Back in March (seriously, March?!?! - I can't believe it was that long ago!) Thor and I planted some La Ratte fingerling potatoes in our garden. The vines started dying back in late July, so we let the little guys hang out in the soil for a couple weeks long to try and get the skin to toughen up, or "set", so they'd last a little longer once we harvested them.
Last night I dug up about half our potato patch - and got just over a half gallon bucket filled with tasty looking fingerling potatoes!
Here's how they potatoes look under the ground - they're connected to the vine with these thin white roots, and then the potato itself balloons off the end. Really neat! I'd never seen how a potato grows before!
The final harvest, post-wash, in our kitchen sink.
Overall I think our potato trial went really well! I don't think we hilled the plants as much as they would have liked, but that's because I didn't plan ahead very well and we ran out of room to pile the soil up without it spilling over the top of the raised bed. Next year I think I will dig out the beds about half way down and plant the potatoes at a lower level so we have more room to hill the plants throughout the season. I am wondering if the hilling will produce a greater potato yield per plant... Also - we don't have a very good way to store the potatoes...Not even our basement stays cool enough to store them long term (optimum temp for this is 36-40 degrees). I guess we'll just have to eat them all now!
You should look into growing your potatoes in tires. You start by planting them in one tire and then progressively add tires and dirt on top of each other as they grow. Supposedly you can get massive amounts of potatoes from one plant that way. I first read about it in a book called the Urban Homestead. Happy potato eating!
ReplyDeleteooh - neat idea. Thanks Martha!
ReplyDelete