An underground pinata

I’ve always been fascinated by growing potatoes.  I think part of the reason is the anticipation. You can see the tops, and you can dig out some potatoes during the season,  but for the most part,  you need to wait until harvest to see how you did.

When the tops start dying,  you are ready to dig.  It’s sort of like an underground pinata.  You dig a few shovelfulls  (or forkfulls) of soil, then you hit the cluster of potatoes and some of them tumble out at your feet.

We grew about 120 feet of potatoes this year,  that’s a lot of digging.  They will be marketed as new potatoes meaning that we harvest earlier and smaller.  We would probably make a little more money overall by growing them to full size because we would have more harvested weight of potatoes, but we can get more per pound for new potatoes. Better than that though,  we will free up space for fall crops a month earlier than if the potatoes continued growing.

You need to be careful when digging, but even so you are sure to spear  a few tubers during the harvest. Each cluster is different,  different locations,  sizes and numbers of potatoes. It’s fun,  like Christmas morning,  if Christmas morning was dirty, exhausting, and mades you reconsider if it’s worth all the trouble.  So maybe it’s more like throwing a birthday party for a three year old.

But a birthday party with a pinata.