Like the story Game of Thrones, I “know nothing John Snow”, about gardening. Everything I've learned has been from books or by trial and error. I have had some pretty good luck with all that book learning for growing things, except for one: I cannot grow potatoes (hangs head in embarrassment).
The long epic story of potato growing attempts came from years back, when I watched a TV gardening program, that showed “how easy” it was to grow them in a container.
“OK,” I thought. “That's the ticket. I'm growin' some spuds!”
Well, years later and my spud growing attempts have never been all that good. Yet, I keep trying. I go for the challenge now. Hope is a marvelous thing.
I've tried a number of techniques over the years, based on tips from other gardeners who claim they get huge spuds. I think these stories of “giant spuds” must be akin to the “giant fish that got away” stories that fishermen tell. Yet, I duly note down new ideas or things to do to help with the taters. Nothing much has mattered so far.
I recently, asked a friend from Belarus, how do they grow potatoes there. Everyone knows they grow loads of potatoes in that part of the world and her family has a small farm where potato growing is a necessity for food.
We went down the list of things I was doing. Dirt – yes. Potatoes for planting – yes. Fertilizer (organic) – yes. Water – yes. It didn't seem there was much I was missing, except the output part: actually getting more potatoes than I started with.
So, we moved along from the growing part to the harvesting part. For the biggest ones, harvest when the plants die back - check. Small ones you can get when the potatoes bloom - check.
After that she was stumped. “That's all there is to it.” she told me.
I said, “There must be something else? Something that I'm not getting right? I plant them, fert them, care for them and water them. There's something not right. If I were living in Belarus, I would have starved by now!”
Then after a pause, she said, “Well, you don't have to water them too much.” LIGHT BULB!
After a quick review of my watering routines, she determined that I was giving them too much water. Of course, I was pretty sure this really wasn't the problem but I agreed to cut off the water to see what happened.
Soon the plants died. Great! Or maybe not... Just dried old sticks in a pot. How attractive.
On a whim, I stuck my hand into the dried out compost left in the pot, just to test. The first thing I felt was this large rock. I wiggled my fingers around this rock, it was pretty good size rock. I couldn't figure out how a “rock” got into one of my planting containers. Did someone throw a rock in when I wasn't looking? How could a rock get in here? I wiggled my fingers around the rock to remove it from my pot. I was pretty annoyed that someone, some how, had put a huge rock in my pot.
After a good yank, I got the rock out.... I nearly fell over in shock with what I had in my hand: A potato! A REAL potato! And there was not just one, but a lot of potatoes! And more and more potatoes kept coming out of the container!
Addendum:
It tasted WONDERFUL. Just nuked with a bit of butter. And, I have another container of potatoes that I'm looking forward to rock hunting in.
[Editor's note: This story was written by KimB.]
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| Potato Harvest May 2013 |
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