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Chris Hardie For Agri-View
Sep 5, 2026
4 hrs ago

1 of 5

Freshly dug potatoes dry for a few days before being placed in colder storage.

Chris Hardie/For Agri-View

A potato plant grows through a layer of old-hay mulch.

Chris Hardie/For Agri-View

Potatoes are ready for harvest.

Chris Hardie/For Agri-View

Not much effort is required to harvest most of the Hardie potatoes, which were just under the soil and covered by mulch.

Chris Hardie/For Agri-View

Old hay is used to cover rows of potatoes this past spring.

Chris Hardie/For Agri-View

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Chris Hardie For Agri-View

Most weeks this column focuses on a single topic. But sometimes it’s a mashup, blending two or more different themes into a perfect puree of prose. I never know what I will dig up or what my fried tiny gray cells will find appealing. At the risk of beating the starch out of the topic, this week I’m cooking up a column about potatoes.

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Chris Hardie and his wife, Sherry, live on his great-grandparents’ Jackson County farm. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 2001, he is a former member of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council and past president of the Wisconsin Newspaper Association. His book “Back Home: Country Tales by the Seasons” is available through Amazon.