We tend to think of harvest time starting in the fall. While that’s true for crops like soybeans and corn, it’s not true of potatoes! Spuds are a mid-to-late summer crop. Pro tip: if you want potatoes in the fall, you can plant them in July.

But I had an interesting dilemma: majority of the spuds in the second patch matured early!

At first I thought maybe a disease got to them - but further deducing brough about the realization that heat stress had caused the stems to die off earlier…like, July earlier. Surprisingly, the heat stress didn’t do incredible damage to that area of potatoes, which I’m very glad for.

I didn’t expect to get nearly as much as I did from the early maturing potatoes. While the plants produced anywhere from 1 to 3 tubers, it was still a hefty amount. Not bad!

Yesterday, I spent some time going through more potato plants and pulled up a heck of a lot more. And I mean, not just a lot, some turned out to be massive!

This part of the yield came from the early birds. But the original patch had some surprises in store!

The round of potatoes from the first patch turned out to be monstrous! I honestly didn’t know what to expect with this year’s experiment and let’s just say, I wasn’t disappointed. Even Dexter the Cat approved!

Out of all of them, this one was my favorite:

This big chunker measured at 6.5 L x 3.5 W with a 10 inch circumference - the largest one so far!

And if you’re not convinced, here’s how it compares to a computer mouse:

I went straight to the hose to wash up my taters. After dinner, I had to bring the rest in because there were so many, I didn’t have time to finish washing them. So, I took over the kitchen!

Due to the amount of dirt on the spuds, I had to stop washing and let them all dry out overnight. Once it stops storming long enough, I can get back outside to finish the job.

Think I need a potato prep house 😆

Harvesting these potatoes was truly rewarding! I put a lot of work into the patch and did pretty much 99% of it by hand. BY HAND!! The only machinery I had was a tiller. So imagine all the planning and workarounds I had to do with my busy schedule. But it’s working out and I couldn’t be happier!