The September 9 freeze mostly killed my potato plants so I'm harvesting. I'm digging by hand and keeping everything bigger than a nickel. Here's what I've got so far. That's 376 pounds. Took me about two days and it's a little hard on the spine. It will be a job sorting them out. Supposedly you can root-cellar only whole perfect ones, any holes or cuts and they will rot. So I will have to cook some right away. You can't freeze raw ones either but I believe you can if they are partially cooked (as evidenced by the Ore-Ida section of your grocer's freezer.)
Here is the productivity data row by row. I've dug 4 of the 5 rows in the west patch, average productivity 1.3 pounds per linear foot. (Row 5 starts with Kennebecs (I don't remember if it's all Kennebecs (I think I alternated white and red (but I digress.)))) If the trend were to hold up in the east patch I would project 700 pounds total which would be close to my 750 pound goal. Remember that was 1000 calories a day for 200 days. But the east patch was more heavily munched by deer and bugs, so we'll see.
There was one Baby Jesus potato (so far.)
The little ones are good pan-fried in oil and onion and sprinkled with rib rub.
People keep telling about oh/yah you can go to the big potato farm in Park Rapids and they'll let you glean potatoes for free after the picker goes through. Sure and I could dumpster-dive with the freegans but how resilient and sustainable is that?
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