The Potato Harvest - 2024

I had been waiting for the perfect time to dig potatoes.  The perfect time never comes.  We got out to the garden in the side yard last week before all the rains started to dig them up.  We use some garden forks to do the job.  They are shown two photos lower.  They are like pitch forks, but with thicker tines.  Here is what's left of the potato patch.  The potato plants have long since matured and sort of melted into the mulch.  It was a little hard to find where they were, and as a result, I forked right through a couple of them.  For the most part, however, we had no issues.

We worked our way all the way down the 45 foot potato patch.  My wife helped me dig them.  She also covered the soil back up with mulch once the potatoes were dug up.  That keeps the weeds from overtaking the patch.  You can see the digging forks we use right below. You can also see the wagon with the potatoes in it.  

We were disappointed in the yield.  I think we mostly got two potatoes per plant.  That's not very good, in my opinion.  The potato plants started off good, but the leaves soon turned yellow and they never thrived.  In typical day late and a dollar short fashion, I took soil samples mid-way through the crop and just got the results back.  The side yard garden is "optimal" or "extremely high" in all areas, except one.  That would be sulfur.  The soil is LOW in sulfur.  I looked at the symptoms of low sulfur in potatoes and its just what we experienced.

NOW I know what to do to experience a bumper crop of taters next year!  On the bright side, we are going to be eating some potatoes this year.  And if you could see Tricia's face, you'd see she's happy, because the potatoes are all dug and the job is done.

Although I wish the wagon was full, they are nice looking new potatoes in a wide variety of sizes.  You can see in the lower left hand side of the photo one of the potatoes that I stuck the digging fork right through.  It won't go to waste.  I'll wash it up and we'll eat it.

Here's a nice potato that is freshly dug.  It fits nicely in the palm of my hand.  We use potatoes this size to make a recipe called Crash Hot Potatoes.  It simply contains rosemary, kosher salt, black pepper, olive oil and parmesan.  Boy, is it good!

But this size potato right here is the cat daddy.  If you get a handful of these and cut them in half and cook them with butter with a mess of snap beans, well, that's good eating!  I think that will probably be on the menu at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb as a side dish.

The potato harvest is in.  Literally in.  We brought them into the parlor to begin curing on our rack right beside the onions, because why the heck not!

I'll be planting purple hull peas, sunflowers and zinnias in the garden in the side yard and will figure out how to amend the soil there with a proper amount of sulfur.  We'll try to plant a fall crop of potatoes to see if we realize better yields.