canning potatoes

We canned potatoes tonight. I gave about a half pound to one neighbor and set aside another two pounds to give to other neighbors, and we were worried we wouldn't be able to fill the 10 jars that our canner can hold. But we had more than enough! I will make a rough guess that each pint jar can hold about a half pound of potatoes, because I estimate we made it through 2/3 of the potatoes before we ran out of jars. The entire canning process takes a couple of hours, and we didn't want to do another round tonight. It takes longer than you might think, because we had to wait for water to boil at a few different points.

I soaked the potatoes in water for a minute or two before scrubbing them, to help loosen the dirt.

The methods are well-established and simple to follow, as long as you can handle precision. We have the directions that came with the canner and two books, and the instructions were basically the same. I definitely recommend reading the instructions thoroughly before you begin so that you are prepared for the next steps - for example, there are several points where you need to have boiling water ready. Next time I think I will make a step by step outline for ourselves that indicates when we need to put water on to boil, and how much. It's easier than going to the book every two minutes to double check and to look ahead to the next steps to make sure you're ready.

The only other thing I would do differently is get more heavy-duty potholders. When we poured boiling water on top of the canning jars in the canner, we both burned ourselves a little.


I've never eaten canned potatoes before, other than sweet potatoes, so I'm not sure how we will use all ten jars (plus we will probably can as many jars of the german butterballs). I'm getting excited for the winter!

potato harvest, part I

We harvested the rest of the cranberry red potatoes, leaving one plant to see if the potatoes get bigger in a week.

We pushed the flat fork that we use for compost down several inches away from the base of the plant, then lifted up. We erred on the side of too far away while we figured out just what the potatoes would like when harvested, which I recommend. The soil was really easy to work with, probably because we worked it so much before we planted potatoes.

Like many vegetables, the roots extended about as far as the leaves did.

we found 2 or 3 rotten potatoes, but there weren't any widespread problems

I weighed our harvest using our bathroom scale, and it said we got 10 lbs, but it's probably a little less because the bathroom scale is not that precise.I'm basically happy with that yield. There were several tiny potatoes (about the size of a dime) that weren't even worth collecting, which is why I left one plant to grow for another week. I wonder if we didn't jump the gun on the harvest or if there will always be small potatoes.

We planted one lb of seed potatoes, and according to the seeds company you can expect about 10 lbs of harvest for each lb. At 5.50/lb (plus shipping) for seed potatoes, these come out to about 50 cents/lb for edible potatoes. I think most vegetables are much more money-saving - we paid about $2 for a packet of spinach seed, used less than half, and got about 4 lbs worth. 25 cents for a pound of organic spinach is absolutely incredible!

cranberry red potato harvest 7/19

The main benefit that I can see now of growing your own potatoes is the variety you can get. Most of the farmers at our local market sell pretty standard potatoes. Growing your own, you get to choose your favoriate varieties and even try new ones. And it does save money if you only think about the seed - I think market potatoes usually cost 3 or 4 dollars per pound. But when you factor in the cost of materials, not to mention the labor, I doubt it saves money. Still, it's fun!

Now, since I made a critical error and bought early potatoes which do not store well, we have to decide what we will do with our bounty. I want to share them with our neighbors, who have been so extraordinarily kind, generous, and welcoming to us. My spouse wants to can them. We will probably do some of each.

potato harvest - surprise!

After the last post when I was so worried about my potatoes getting leafroll virus, I took a leaf sample to the farmer's market so I could ask my farmers as well as the master gardener's. The MGs are a great resource and incredibly eager to help, but they usually have to do some research before giving me an answer. They thought it was an insect because they focused on the holes in the leaves, and we looked through their pest book and found a picture of damage done by potato leaf hoppers that looked exactly like the leaf I had brought in. This was actually good news to me - much easier to deal with than a disease.

But then I took the leaf to my farmer, who said there was nothing wrong with it - it was just ready for harvest! I hoped he was right but I was skeptical because the photo I saw looked uncanny, and my resources all indicated that it was too early for potato harvest. But I also know that the farmer is most likely to be right, because it is his full-time job rather than a hobby (even if the MGs are experts, my understanding is that most are volunteers so they just haven't had as much experience as a full-time farmer).

I came home hopeful and decided to yank up one of each variety of potatoes I planted. It was so exciting to find a bunch of real potatoes under each vine! It makes it totally worth the wait:-) But they were pretty small, so I looked up each variety from the seeds of change catalog and found that indeed, these were both early varieties that take an estimated 100 days until maturity. It hasn't quite been 100 days (I was able to use the time stamp on my camera to verify this) so I will wait a little longer, but I am so relieved.

Here is a photo of the harvest from two plants:


Here is a photo of the cranberry red, which was a gorgeous fuschia color!


We will be using them in our food tonight...I'll let you know how the taste compares in a later post!

Potato update

It's not good, folks. I noticed the potatoes weren't looking quite as good toward late June - I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but I made a mental note to keep a close eye on them. When I returned from my trip, they were noticeably sickly. They had somehow shrank, the color of the leaves had gone from lush green to almost yellow, and the leaves were curled and dry.

My first thought was that they needed water, but I researched potato problems in my books - found nothing other than potato blight. So I googled the symptoms, and diagnosed the problem as "potato leaf roll virus." On the bright side, this won't completely kill the crop...

But on the (much more weighty, in my opinion) down side, it will reduce the quality and quantity of the potato crop, you can't make it go away once it hits, and... it could easily spread to my tomatoes and peppers. I can see the first hints of evidence that it has spread to two of my tomato plants. I'm very upset and honestly, not sure what to do.

These were certified disease-free seed potatoes, and we know nothing has been planted in this spot for years. It's just frustrating to put this much work, time, and money into something and not accomplish the stated goal.

japanese beetles

Well, it happened. I found dozens of Japanese beetles on the beans, and a few on my potatoes. From what I've observed, they are THE major pest to contend with in central Illinois. I was surprised because all of my friends and neighbors assured me that although they'd heard Japanese beetles were a problem, they'd never actually experienced them. I was not so lucky.

I had already been advised that the best way to get rid of them was to take a bucket of soapy water, set it under the plant, and shake the plant gently. Their instinct is to drop to the ground when the plant shakes, so they land in the bucket and quickly drown. I'll spare you the photo of the floating bugs:)

For me, this was only somewhat effective. Any that fell in the bucket were taken care of - they swim around for a while but they aren't able to get out, so they do die (perhaps cruel, I know). BUT the problem was that many of them would fly away rather than dropping. Perhaps the species is adapting, but I don't even think I was able to get half of them. Plus, it might work for certain types of plants but for the beans, it was logistically difficult to put the bucket in just the right spot.

What I found works best is to wear garden gloves, put one gloved hand underneath a leaf with a beetle on it (in case the beetle does drop off), then pick the beetles one by one and throw them into the bucket on the ground. This way they couldn't fly away, and I could tell if each individual was taken care of by the splash in the bucket. I did this three times a day and sometimes it took a half hour, because even doing this one by one some of them escaped (for example, there are often several on one leaf, and they fly away easily). I would do several loops around the bean bed, staying out there until I couldn't find any more. I found that they were the thickest at the hottest part of the day, which motivated me to get out to the garden at a time I would normally insist on staying inside. Also, I've noticed that the beetles are more likely to just drop off the leaf in the early morning before the sun is out, but later in the day they are more likely to fly away.

I was really panicked about this because they did an incredible amount of damage in a short period of time [see sample of demolished leaf photo below], and I found them soon before we were leaving on a week-long trip. When I returned, I was prepared to mourn the loss of my bean crop...


but to my surprise, the beans were living and continuing to grow. Yes, the beetles were still there and yes, they had continued to do damage in the week I was gone. But they didn't destroy any of the crops. They may have stunted their growth, and we will see what happens in the rest of the summer...but for now, I feel like my bean crop is safe. Hooray!

I would recommend taking care of the beetles the way I did. It can seem daunting to remove the beetles one by one, and perhaps gross - but as long as I had gloves on, it didn't bother me to pick up the beetles. And I could definitely tell each day that there were fewer beetles than there had been the day before at that time. Plus, beetles reproduce, so each beetle you get rid of is saving you exponential headache the following year. I would say about 1/3 of the beetles I find are engaged in reproductive activities when I snatch them and dunk them in the water. After they mate, they deposit eggs in the soil that turn into grubs, that turn into more beetles. Best to nip that in the bud!

Potatoes are blossoming!

You can't see the blossoms too well in this first photo (but look how big the potato plants have grown!)


Here is a close-up of the blossoms on the german butterball potatoes.


And here is a close-up of the blossoms on the cranberry red potatoes. They're purple and pink!


According to my sources, when the blossoms appear that means new potatoes are ready to be eaten. Because I want them as storage potatoes, I will wait until the greens wilt and die to harvest any. Though I am curious to see how the potatoes are doing and it would be fun to dig one up and eat it, I'm trying to be patient :-)

Potato progress

The potatoes continue to look great. This is the most recent photo I have of them, after weeding and hilling using a hoe. I read that it should be done around the time the plants get to be 6-8 inches tall, but I did them when I could. It seems fine so far. This photo was taken in late May, I know by the small size of the spinach in the bed to the right of the potatoes. Hmm. I must have planted potatoes in early May or late April. It took them quite a while to poke out of the ground.

First direct seedings!

We began our spring garden preparations in mid-April, and I expected to begin our first plantings of spinach, carrots, onions, and potatoes soon after. But I decided to strictly follow the soil temperature suggestions on the back of the seed packets, and use soil temperature maps (greencastonline.com/SoilTempMaps.aspx) to guide my planting timings. We had an unusually cool spring, so I did not plant my first seeds until early May! I sowed Olympia spinach from Territorial in one of the raised lasagna beds. A week later, I could see evidence of a very successful germination!!

I'm not sure how well that will show up for you, but I can see the line of embryonic spinach:) Here in the picture below, you should be able to see it better - about a week later, you can see several sets of true leaves!


Much like the celery, I enjoy thinning out the spinach because I like to eat the little baby spinach that I pull:) Both types of spinach I selected are hybrids, rather than open-pollinated. Although there were some open-pollinated varieties available, they were savoy types. I have only tried savoy spinach once, and I didn't like it at all. But I may be willing to give it another shot next year...

I have to be honest at this point and admit that I didn't do a good job keeping track of dates at all. At some point I planted the seed potatoes I bought from seeds of change. I chose two varieties: cranberry red (with pink flesh!) and german butterball. Again, because of the cold spring I did not end up planting the seeds potatoes until I'd had them for about a month. When I pulled them out of the box, I was disappointed to see that they looked wilted, wrinkly, soft, and were growing several eyes. I went ahead and planted them because they were expensive (seed potatoes were by far the highest priced items - from this company, I think I spent about 20 dollars for two varieties!) and I figured, you never know. Well, they are doing amazingly well! It turns out you are supposed to let them sprout before planting, and though I'm still not sure they were supposed to look so wrinkly and soft, I don't see any problems with the potatoes right now. Here is a photo of the potato plants after they'd been in the ground a few weeks. The ones on the left have a purple cast to the leaves - those are the cranberry red potatoes:)


For the potato bed, we tilled it, broke up deep sod with a pick-ax, then tilled it again. The soil was nice and soft when I went to plant the potatoes.

I guess the seed potatoes I got were excellent ones. They were about the size of golf balls, maybe a little larger, and because they were so small I didn't have to cut them before planting them. This is better because when you plant pieces, the exposed flesh is more prone to disease and insects.