It was both a odd year and a outstanding year when it came to growing potato’s on the farm in 2024.

Due to the crazy amount of rain we were getting the garden was to wet to work and or plant potato’s in, so we bedded it down and planted the potato’s into deep pack bedding, we had done this as trails before on wet years and knew that it would work.

So the plants grew and they grew and they grew, never have we seen such massive lush loaded with flower plants, and then we started harvesting as needed starting in aug when it would be little ones with a few medium and anytime we needed potato’s on the menu, in the soup, in the stew, and so on, someone would head out with a bowl and dig one or if needed two plants up.

On Nov 2nd when the potato’s came in they were for the first time quite cold to the touch and so that means that despite all the mulch cover and so on, the ground is starting to get colder itself, it was time to dig and so all remaining plants were pulled and out came the last of the potato bounty, in total 3 five gallon buckets worth, plus the ones that didn’t make the grade, nibbled on by rodents of some kind, heavily split just a few and some that despite being lovely and three times worth of hilling up, rose to high and are to green for me to use safely.

I would love to do a hold back on some of the green ones to keep as seed but we have some scab issues on them as well so i won’t be doing that at all, plus while i have had very few hollow hearts yet, i have found a few which also effects storage power.

The russets were the clear powerhouse growers this year, with reds coming in behind them nicely, and the purples were sad little producers, they were fingerlings and so small for sure but it was more then that, they just didn’t give the yields that they should have.

Overall the potato were one of the best calorie dense producers in the garden in 2024. I look forward to them going into storage and into many hearty fall meals.

How was your potato harvest for this year? Lots of fresh eating? Lots in the potato bin for storage?

30 challenge – Day 12 of my 30 days of blogging challenge to get back into the habit of writing and sharing!