The Fruits Of Our Labour: Harvesting Potatoes

After a few months of minimal care, consisting of a major weeding and fertilisation and watering every other day for the hottest months it is finally time to harvest what we’ve grown.

Like true peasants we grabbed our pitchforks, two wheelbarrows and a bucket and began to break the soil.
At some spots we found more stones than potatoes, but we still managed to fill the two wheelbarrows. 

I really enjoyed the rhythm that I developed in digging, through reaching up and thrusting down while bending my knees to achieve greater force and a better pierce. There were quite many casualties in the form of impaled potatoes, but that wasn’t much of a problem, because we laid all of our potato yield out to dry in the sun. This would lessen the chance of mould growth later, when they’re in storage.

Preparing to cook those requires quite some effort though, as many of them are damaged with rot, black spots, etc., and the fact that most are quite small makes it hard to remove the unwanted bits. But I suppose that the most important thing is that we have clean, pesticide-free and delicious potatoes, and we’re one step closer to autonomy and food security.

Written by Boyan