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Hello! I'm soon going to be planting my next batch of potatoes, so I figured it was high time to look back on last year's harvest.
When I last posted here in July, I reported that one of the four potatoes I'd planted had grown into quite a big plant. A while later, however, it had withered completely, and I assumed the experiment had failed; it was only a month or so later that I decided to try and dig, and to my suprise I found roughly 300 grams (by eye, I sadly did not weigh them) of perfectly good potatoes! Of course, I took some pictures and set out to use them in a nice meal.
Here's a picture of last year's harvest, sliced into wedges and baked with some oil and herbs. There weren't that many of them and they were quite small, but together with some good meat and mixed veggies they were delicious. In fact, the potatoes were noticably more flavorful than the ones you usually buy in the supermarket, even though their parents did come from there. I suppose this has something to do with the quality of the earth, the lack of pesticides or, most likely, the freshness, but I cannot tell with certainty.
I think the most important takeaway from last year is the fact that only one plant sprouted: seed potatoes should have big, proper root starts before they go into the ground, which was simply not the case for all potatoes I planted. I suppose I am lucky one did come up. I will also give the individual plants a little more room next year, because if all four had actually come up, they would have been fighting for sunlight and root space.
Lastly, I will be sheltering the plant a little more from the wind: although the potato plant survived them last year, the gusts on my balcony can be very destructive, and I have lost more than one plant to them in the past.
Thanks for reading, see you in the next one, where I have hopefully planted everything.
Article published: 2022-04-12
