Aug 26

Aug 26 Potato Harvest Day

Today was officially "Potato Harvest Day" here at The Wine Box Garden. I wish I could say that this day was chosen because of my careful planning and amazing insight into the growth of the potatoes in the ground. I wish I could say that I just knew THIS was indeed the perfect day for harvest.

But, no....The real reason today was "Potato Harvest Day" was because:

I had time today, and
My potato plants look like this:

Ugly on the outside, beautiful on the inside.

As I wrote about back in June, the leaves started to turn yellow. I figured it was due to all the recent rain we had been experiencing, and that it would correct itself somehow. To be honest - some of them continued to be yellow and others flowered nicely. It was really a mixed bag. My poor neighbors had to look at those awful-looking things for a while. I wondered if maybe I planted too many potato tubers in those sacks. Maybe I got a little greedy? Maybe there wasn't enough room for them to thrive. Probably, but not sure...I imagine I'll be just as greedy next year....

When to Harvest?

When do you know it's time to harvest? It's always a little tricky when the produce is in the ground instead of above it. I've read that as soon as potatoes start to flower, you can pull them, but honestly, that's never been the case for me. That's always too early. So, my plan with potatoes is to leave them in as long as possible. As the OSU Extension Service states, "Let the vines die all the way back before you harvest them." Well, they were looking pretty dead, so it was time. (I probably could have waited a little longer, but sometimes you just have to do these things when your schedule allows.)

I had 4 containers and although some of the potatoes were near the surface, I wasn't really sure what to expect when I dug in. I grew 3 different varieties this year -- Rose Finn Apple & La Ratte, which are both fingerlings, and Yukon Golds. I don't grow potatoes in wine boxes because it's not enough space. I use larger aerated sacks and this year, added one deep 16" pot. To learn more about growing potatoes in containers, read about it this post.

Tip: Add supports before they start growing above the rim of the containers. They grow very fast and very tall.

Harvesting from Containers

To harvest the potatoes, I removed the dirt with my hands from the containers and sifted to grab the potatoes. I continued doing this with each container until they were all done. You can also dump the dirt out and sift through, but I didn't want to miss any.

As I dug, more and more potatoes revealed themselves

The potatoes really varied in size - some were the normal fingerling size and others were the size of my thumb. There were some very large Yukon Golds, but most were medium in size. In the end, I got about 15 pounds of potatoes! Keep in mind that I only planted about 25 potato tubers and it yielded all of this.

Tip: Stop watering the plants about a week before harvest. It's easier to harvest when the soil is dry.

Storing Potatoes

As you may have read in my post A Day at The Farm Cooking School, we're having our kitchen renovated. So, we're not doing a whole lot of cooking right now. I will likely grill some of these but I'd like to store some of them for future use as well. Storing them properly can help you keep them all winter. So, I'll take these recommendations and give it a try:

Cure the potatoes for a 2-3 weeks by laying them out on a newspaper in a well-ventilated bag. Store them in a dark, cool place (between 50-60 degrees Farenheit), This toughens up the skin for storage.
After curing, pull out any that look damaged and eat those now.
Store the potatoes in a ventilated bin or burlap bag. I love all the ideas on motherearthnews.com for storing them. They get really creative and describe ways to use a dresser drawer, newspapers, put them in garbage cans, and more.

Postscript: I wrote more about storing potatoes in this post.

I hope seeing this will influence some of you to give it a try. If you get a few potato tubers and put them in even a garbage can, you can have some healthy fresh food. A garbage can fits on a balcony or even a driveway. With just a little bit of space and care, these are very easy to grow.

Try this delicious and healthy Swiss Chard & Potatoes recipe.

The Benefits of Containers

One other thing I did on Potato Harvest Day was relocate some of my other plantings. I've got some lettuce and peas that I don't think were getting enough sun, so I was able to put them in the place where the potatoes were. That's the beauty of the wine box/container approach - move things around as you need to.

If you're wondering why I put trellises where they're not needed (I'm not expecting the lettuce in those wine boxes to start turning into vines), they're to protect the plants from the basketballs that can sometimes fly into our yard during a game in the driveway of the neighbors next door. I also line plastic lawn chairs in front of the containers to hopefully catch a flying ball. When I say this is "small space gardening" I mean it. We don't have much property and are very close to our neighbors. Some people say fences make great neighbors, but for us, it's trellises and lawn chairs.

Now, start planning where you'll grow those potatoes!