We've Got Potatoes!

The most exciting gardening lesson for me this year 2010 is the growing of potatoes. Oh the humble potato, the side dish, often times forgotten. Yet it's got the most amazing growth pattern I've ever seen. Planted as chitted tubers, they become leafy plants. Pictured below is a plant at its very early stage. We planted ours on leveled ground so we had to mound dirt every time the plant got taller. The idea is the less exposed the stem, the better the yield.


We watched as our five potato plants ruled our tiny patch, and we often times got frustrated by just how tall and overwhelming the plants were getting. Finally, flowers emerged which was a good sign. We didn't quite know what to really do with them so one day, we thought we'd test harvest one plant. Little did we know how many potatoes already developed underneath the earth. The experience of harvesting was like hunting for treasure. We dug and dug to find a number of potatoes buried in the dirt in random spots. In the end, from merely five plants, we got huge bowl full. Truly gratifying.

Potatoes galore from merely five plants