It was not a great year for potatos here at number 5.
They started off alright, poking their leaves up in the spring, both newly planted bits and unharvested sleepers from last year. Then in June we had a few killer days. Hot, hot hot. Water as I might, the plants just cooked in the sun. Some of them straggled on, puny and thin and never flowering, limping through July and finally fading away in August.
The senescence of the leafy plant is supposed to mean the tubers are ready. (they'll not get any bigger - without leaves to pull in more energy from the sun, they're just marking time until next year) So I went out there with my fork to see what was what, at the least to stop the weeds from overtaking the patch.
It's so fun to turn over plain dirt, and see golden nuggets among the clods. Gold!
There's food in the earth!
Not that there's a lot of potato down there. Many are the size of peas or marbles. The largest are just 4 inches by two.
But it's really neat to have my very own taters, waiting for me to look for them under the ground. I'm going to scrub them up and make dinner.
2 comments:
Ours were a bit tasteless. I think we'll have to get proper seed potatoes next year rather than cutting out the shoots from those left too long in the cupboard!
Our fruit was awful poor this year. Too wet and no sunshine my excuse.
I love potatoes!
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