The Great Air Potato Roundup

Each year at some of the parks in the area, an air potato roundup is held. The air potato is a non-native plant to Florida and is very invasive. It grows and spreads quickly and has been known to completely wrap itself around a tree and literally choke it to death. During the winter, the vine drops fruit, that looks very much like a potato. Volunteers go to area parks and pick up the air potato fruit off the ground to keep the vine from spreading. We had never been to a round-up before, but I thought it sound like something fun that the kids would enjoy.

We decided to go to the round-up held at the Ravines Gardens State Park in Palatka. We arrived at the park around 10:00 and got registered and received our bags to put the potatoes in and then went searching. The round-up actually started at 8:00 that morning and I guess we didn’t know that by 10:00 most of the potatoes had already been picked up. As we were walking down into the natural ravine, we kept seeing people walking up the trail with these huge bags of potatoes and so began looking on the ground for them in earnest. But we didn’t see ANYTHING. We walked and looked and walked and looked and walked and looked and nothing. As you can see from this picture of Dallin with his empty bag, he was starting to get a little bored with the whole process.

Although he did really enjoy going across the suspension bridge. Mandy on the other hand was very scared of the movement and walked across the bridge at a snails pace. After walking around the park for 30 minutes and still not seeing anything, we stopped a couple of boys with their big sack of potatoes so that we could take a look at them and ask them where they found them. They told us, “oh, just walk along the paths, they are right on the ground. They are everywhere.” Meanwhile, we are thinking to ourselves, yeah, what-ev-vah. So we walked down the path that they had come from and looked and walked and looked and walked and still nothing. We saw a few pretty azaleas beginning to bloom and some pretty red berries that Dallin told me bears came into the park to eat. But still no potatoes.

FINALLY, Nathan spots a tiny one up in the brush and pushes Dallin up to get it. He was so excited. We all were. We finally found one. So maybe we weren’t the worst air potato pickers in the world after all. After that we were able to find a few more. It was so much fun once we started finding them. Like a treasure hunt. Dallin and Mandy had a blast searching them out. Even Layton got in on the fun. While Nathan would go up into the brush picking up potatoes, Layton would take the opportunity to snag a few leaves or sticks to play with. Finally, Nathan let him pick up a potato too.

Dallin and Mandy counted their little hoard of potatoes and were so proud of their haul. We took them into the weigh station and they had gathered….wait for it……wait for it…. ONE whole pound of potatoes. Clap clap clap. Cheers cheers cheers. Clap clap clap. Amazing. Really amazing. Their potato picking skills will be legendary.

Afterwards, we enjoyed a nice picnic lunch. We all had sandwiches. Even Mandy. Only her sandwich consisted strictly of cheese. She’s just a funny girl that way. We can’t wait to go back and do this again next year. But next year, I think we are going to try to get there a little earlier so that we’ll be able to pick up a few more potatoes!