We planted our Agria Seed potatoes around a month ago.
Ours is not a massive garden - five beds which give us a good yield of vegetables every year. Each year we devote one of the beds to potatoes using the rotation theory - at least 3 years between the same crop, leafy following root vegetable etc. This year we have sown them in one of the smaller beds so have only put in 3 rows.
To give you an idea of the yield, last year we also had 3 rows and stored enough potatoes to see us through from December until around June this year. We eat potatoes probably 3 or 4 times a week. The original seed potatoes and fertiliser cost approximately $24.00. That works out around $4.00 per month to keep us in delicious, home grown potatoes for two people (along with a few meals for guests and family).
I think that is a bargain.
So after a whole heap of wet weather in Whanganui (again!) we hadn't noticed over the last five days how much our potatoes had grown. Today we finally got a break and managed to heap up our babies although some of them were getting so tall it was hard to cover them with soil. If we get any frosts in the next few weeks we will have to get the "blueies" (blue plastic sheets) out to cover them because we simply won't have enough soil to heap them up completely.
Our daughter-in-law and her friend stayed with us at the weekend to take part in a sporting event - she checked out the spuds and told her friend that these are the famous Christmas potatoes that we dig on Christmas morning to have with our festive lunch. It is family memories like that which make growing your own potatoes so very special.... oh and the flavour!
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