Tomorrow I am going to harvest potatoes, something I do once per year and it's not the most pleasant of tasks, but the benefit is that I don't buy one single potato all year long, what is great. Anyone has the experience in harvesting potatoes or do you just buy the potatoes you eat?
I always buy all potatoes I eat because the climate in the place where I live isn't conducive for potato growing and in any case my vegetable garden isn't large enough to produce enough potatoes to last me a long time. So out of sheer force of such and other factors, I can't plant potatoes.
I don't plant potatoes myself nowadays, I just buy them as I need them. But when I was a kid my grandfather did plant potatoes and other vegetables and I used to help him out with it. (I'm sure I was in the way more than I helped but it's the thought that counts)
So we did it lol, my legs still hurt and this was Saturday, we harvested 600 kilos of potatoes, 3-4 guys taking them out and 3-4 women collecting them after that. It was a good team effort for more or less 3 hours, it saves a lot of money, but I am so glad this happens only once per year! It is hard work.
How good is that, having your own potato field. I am not a big potato eater, so neither grow nor buy them very often. Here we have potato farmers setting up their stalls along the country roads. One in particular jumps to mind. He has got an antique carriage in which he sits all day, waiting for customers to buy his spuds. I guess after all the hard work is done, he likes to sit and watch the money rolling in.
Harvesting is hardwork but the food you get when you grow your own is so much better than what you get from the store. I do have a garden but no potatoes in the garden, mainly because I am not a big potatoe person. Some people that have small spaces grow their potatoes in a tub like container that can reduce the amount of bending they need to do when harvesting the final crop.
If it wasn't for my father in law (already 80 years old!) we would never have them, but he grows them for the family, the whole year, more or less 600 kilos, so imagine the dimension of it, it's not something small and yes it's hard work. We save money of course, but at the same time it's also a experience that won't last many more years.
More fun than a barrel of monkeys? How about more fun than a barrel of potatoes. Raising potatoes in a barrel is fun and quite easy even for those with limited space. Check it out. You will be surprised as to how easy it is to get a ton of taters from a single 50 gallon barrel.
Whoa I thought you were joking about growing potatoes in a barrel, just I Googled it out of curiosity and it's completely true! Doesn't even seem too complicated, here's the link I found:Log In
Never heard of that either, let me check it out... Wow! Pretty cool, just open a little door and take the potatoes out pretty neat indeed, but for small quantities, how many barrels would we need if we wanted to get 600 kilos for example? I can't even imagine the space that it would occupy. Neat idea though.
I guess it’s human nature to wonder about the unseen, like sweet potatoes you can’t see your potato crop untill you dig it up so it’s no wonder many gardeners have a sneek peak at the growing spuds at some point and of cause it never stop there. Harvesting new potatoes before the main harvest is often referred to as “robbing”.
I haven't heard of that until now fanale, but the only experience I have with this is with my father-in-law and he has decades of experience, so he knows exactly when they are ready, he doesn't need to take a peek. It's been a couple of weeks already and my hand is still injured from the job, nothing too serious though, just a blister that hasn't healed yet.
The barrel potatoes idea is actually quite interesting. I'm not a great gardener. I've tried growing things and I'm not sure if it's me or the ground I'm working with but it's never quite worked out.
The problem I see with the barrel potatoes is that you don't make many of them and more, a barrel occupies a lot of space and costs money, so it does look good, but it's not very practical or economical I think. Two or three weeks later the blisters in my hand have healed, so now I just have to eat them.
When I was little my grandparents used to grow potatoes in great quantities as a family business but these days we're only growing them for personal consumption. A good way to save money and do a workout I see that you're harvesting them the old fashioned way - with some people digging them out while the others collect them of the ground. 600 kg is a good harvest, where are you storing them, a basement?
Yeah, that's exactly the procedure, a hard one lol, but it's just once a year, so nothing too bad. My parents-in-law store them in a garage by the field that it's empty and the other part goes to the attic of their place. Yeah, you read right, to the attic, after all that effort we still need to carry them upstairs... And how heavy those bags are!
