Harvesting Potatoes

So it came time to harvest our potatoes.  The vines had started to die back a bit before we left for vacation but when we got back a week later the vines had all died out.  The picture below shows a mess of dead potato vines against a background of lemon balm. 

Dead potato vines

You may remember those same vines looking so healthy and happy here and here.  It is almost sad to see plants in the garden end their life cycle.  Almost.  But in this case, the dead vines mean yummy potatoes!  I cannot say how long for sure, but the vines had completely died back at least a full week before we began to dig up the tubers.  Which is a good thing.  It gives the potatoes time to develop a thicker skin which will help them store longer.

In order to dig up potatoes without damaging them it is helpful to have a big six tonged garden fork. The one pictured below is for hay but works great to get down below the potatoes and pop them out without stabbing them.

Our potato, compost, hay, et. al. fork

We planted 5 pounds of Yukon Gold and 5 pounds of Norland Red.  Our 10 pound planting resulted in a 100 pound return, pretty much 50 pounds of each (ok there were 3.2 pounds more of the Norland Red).

Yukon Gold

Norland Red

After harvesting we washed them off.  Now don't take that as gardening advice, because most experts recommend not washing them, but I just can't stand not to.  Washing gave me a chance to take a real good look at the potatoes to sort through those damaged during harvest to be used first, those with varmint marks and other issues to be thrown away, and those to go into storage until needed.  I am not sure what kind of varmint we had in the potatoes but a handful of them had gnawed areas showing a pair of long sharp teeth.  They were probably voles but could have been mice.

The potatoes for storage were placed in shallow cardboard boxes.  I made a double layer of potatoes in the bottom of each box, with the top layer being rather sparse for good air circulation.  The fille cardboard boxes were stored in the guest bedroom closet, which is a space completely underground, making it cool year round and it is so rarely used that it gets very little light.  Potatoes need to be stored in the dark.

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