Digging potatoes

What a gorgeous weekend! I felt like I should have been in the yard all weekend, but as it turned out, I had other things to do as well. (Like go shopping and out to lunch with my daughter and my niece.) 

I did get the front gardens neatened up a bit, though, so I could put out all my pumpkins (more on that later in the week), and then on Saturday evening we dug potatoes.  Actually, what that means is, Trevor dug potatoes while I offered encouraging remarks.

It was interesting, though—I was anxious to see what we had, since this was our first time growing potatoes.  So here is the end result:

Potato harvest

We had a decent-sized pile of the All Blue—I was sort of surprised, actually, because often times it seems like the more specialized types of vegetables aren’t quite as good producers.  We also had a respectable showing from both the Desiree (just a basic-type red potato) and the Cranberry Red (the one that’s supposed to be pink inside as well).  The Princesse la Rat was a bit of a disappointment, I must admit—I had read that it was a wonderful producer, and most of them were still really tiny.  They are fingerlings, so I didn’t expect them to be real big, but they were SO small! Maybe they produce better in warmer  climates and just didn’t have quite the growing season they needed.

I asked Trevor if, in the end, he thought the pile of potatoes we got was worth two whole garden rows.  He wasn’t so sure.  I guess maybe that will partly depend on how long they last us (we really don’t eat a lot of potatoes, so I could see them lasting most of the winter if we can figure a good way to store them) and how good they taste.

What I should have done, had I been on top of things, was to cut one of each in half so I could show you what they look like inside. . . but, apparently, I am not on top of things.
And I haven’t tasted any of them yet, either, although I plan to cook a la Rat for dinner tonight.  So I’ll let you know.

There were quite a few, especially of the Princesse la Rat, that were very strange-looking. . . odd little lumps connected to each other.  I couldn’t resist sharing a picture of these two, which I think look like a little white lobster and a bunch of grapes or something:

Strange potatoes

I guess gardening is always interesting, isn’t it??