Harvest Home

Last week I harvested the last of the potatoes and carrots from our garden. I filled up half of a 5 gallon bucket with carrots and another 6 buckets with potatoes. In the photo I am sorting about half of the potatoes that we harvested in the final harvest. I harvested about a 1/3 of the potatoes in August and September and then the last 2/3 last week. Somewhere around 200 pounds worth of potatoes total. This is way better than I usually do.

And it seems that I am just in time. Last night it dropped down into the lower 20's. Winter is definitely on its way. Last year I left it too late and over half of my potatoes ended up frozen into the ground. But not this year!

And as you can see from the bottom photo there is still plenty of lettuce and the snow peas are still producing. However, the snow peas are having a hard time producing pods and some of the lettuce is getting a bit bitter. I noted that after the frost the snow pea flowers and leaves are still unwilted and fine but that some of the pods seemed frosted.

Anyone want some lettuce?

I should also mention that Stuey was WAY into digging potatoes. I'd turn the dirt with the shovel and he'd grab the spuds and put them in the buckets. Then we washed and sorted the potatoes. I removed all the ones with green on them, or ones that had been damaged by the shovel. The rejects were later cleaned up and the bad parts trimmed off and then either eaten or given away. The rest are stored in game bags. The same type of bags I pack out animal meat with when hunting. I have never done this before, but I figure they will breath and also keep the light off the potatoes (light makes potatoes turn green and eating the green makes you sick - been there done that).

Patrick