Digging Taro



Now it's 3rd day harvesting taro and finished harvesting for the season.
Taro is an amazingly beautiful plant. It shakes its heart-shaped leaves in the wind like hula dancers in a charming manner. Gentle yet precise.
Its stems rise straight out of the ground to support the leaves to receive the sun's energy. Painters on a calligraphy paper these stems should be painted in a single stroke without hesitation. That's the way to depict its beauty.

Dryland taro is different from wet land taro. Taro farmers in paddies squat like sumo wrestlers ready to fight and continue to break the feeder roots around the corm and pull up the main root which most people call "Taro."



I personally like dryland Taro as I am a farmer of a highland. Standing water is not my preferred area. I thrust my garden fork right in by the foot of taro root and swing it sideway to snap the feeder roots and use the leverage to bring the root above the surface. Each root is unique in its size and shape just like us people. Is it the growing conditions? or inherent quality of each seed taro? Reminds me of how we people are.

After long hours of digging and grunting, my body expresses pleasant fatigue.

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