and bountiful. Some sun, some rain, and a little effort. All free for the taking.

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