Monday, October 8, 2012

Potato Overload

Potatoes are my kind of crop.  You stick them in the ground in May, forget about them, and then dig up 20 times what you planted in October.  I harvested 50 pounds of potatoes this year from about 25 square feet of land (2 pounds per square foot).  That is about equal in weight to all the peas, carrots, corn, broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, and asparagus I grew, with a lot less effort.  The only real key is to give them rich, deep soil.  I also should have covered some in dirt as they grew - you can see some of them turned green because they grew out of the soil and started photosynthesizing. They produce a neurotoxin called solanine when this happens.  I will not be eating these ones - I will most likely use them as seed potatoes for next year.


I plan to store them in shoe boxes wrapped in several layers of breathable landscaping fabric in the garage during the winter.  The goal is to give the potatoes a pitch black, cool, and humid but not airtight environment.

Check my blog in a couple days from now and you will see me being a little creative with the taters...