Letters

Another growing season is starting, as potato planting on the East End gets underway. From year to year, farmers have no way of knowing when that first day of planting will begin. Everything depends upon the weather.

Finally, the time is right to have potato seed cut and ready to go into the ground.

And so the ritual of spring planting begins again. We see plows turning over furrows of dark, rich soil, followed by the potato planter putting the seed pieces into the ground. The hope is that, by Mother’s Day, the sprouts from the potato eyes will break through the soil, making it possible to “make out the rows.”

My husband, Benny, grew potatoes, “Benny’s Best,” in Bridgehampton for over 50 years on land that his father farmed before him. In memory of Benny, and of our son Teddy, I am sending in a poem that Teddy wrote in celebration of spring planting.

The Soil Is Calling

By Teddy Graboski

Age 16, spring 1997

It happens each spring out on the East End.

Around 5:30 in the morning,

it’s time to get out of bed.

Early, dark, damp, cold,

but that’s the beauty of it.

Hey, Sporty, bacon, toast?

Breakfast is quick.

The soil is calling.

The red ’82 Chevy has been waiting

since November to go.

We shove off. Hats and gloves on,

It’s gonna bite, today.

The seed has already been cut.

The trucks are ready for war.

The barn door opens.

The tractors and trucks just wait there.

For an instant you feel

like the king of the world.

The key turns.

Nothing but a nice screech and a grind

Finally, it’s on.

The John Deere is barking and howling,

ready to hit the field.

The Chevy, the fertilizer and seed trucks,

and the planter are coming down.

Just a little ways from where

Mitchell meets Scuttlehole, we start up.

The seed is dumped into the planter,

the Deere growls up, almost ready.

The soil smells better than

anything could ever smell.

The cold makes you feel proud

that this is what you do.

The plow has already churned up a few furrows.

Boss, let’s get going.

The Deere pulls the planter,

the hydraulics lower down

and we move.

Down the row we go

just the dark soil, the sun and us.

No amount of money on earth

could ever match this feeling.

Never mind potato bugs, droughts, floods,

nematodes, blights or taxes.

Just breathing in the clean air

makes it all worth it.

For the first mornings of spring,

we rule the world.

It is work, but it is glory.

It happens each spring out on the East End.

Nancy Graboski

Juno Beach, Florida