A few days ago, in my Strange Gardening post, I noted some of the unusual goings on in this year’s garden. I now have an update. The potato plants that weren’t doing so well a few days ago started looking really crummy, despite rain and cooler temperatures. Figuring that they were unlikely to improve, I upended their tubs and harvested. The first surprise came with the first tub where the soil was more wet than I would have anticipated, but given the recent rain, okay. These were red potatoes, and I got 2 pounds of small or tiny potatoes. Interestingly, there were a lot of happy worms in this tub, so I suspect its been an okay place for the past few months.
Next tub, the soil was much drier than anticipated (both tubs have the same amount of drainage holes, I thought I watered them equally, and they were sited next to each other), and I got a whopping pound and half of Yukon golds. The potatoes look to be of good quality, there just aren’t very many of them. I don’t know what happened, in previous years this same technique has worked well, perhaps it is the leaf damage noted earlier.
While I’m surprised by my small yields, I’m not surprised by the lesser number of the Yukon golds, as it took much longer for them to start actively growing after they were planted. Once they started to grow, they grew rapidly, and then failed just as rapidly. More mysteries. Once again, I’m relieved and grateful for not having to rely on my “crops” for my income or food supply.
Curious Steph 