This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.

Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick.

Now, I'm reliably told it's that time of year when people feel that overpowering urge to dig, to get their hands in the dirt,

whether it's in the backyard or the vegetable garden,

or in the flower pots that are legally teetering on the fire escape.

They place their seeds or delicate little seedlings in the soil,

dreaming of the bounty to come.

I have a confession to make.

I'm not one of those people.

I'm happy to buy vegetables in the supermarket.

And maybe I'll keep some florists in business for all of us.

But someone who goes in for all that dirty work is my colleague, Jill Lepore.

I'm a pretty terrible gardener.

I love to plant things, but I'm terrible at actually growing anything.

But I just love the whole process.

I love the just muck of it.

Jill Lepore is a staff writer as well as a professor of history at Harvard University.

Jill, as you know, this is my area of God, of least expertise imaginable.

I think I once, do you grow a potato in a glass of water when you're a kid?

Is that what you do?

You stick a potato.

Yeah, or you put like electrodes on it and try to get potato electricity for the science fair.

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