Country diary: how four crates can feed a hundred thousand

Sandy, Bedfordshire: Each seed potato planted five months ago has grown offspring a dozen or so times its own weightSpuds, tatties, taters - the time to unearth these magic tubers had come. Summer's heaviest harvesting was under way in billows of dust, rolling tractors and trailer upon laden trailer bound for welcoming barns.Almost five months before, I had stood at this same field corner looking over newly ploughed soil, the fine tilth sculpted into a corrugated landscape of hillocks and hollows. A pair of yellow wagtails flitted from top to top, and in any other year those lemony migrants from Africa would have been the highlight of my walk. Continue reading...