2,000 pounds of free food!

I was thinking that I should tell you about a way that we have gotten free food for the last several years. We go gleaning. Glean: "To gather (grain or the like) after the reapers or regular gatherers." ~Webster. What we have been gleaning has been potatoes. Around a 45 minute drive away from us are many fields of potatoes and for a while we had some friends living very near there that would tell us when the harvesting was being done and we would go the next day and pick up potatoes that were left in the field. Our friends have since moved away but now my Dad simply calls the harvesters and they tell us what field they have been in. They do not mind at all that we go and pick up the leftover potatoes (there are many others that do that as well.). last year a group of us (about a dozen people with 1/2 being children) went and picked up potatoes. We got around 2,000 pounds in less than 2 hours. My parents have a root cellar (which my brother and I dug by hand when we were growing up.) and so we store the potatoes there. I have not had to buy potatoes for around 5 years. I have heard of other sorts of gleaning in other parts of the country but I have not had the opportunity to try it though I wonder if there is other food around here going to waste. If any of you have done gleaning I would love to hear about it. By the way the potato picking season is coming up soon (at least here in Minnesota) so if you look around you may have the opportunity to try this great sport!