Potato Surprise

[cosmostrator]

A few months ago I planted some potatoes that had sprouted in the dry river bed at my property.  They received occasional watering when I was there, and about twice we piled some decomposed leaves on top of them.  A few weeks ago the cold killed them off.  Out of interest we dug them up, and much to my surprise we had baby potatoes.

We cooked them up in a pan of bacon fat with some salt and pepper.  They were delicious.  It was really exciting to us since this was the first thing we have produced on our land that we could eat.  We are already planning on planting a lot more next year.

[endurance]

Potatoes are a fun crop to grow.  They take very little effort and produce a lot of calories.  Yukon Golds are by favorite. 

[never_retreat]

Kennebec are my favorite.

[mountainmoma]

looks good, I just dug up my summer (very small crop) crop of potatoes. So, I have about 10 lbs of baby potatoes to have fun with too

[fred.greek]

We've finally got our purple potatoes to produce.  For the "benefits" of purple vs "std" potatoes see:
http://healthyeating.sfgate.com/purple-potatoes-nutrition-2182.html

[Cedar]

+1 for growing your own and using them. If you have extras, you can save them for seed potatoes next year.

Cedar - who has not dug her spuds yet!! 

[cosmostrator]

If you have extras, you can save them for seed potatoes next year.

Unfortunately we didn't restrain ourselves and ate them all.  Hopefully we missed a few and they will grow back on their own.  My daughter took particular delight in eating all of the teensy ones that were her size.

[mountainmoma]

one of the things I usually do with the teeniest ones is just use them for a batch of potato soup, boil in water and then blend, salt pepper and throw in some kale -- these are the marble sized ones that wont keep.

[mxitman]

Usually you can never get them all, I had planted some on the west side of our house, I would dig them up think I got them all and then the next year there would be seedlings coming up...planted once and they would always produce some...not a cash crop by any means like if you planted them specifically.

[strangetanks]

Awesome on the potatoes!  One of my favorite things to grow.  Try sweet potatoes too, the plant itself is actually surprisingly decorative.

[fred.greek]

... and with sweet potatoes, or yams, the leaves and young vine shoots are edible, while with "standard" potatoes, they are not...

[cosmostrator]

We actually had some sweet potatoes in the ground, got lots of leaves but no tubers.  They were planted  very late in the season and are definitely going in next year as well.