Whiteley Creek Homestead

It's a given. If you are one in a family of twelve children, you help grow what you eat. Soup beans and potatoes were staples that carried us through the winter. What drives me to continue to plant these two crops in my own 3b Plant Hardiness Zone Garden each year is not necessity but a deeply rooted sense of preparedness for Minnesota's cold months that lie between autumn's harvest and spring's thaw. It's being ready. It's knowing that beans and potatoes, set aside from the previous year's harvest, will take root in the early spring's soil to provide for us many pots of warming soup as the snow blankets the ground. 

On May 20th each year, I honor my father (May 20, 1910-January 26, 2005) and his influence on my connection to the soil by planting soup beans and potatoes in my garden. Although the heirloom varieties of soup beans (Hutterite pictured in enamel cup, Calypso, Hidatsa Shield Figure, Painted Pony, Turkey Craw, and Ireland Creek Annie) that climb various trellises throughout my garden, and the Purple Majesty Potatoes with purple skin and purple flesh that I companion plant next to nasturtium (to deter Colorado potato beetles) and cabbage, are not the navy beans and russet potatoes of my childhood, no matter.

Life's cycle continues…