GA: Started early havesting but probably still a bit too early

My first potatoes harvested were about a week ago, to use in a recipe with zucchinis since the zucchini plants have been dropping to SVB etc.  Then harvested some more today, but still just a little corner of one of the patches.  The potatoes are so far medium size, no big chonkers yet.  Hopefully they'll keep growing, but the plants are definitely dying back, with some stems completely dried out.

GA: 49.5 pounds of potatoes was the total (or 50.5 including 1 pound from the backyard)

Writing this on Jan 2nd 2026 only because now is when I got around to adding up the potato harvest notes.

Total of 49.5 pounds from GA, and 1 pound from the yard (which had just a few random leftovers planted).

50.5 pounds total, not bad!

GA: Harvested a few potatoes -- they're all small so far

Decided to hand-dig under a potato plant in the NW bed that had yellowed/died.  There were a few potatoes, but all small, like combined maybe one larger potato. 

We'll see what the others look like, but for now it's too early to dig up more.

Potato harvest in yard -- north of the broccoli

Today was part deux of reclaiming the central part of the yard for the dogs!  So I pulled the rest of the potatoes -- these ones being from north of the broccoli.  The plants had long since flopped, but were very green, so I'm sure if I had left them in longer, the smaller ones would have kept growing, but that was not the priority this year.

A good harvest from that patch!  Many nice big ones!  These were Kennebecs.  They did at least as well as, maybe even better than, the AC Chaleurs.  So, I will definitely grow both of these varieties again in future.

Re-reading my note from the spring -- I had done the following experiment:  "The experiment is that in each type's northerm-most row, I added 1 Tbsp alfalfa (in addition to the above amendments)."  Well, ha!  I completely forgot about that, and have no idea how the northern-most rows did.  Oh well! :D

Potato harvest in yard begun -- the west part of the south bed = "AC Chaleur" has beautiful big potatoes!

Some are smaller, but overall I'm very happy with the size!

One was HUGE but had a sizeable hole drilled into the middle of it by some critter, and it had some rotting with various critters nibbling at it, so obviously tossed that one.

GA: Harvested more potatoes: ____ pounds (still a good amount of potato bed I haven't dug up yet)

So far that's ___ pounds from the GA potatoes.

GA: Harvested first potatoes; will harvest bit by bit to eat, leaving most in ground until end of season

The GA potatoes have all died!  Whereas the ones in the yard are very green and healthy-looking.  Not sure if the difference is the variety, the amount of sun, disease or lack thereof, etc.

Anyway, dug up a bit of both GA patches.  The SW patch that had the Colorado potato beetles had a bit of a scrawny harvest, whereas the NE  patch that was covered from day one and didn't have CPBs had bigger potatoes.  But the difference could also be the variety, who knows.

First two pots of potatoes harvested! Decent yield, much better than last year

Wow!  Much better yield than last year!

Pot 1 (the first one to die off, had blight):  Nice-sized black pot. Had 3 x grocery store white potatoes.  Yield = 2 pounds.

Pot 2 (the second one to die off, had blight:  Nice-sized black pot. Had 3 x grocery store white potatoes.  Yield = 2 pounds, 9 ounces.

Way better than last year, when the same pots were giving like 0.5 to 0.75 pounds per pot.

Some of the potatoes in the bottom third of pot 1 were all mushy / not much left of them -- I tossed those obviously.  I think it may have been from poor drainage.  Pot 2 didn't seem to have that though.

Quite a few more potato plants still to be harvested from other pots and the ground (and the allotment)...

Wow!! 2 pounds of potatoes from the a/c corner with the 7 runtiest seed potatoes, no hilling! Total 6 lbs potatoes

What a great surprise!  I never would have imagined a solid 2 pounds of potatoes from this little corner, especially since it was only the runtiest seed potatoes that were planted here.

Oh -- and, I did no hilling or troughing or anything there -- just plunked them in and covered them up, and it was only ~4-5" of good soil.  Amazing!

That makes a total of 6 pounds of fingerling potatoes from the $27 worth of seed potatoes (3 packages).  Thats... $4.50 a pound :D

Shade container potato experiment cont'd: Results of containers #2 & 3 = 1.25 lbs from 7 seed potatoes

Emptied the last 2 containers along the fence, which were in full shade, and their plants had fully died a while ago from blight.

The black pot had 4 seed potatoes and yielded 0.5 pounds.

The big terracotta-coloured plastic pot had 3 seed potatoes and yielded 0.75 pounds.  The bottom third of the pot was soaking wet -- bad drainage and zero potatoes down there.  Might have had more yield if it had had better drainage?

So far this makes a total of 4 pounds of potatoes for the $27 of seed potatoes.  The last patch is by the a/c (where I had put the runtiest ones) -- those plants are still quite green (though blighty), so won't harvest them yet.

Shade container potato experiment: Results of container #1 = 0.75 lbs from 4 seed potatoes

Emptied the first of the three containers along the fence, which were in full shade.  This container's plants are fully brown/dried/disappeared, so figured it was time.

At first I thought there were zero potatoes, but it turns out they potatoes were all in the lower ~third of the container.

So, a non-impressive 0.19 pound of potatoes per seed potato...  Better than 0.0, but, yikes!

The blight might have been a factor for sure, since the yield in the north bed was low too.

Will see what the next two shade containers bring, later on once their plants are 100% dead too.

Another 1.25 pounds of potatoes (measly) -- total of 2 pounds so far

... and that's from $27 worth of seed potatoes!!  Compared to ~$5 at the store for a 1.5 pound bag of the nice small potatoes... d'oh.

There are still the 3 pots of potatoes, plus a small area next to the a/c where I had put the runtiest seed potatoes, so maybe a smidge more to come...

On the bright side, the potatoes themselves look fine (though definitely small, even for fingerlings), so at least there is *some* harvest.

Next year I'll look for a blight-resistant variety.  (Avoid waxy, because they aren't good for mashing.)

Potato flop!?!?! (in-ground, 72 days after planting)

Decided to dig out two of the in-ground potato plants.  Well.  Both together yielded a whopping 0.3 pounds.  Probably 0.2 once the dirt gets washed off.  Oh my.

Granted it's only 72 days and I think these potatoes are 60-90 days, but still, there was hardly anything there.

Not sure if it's because of the blight, or other factors.

Will leave the rest for longer.

Potato taste test: Banana are definitely the best, so smooth and creamy and nice-flavoured

Steamed the three kinds of potatoes from this year:  cherry, bintje, and banana, and had them with margarine, salt, and pepper.

Banana are far and away the best:  A delicious smooth, creamy texture, and scrumptious soft flavour.  Luxurious!

Bintje was second:  Flavour is ok, but a sort of pasty texture.

Cherry was least good:  Earthy tasting.

Potatoes all harvested

The plants got all diseased looking in recent weeks so I harvested today.  These are the weigh-ins.  Cumulative, for the 5 pots, almost 8 lbs of potatoes.  It didn't seem like a lot as I pulled them out, but looking at them in the fridge, it's some good eating.

- cherry red (3 seed potatoes) = 3 lbs

- bintje pot #1 (3 seed potatoes) = 1.5 lbs

- bintje pot #2  (3 seed potatoes) = 1.5 lbs

- bananas pot #2 -- the unique taller pot (4 seed potatoes) = 1.2 lbs

- bananas pot #1 (4 seed potatoes) = 0.5 lbs

Harvested beets, carrots, and fall-planted potatoes

Soooooo many beets, nice harvest.

Carrots once again are all small, and many are hairy.  Not particularly appealing, but, edible.

Fall-planted potatoes provided a nice little harvest actually!  2.5 pounds of baby potatoes. Not bad considering they were planted on August 8th and 22nd.

Potato harvest: Cherry Red; started new potatoes in their place

Today's Cherry Red potato harvest had slightly more than the other potato harvests this year: 1 lb 6 oz, or slightly more than 1 1/4 lbs. They're nice looking, nice sized red potatoes.

Planted store-bought fridge sprouted potatoes, close to the top of the pot rather than lower down.

Potato harvest: Ruby Gold; started new potatoes in their place

Same harvest as the other two potato harvests earlier this year: 1.25 pounds.

Planted store-bought fridge sprouted potatoes, close to the top of the pot rather than lower down.

 

Potato harvest: Bellanita; started new potatoes in their place

Today's Bellanita potato harvest had the exact same amount as the Eramosa:  1.25 pounds.

^^^ font issues

 

Not highly impressive!

 

Most are very small, marble size or so, some bigger than others.  Definitely a small, salad variety as the website says.

 

Started batch #2 of the sprouted fridge potatoes.

Potato harvest: Eramosa

Decided to go ahead and harvest the Eramosa potatoes since it was the first to die.  Probably should have waited another week or two, but whatever,

Modest harvest :-(  1.25 pounds.

Hopefully the others have done better...