Yesterday I harvested my first potatoes, a lovely bunch of "Dark Red Norland".
Back on May 9th, I planted two grow bags with "Dark Red Norland" potatoes. In one grow bag I placed 4 potato pieces and in the other I planted only 3. The plants grew ok this year but they certainly were not as vigorous as the two bags filled with "Nicola" potatoes. They also never bloomed. I attribute part of this to the extremely hot weather that we experienced in July. I didn't know if this would affect the potato production below. As you can see in the above picture, the plant foliage had pretty much died back, so it was time to discover how they had performed.
I dug up the bag in which I had planted the three potato chunks. It was a thrill to carefully dig down and spy these beautiful pink balls. I just didn't know if there would be anything there or not. After I cleaned out the whole grow bag, I brushed off the dirt and weight my harvest. I ended up with 3 lbs. 12.84 oz. That's not a huge harvest but I was pleased for a first time effort. I have leaned that I can definitely plant more than 3 potato pieces in a grow bag. After I eat these, I will dig up the other bag of Dark Red Norland". I am anxious to see how the harvest in that bag, planted with 4 potatoes, will vary.
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1 comment:
Those Norland potatoes are so delish! This is the first year I've grown them and I was very pleased with the results, too. I had a similar problem with my potatoes not flowering last year because of a very hot summer. I have since read that like most plants, potatoes need to be consistently watered when it's really hot outside - something I did not do last year and didn't actually have to do it this year because we had enough rain early on.
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