Carl Tinder works as a cattle farmer and vineyard manager in Earlysville. In 2008 he approached Local Food Hub about growing potatoes in quantity “as a side project”. Carl grew up in Crozet, and (coincidentally or not) worked as a teenager in the very same field where he grows potatoes now. This loose, loamy Rivanna bottomland was cultivated in sweet corn by Henry Chiles; Carl remembers pulling an overhead irrigator across the 65-acre field, and harvesting bushel bags of sweet corn for local and regional markets.

Nowadays he sees potatoes as a complement to the standard row crop rotation used for growing fodder for cattle, and a great potential ‘side project’ for landowners and land managers. Of 2011, he says “I reckon I’ll plant potatoes every week from the first of March right on through — 33,000 linear feet by the time we’re through.” He scratches his head as he looks at his farm truck across the huge field – it looks like a toy in the distance. “We might be through before we get that far,” he says with a smile.