Potatoes (2)

I'll admit it, Quayle is not the only one who has spelled potato wrong, in fact I am one of those people. Now I think twice before writing anything about the tater because it pains me to be in the same population as Danny boy.

August, 2009 I wrote a short piece on the nutritional value of the potato so if you are interested please feel free to refer back to the above mentioned post for more info.

As I am sure I have mentioned in the past about two years ago I lost my job, as many Americans had/have, and my garden went from being a hobby to a way of putting food on the table. We were able to gather potatoes rather early in the year and whenever I dig up my first group of roots I think back to that time period and how self-sufficient my family was forced to become.

I have tried a number of methods of planting potatoes. I know it seems rather easy but I have had some success and some failure. This year I tried a very easy method I had taken from the author Dick Raymond. Basically what I did is dig a 3 foot by 3 foot square close to a foot deep in the back of my garden. I then cut the eye potatoes and placed the buds in the dirt. Each time green appeared I would cover that with dirt until I had eventually put back about a foot and a half of soil and compost back in the hole. Interestingly enough tubers grow above the seed potato so the deeper the original seed is buried the better. I had to cover growth about 6 to 8different times but I really think this was the way to go. We have already harvested potatoes and made a delicious summer salad with them. Look how proud that little girl is in the above photo, that makes all the hard work worth it does it not?!