Although I had said before this it would be the last harvest of the year coming from me, I had totally forgotten about the potatoes that I had growing. And you know how it goes: if there is something to harvest, there is also success to celebrate and to make a post from it.
Because this may even have been the most unexpected success of the year. I had literally zero expectations on when I started the potatoes in the summer time. But the success was sweet and the meal this evening will even be sweeter.
It will even be enough for more than one day of food I guess even!
Take a look on how easy this was and why I will totally try to do the same thing again next year.
The start
So all of this started somewhere half August when I looked into my storage supplies and I saw an old bag of potatoes hanging out there which had already naturally sprouted.
They had been stored properly in a dark and dry place so they were not rotten or anything at all, just a little bit wrinkled but most of all not juicy anymore. But they had decent sprouts which means they were still very much alive.
This was nothing organic or from the farm or so. These were just the el cheapo supermarket taters.
Somewhere I had seen that putting these sprouted ones which are not so nice to eat anymore in the ground and just wait for them to grow can turn out into a huge success, so I thought 'why not give it a try and just see what happens' .
I took out the three best looking potatoes which were still okay-ish but not at all flashy anymore and I stuck them in the ground. After just a day or 3 they already started to appear above the soil which was interesting because I had put hem more than 10 centimeters in the ground, which I find very deep.
But they were really eager to come above ground and immediately they started growing very enthusiastic.
Now remember, these are just old potatoes, this is also not the best quality soil and I just tosses some worm-poo in there as well to get some life into the soil again.
And I was really surprised to see how they were growing so fast to so quickly up. Now I had heard somewhere because these stems are so thin and going up that you should top up the soil every couple of days with more soil. So every time when I had a plant which was finished growing I threw in the remaining soil in this container to support the stems.
Also because when the roots dry out it means the potato will not grow very well here because there is a chance of rotting roots as well.
And that is literally the only thing I did there. I hardly even watered the pot because it was rainy enough in this period of time and let nature just do its own thing in here.
Two months down
Now I know that moment of planting these in the half of August was a bit sporty and very late at the end of the season. Most people do this in March/April and have their harvest in the late summer so that is a lot more months down.
But the thing here was because the initial potato was already sprouted that is seriously reduced the growing time in there.
And today... I decided to go for it and take them out before the autumn weather makes them rot.
For me this was the first time I had even done this and it was extremely fun to do!
Just pulling the stems out of the ground and digging through the soil and there they were. Taters every where!!!
The digging was the most fun of it all. Even deeper in the ground there were the biggest ones to find. I'm not sure if I found all of them but it sure looked it.
And this was the total harvest that ended up. After putting in just 3 potatoes in the ground, all of a sudden there is a whole plate full!!!
I had to look up what to do now because I have zero experience with all of this. But you can just brush the potatoes and wash them to eat them today.
But if I want to keep them for a longer of time they shouldn't be washed as yet but only be brushed without damaging the thin skin.
So awesome surprises here and I am sure that I will try this again next year, because this was really fun and more than rewarding!
And for dinner?
I guess something with potatoes and also these other tomatoes that I found in the harvest before tossing out the remaining plants.
I hadn't expected these ones to change color anymore and had kind of written them off and was too lazy to toss out the plants.
And boommmmm: there was dinner!
