Gnarled Potatoes

Potatoes are fun to grow cause you can't see what is happening beneath the soil, so when it's time to dig them up its like opening a present from nature. In previous years I had planted Royal Blue potatoes in September however the renos meant the veggie patch was neglected until early November. The variety of seed potatoes at Bunnings was also limited. I couldn't find the Royal Blue so settled for Pink Eye variety.

Soon the leaves emerged however I wasn't very vigilant with hilling up the crop which apparently encourages more tubers to sprout. Towards the end of summer, the leaves begin to wilt and turn yellow, a sign that the crop is ready to be harvested.

And so the time had come to do some digging! s I carefully lifted the soil and watched the potatoes emerge. They were very bumpy with quite large eyes. The crop was definitely smaller than previous years however there are enough potatoes in the cupboard to avoid potatoe shopping for several months.

Talking about other veggies, our self seeded tomato plant located near the wood pile is going great guns. It has had the best and longest crop of tomatoes ever. We have also had good success with several roma type tomato plants. We had no zucchinis at all and relied on other peoples surplus. The eggplants did ok. Soon it will be time to replenish the soil with compost, sheep poo and plant green manure over winter.