Garden Bears' World - Purple Potatoes!

Hello again everyone!  It's Endon Bear here, with another look at Polar and Grizzly's garden and what us bears do to help.

Recently, Polar started lifting some potatoes we had planted back in the spring.  They were a variety called Violetta and they are purple inside, with dark skins which are almost black.  This makes them quite hard to find, if all you are relying on is human eyesight.  

Even though Polar was being very careful with her digging, she was worried that she might be missing some of them.

'I'll help you find them!' I said.  'I'm a bear, which means I have a bear-illiant sense of smell, so I'll sniff out any potatoes you haven't seen.'

Polar said she would be very grateful, but I must be careful to stay well away from the big fork she uses for lifting potatoes.  'Sit on the little stool while I lift a root, then we'll search through the soil together,' she said.

Some of the potatoes weer too big and heavy for a small bear like me to lift, so I pointed to where they were with my stick, and Polar put them in the dig trug.  

Then she dug the ground over, ready for the next crop.

Polar said we would cook and eat any damaged potatoes quite soon, as they wouldn't keep, but the others would go in wooden boxes in between layers of newspaper and would keep for months and months.

'Let's pick some broad beans too!' she suggested.  'Then we can cook them with fishcakes for our tea.'

I was a very hungry small bear by tea time and so were Hanley and Sonning, who had been helping Grizzly in his workshop.  They were very surprised to see the purple potatoes and not sure whether they wanted to eat them but, when they did, they found they were very tasty indeed.

And we will be lifting pink potatoes soon!