Thursday, August 15, 2019

Potatoes!


Back in April, we became accidental potato farmers when a co-worker gave us three seed potatoes for our garden. We don't generally grow vegetables, and I wasn't very enthusiastic about the project, but I didn't want to waste the seed potatoes and I wanted to be able to report back to the co-worker. So I planted each potato in its own bag of compost, and put the bags on the patio at the side of the house, the sunniest location in the garden.

The plants grew and grew, and rapidly became HUGE.

Well, Tuesday was harvest time! And I am so happy, because those potato plants were blocking our access to the gardening shed and also blocking light from some of the other nearby plants. They were like the man-eater Audrey II in "Little Shop of Horrors." It was time for them to go.

In the photo above, you probably can't easily distinguish the potato plants from some of the other vegetation -- but basically everything in the center of the frame is potato.

Dave started the harvesting process by cutting away all the bushy growth...


...which left us with just the bags holding the root balls. (You can see the squirrels have been in the bags, stealing potatoes near the surface.)


Dave sliced open the bags, rummaged through the roots and voila! Potatoes!


Some of them were very odd-looking, like jacks or the Sputnik satellite.


But overall, we got a pretty good haul! And more, it turns out, than the co-worker who gave us the initial seed potatoes -- his plants got neglected by the neighbor who was supposed to water them while he spent three weeks in the states. He wound up with about a third as many potatoes as we did.

Dave cooked some of them up Tuesday night. They don't have a really strong taste but the texture is firm and they're pretty good -- all the more so because they spent their lives in the organic sunshine right at the side of our house.

As it turns out, it was a good thing I took these photos Tuesday, because it poured down rain yesterday. I stayed inside most of the day, finishing "Swing" by Kwame Alexander, a young-adult book that's our school-wide community read this year. It was OK. A bit long, from my adult perspective, but a teenager might like it more.

I went to school in the morning on a few errands -- even though I'll be back at work today -- and last night I went with some friends to the Sadler's Wells theater to see Matthew Bourne's new ballet production of "Romeo and Juliet." I really liked it -- it's a drastic re-imagining of the original, using Prokofiev's score. It's set in a mental hospital, and there are no warring families, but the actions parallel Shakespeare's story pretty well so it's not so reimagined that it's alien. The setting means all the dancers wear white, featureless clothing reminiscent of hospital gowns or pajamas, and of course the dancing was amazing. A fascinating show!

18 comments:

Christina said...

They are " Pink fir Apple" potatoes. Wait rose sell the. They are very expensive! Good haul!

Yorkshire Pudding said...

Christina got there before me - pink fir apples. I have grown them myself. They have a nice, nutty flavour and are resistant to slug damage. Some of those tubers look vaguely pornographic! You didn't need to cut off the foliage. Gently tugging the plants up would have brought up nearly all the potatoes. Unlike you, when I think of gardening I firstly think of vegetables - things I can eat.

gz said...

tasty!!..andyou can always grow fruit and veggies as ground cover between the flowers! Think lettuce (depending on your slug population) or alpine strawberries..a delicious low growing ground cover!

Mary said...

Quite a potato haul. Certainly entertaining to look at.

I do miss easy access to things like the ballet. Usually try to get my cultural fix when I come over the Pond--going to the ballet, classical music events and the theatre. Funnily enough, I have more accounts for buying tickets at places in the UK like Wigmore Hall, ENB, ROH, Cadogan Hall, Usher Hall (EDI) than I do in the US. Such amazing venues.

Best of luck with the start of the new school year.

Ms. Moon said...

Potatoes and Shakespeare. Sounds pretty perfect to me.
Lovely crop!

Linda Sue said...

happy silly looking spuds, they look like they would make an interesting clownish dish, whole of course. Delightful shapes! You are very lucky to just hop on a bus or tube and go see mental hospital Shakespeare , Dancers in their jammies.
And so, the year begins, personally not ready for Autumn- because I realize what follows. It has been a lovely summer up here, very cool temperatures and loads of sunshine. Not ready for the darkness. I hope that you and Dave going back to work will not upset Olga too much. She is very good at snoozing though- did you get your Olga camera fixed?

ellen abbott said...

good haul on the potatoes. I definitely want to grow them again if I ever get my vegetable garden beds ever straightened out again.

Red said...

New potatoes right out of the garden are the best.

Anonymous said...

We harvested our potatoes just the other day too. We let them cure for about ten days and then had our first taste. Yum! It is so interesting the shape some of them take. Wild little vegetables they are.

Sharon said...

That is an amazing haul of potatoes. I'm picturing a plate of them cut into rings and fried just the way my dad used to do it.

Colette said...

Growing one's own is kind of magical, isn't it?

37paddington said...

Gorgeous potoato crop! Yes, very odd shapes, but they look perfect all the same.

Edna B said...

Wow, I've never seen potatoes like yours. Such crazy shapes! As long as they taste good, that's what counts. You got quite a nice harvest. I planted potatoes once. When I harvested them, I got enough for a couple of meals. You have a wonderful day, hugs, Edna B.

The Bug said...

Excellent haul of potatoes! That reminds me that I have some from my dad that I need to cook. They're not nearly as interesting looking as yours though :)

Catalyst said...

Our potted tomatoes are doing just about as well as your potatoes. Guess I should take a photo or two of them.

jenny_o said...

Well, the potato growing was definitely a success! Good stuff :)

What is "organic sunshine" and what other kind is there? :D

Elizabeth said...

They is quite a haul of "accidental" potatoes! I saw a Matthew Bourne production some years ago -- incredible stuff!

Beth Reed said...

Oh I wish I had some of those potatoes. I can imagine about twenty ways to prepare them but only one way comes to mind at the moment and that is to wash and season them really well, put in a casserole dish and slather butter on them and let them bake until golden brown. About 15 minutes until you want to take them out put in some fresh rosemary and enjoy.
That use to be a staple when my kids were growing up. I used dried Italian seasoning for the most part. My son likes them that way and he adds Italian salad dressing to his. I usually forget to add that to mine.

I would love to see the Ballet. My daughter wants to take me to see the Nut Cracker this year. We have tried several years to go but it is usually sold out on the nights we can go. Maybe this year will be the magical year. Take care, Beth