Today, I dug up the potatoes that you saw me plant back in this post titled “Spuds Ahoy!”. The leaves had mostly died off, and I thought I was in for rich diggings.
This is the patch after I cleared away some of the dead stalks. Now not wanting to damage the spuds, I used a small plastic garden fork and dug them all up by hand. It took a bit of time, but it took me back to the days of playing in a sandpit as a child.
After about 30 minutes of digging, here is my bounty.
Not the biggest potatoes in the world, but certainly big enough to eat. I don’t think the spud patch is in the best position, as it only gets full sun for about 4 hours a day. It gets plenty of water from the run-off from the rainwater tank, and the soil was quite moist, so it had to be the sunlight.
We had some of the purple Toolangi Delights as roasted potatoes for dinner, and they were delicious. So much flavour. At least they are enough for about a weeks worth of meals.
Oh well, better luck next year and I think I will choose a different spot.
How did your spud crop go this year?
Hi Gavin, I’m a long time stalker who has been inspired by your blog to have a go at living greener this year, our vegie garden is producing enough salads for us at the moment, but I’ve not tried spuds yet…they are on my list though, I’ve heard they taste heaps better 🙂
Well, just a couple of months to go and we’ll be putting our spuds IN, although our French neighbours wait until end of April as they worry about late frosts. We have just moved our sheep into their field having let them manure the veggie plot but might put them back in a couple of weeks for a top-up!
We planted potatoes for the first time ever and we are totally hooked! They will be in our garden every season now. My kids loved digging them up exclaiming “this ones a monster!!”
I too have had other things fail as they weren’t in the right bed. I love that it’s all trial and error in the garden until you get it just right! In our case, our failures go to the rabbit and guinea pigs so not a total a waste!
Love the blog Gav, keep up the good work!
Way to go Gavin! I bet you had expected and hoped for a slightly better harvest, being in a cooler region, though! I had a crap harvest last year, but I attribute this to growing the spuds in planter bags and *way* too much rain. This year has been relatively dry in Bris Vegas and our potato harvest was smashing as a result. Oh well, this is probably the only thing I have ever grown better than you. Ever!
Frittata anyone?
I must give spuds another go lol
I was thinking of the ‘tyre tower’ setup, for taller and more root (potato) room..? wdyt?
Any thoughts on why your purple ones were bigger?
I bet they tasted GREAT – enjoy 🙂
Hi Gavin, I haven’t dug my potatoes up yet but last year was fantastic! I couldn’t believe the number of potatoes we got! Fingers crossed this year will be the same. I liked Melissa’s comment because, yes, it is such family fun! We had two teenagers and three young kids here for the harvesting last year and everyone had a ball! It was like finding treasure. Even the ‘totally not interested in gardening’ teenagers got excited!!!
It’s also been my experience that sunlight makes a difference to potato yield. If you’re running short of appropriately placed garden beds you can always grow them in tubs/large pots.
I grow my spuds mostly through the winter, staggering plantings from autumn. Using containers means I can place the potato plants in the areas that get winter sun.
I don’t get quite the yield from a container I would in a sunny patch of garden bed, but my winter-sun areas are very limited so it enables me to have delicious home grown spuds and to be harvesting something from the garden at a fairly slow time.
G’Day Gavin,
I’m in my 6th year of trying to grow spuds and have not yet had a decent crop.
So far I still have a lot of greenery so don’t know how things will go this year.
I’ve scratched around among the thick mulch and haven’t found a single tatty – so confidence is low at this stage.
I tried 3 different kinds in grow-bags this year. I harvested the Nicola spuds for Christmas Day and was disappointed at the amount I got.
I’m looking at the other 4 bags, thinking it’s about time to upend them and see what’s in there.
They look delicious! Our first crop ever was a disaster, we ended up with only a handful of potatoes, so I gave up for a few years, but we tried again this year in an old drum full of rotted manure. They plants are still growing, but I can’t wait to tip it over and see what’s inside! I Think half the fun is the big reveal!
That looks like our first crop! Our second was better, but still on the small side.
But you can just roll the little ones in olive oil and roast them whole, they’re quite a nice addition to salads!
Talk about a coincidence Gav, I also up-ended a few of my spud buckets last weekend! I had an interesting find too… of the 4 x 40L spud buckets I planted in late September, I planted Kipfler spuds in 2 buckets and Nicola spuds in the other 2. With 2-3 seeded spuds from Diggers in each bucket I was hopeful for a huge harvest, but at the same time wary that I may be disappointed. Turns out, moisture was a key factor for us, with the 2 drier buckets (as in just moist to touch, not soaked) that were sitting just under the eaves producing at least 5 times more spuds than the others! The 2 buckets left out in the rain produced less than 200g between them (~50g Kipfler and ~150g Nicola), whereas the two buckets under the eaves produced almost 1kg between them (~600g Nicola and ~400g Kipfler. So I have moved all the other spud buckets planted in November and December under the eaves where they are protected from rain but still get 4-6hrs sunshine. While limiting their watering regime to once a week (they’re already heavily mulched) I’ll also give them a little extra compost to try and boost the size as they ranged between pea size and cricket ball size. Happy planting!
I’ve come back for a second comment. Actually it’s probably poor form but I’m showing off! This post got me thinking and I remembered that I was using a site last year to record my gardening activity so I went back to check and last year I harvested twenty seven kilos of potatoes in an area about four by three metres. Other people might be interested in using the site. I know I can’t rely on my memory and it’s great to look back and see when something was planted, when it was harvested etc. http://www.collectivegarden.com/wiki/Special:Plantings/Greenhaven/Orchard/Back_of_the_chook_shed
Sowed 3kg of seed potatoes last year, using Peter Cundall’s method of throwing them on the ground and layering lucerne/poo/etc on top. We’ve been bandicooting for them and have had some beauties; absolutely delicious. Still have a few plants but will dig them up this weekend and prepare the bed for autumn planting. Will need to find another bed for taters next time…
Cath
I learnt alot about potato growing this year…one of which is lots of water and nutrition. We grew ours in a tub and ended up with little teeny tiny potatoes . We giving it a go again but with lots of mulch.fingers crossed!
I have heard that the more leaves on the plant mean more small potatoes, less leaves mean less but bigger spuds.
Thanks for your comments everyone. I love the spudly enthusiasm! I think that I will try the Peter Cundall method next year as well.
On a parting note, I love that every harvest is an experiment and an adventure. Here is to a bigger harvest next year!
Gav x
Up here in the tropics we can only grow sweet potatoes and I got a few monster ones, but not a very even crop. I find it hard to dig them up without damaging the potatoes.