This weekend we harvested almost two hundred pounds of potatoes:

I tried growing potatoes in Grenada with very little luck. They did not like the tropical lowland climate at all.

Back in Florida I also grew potatoes but had a lot of issues with fire ants killing the plants.

Here in Alabama I am doing better. The total yield for this spring is 293lbs. Yukon golds were the best performers and Red Pontiac were the worst.

Someone asked me what we planted in seed to get that many potatoes. The answer? About 110lbs of seed.

That’s not good. Yes, we almost tripled what we planted but according to my calculations we should have had more like 700-800lbs at final harvest.

I know what happened, though. Bad soil happened! It’s hard to overcome miserable soil in one season. I believe we’ll do better next year after more applications of micronutrients, compost and cover cropping.

I’m glad we got what we did, though! It’s not bad. There have been years when I barely got my seed back.

If you’re dealing with lousy soil, you might enjoy the Goodstream from last night:

I am really excited about potatoes again – they were something I missed growing and it feels good to be eating homegrown spuds!

Incidentally, you can see how we planted potatoes in this video from February: