19/3/2004,
My father was a great gardener. He had all kinds of vegetables, and potatoes of course as well as fruit trees and different kinds of flowers and bushes. Whenever we visited the botanical gardens in Dublin he would return with a few cuttings in his pocket. Even though we children were only given the uninteresting jobs of picking the stones out of the garden or weeding we still managed to learn a little.
During my time in Fiji I had never turned my hand to growing anything. However back in Dublin while a member of the Columban General Council I planted a small garden behind our house. It was great to see the beans and cabbages sprouting and growing. Digging potatoes for the dinner gave me a great sense of achievement and pride.
Traditionally in Ireland the seed potatoes should be sown before March 17th, St Patrick’s Day. However, this year the month of March has been very cold. Most nights have been freezing. So I could not sow the seed potatoes. However, I have to leave Ireland for a month-long trip to the Philippines tomorrow so today was my last chance to do the sowing. I was busy with meetings and other last minute jobs during the day. Darkness fell but no potatoes had been sown. The drills were dug. So all I needed to do was to place the seed potato in the drills about 18 inches apart and fill the drill with shoveled earth.
I placed my car in line with the drills and shone the headlights on them. I was half way through planting the potatoes when our Society Leader arrived and parked his car in the garage. He approached. When he saw what I was doing he laughed. “I have often heard about scrupulous priests on a journey trying to finish reading their breviaries before midnight by the lights of their car. But this is the first time I have come across someone planting potatoes with the help of his headlights!”
by Fr. Frank Hoare
