I say Wow! we have a lot of potatoes. And I mean a lot.

It’s hard to tell weight since we’re using the super scientific method of “feels like 60 pounds, don’t you think?” to weigh. But there’s a lot of potatoes in the tack room in the barn. There are a total of 6 burlap bags, not all completely full, but 5 of them at least 40 pounds.

Here are our estimates of weight for each variety, in order of productivity:

Yukon Gold:
These were, surprisingly, the most productive. We have close to 100 pounds of them from a 35′ row. And really the bulk of that was from 25′ of row since the last 10′ didn’t get hilled very well. Plus, we had dug 3 or 4 hills of these already to eat as new potatoes. The biggest of them (we think) is shown above, weighing in at just shy of 1.5 pounds. These are split into two doubled burlap bags.

King Harry (white, russet type):
About 70 pounds from a 26 foot row. These did get hilled and it showed in the good harvest. There were a range of sizes with the largest spuds weighing in just shy of a pound on average. They’re in one doubled burlap bag.

Red Cloud (red skin, white flesh):
These were disappointing. They were great as new and baby potatoes all summer, and likely worth planting again just for that. But they weren’t as productive as I’d hoped. Of course, they also didn’t get hilled appropriately and we had some straw problems (detailed below). We harvested about 60 pounds of these from a 35′ row. They’re in one doubled burlap bag.

Russian Fingerlings:
We harvested about 45 pounds of these from a 25′ row (just lighter than a sack of chicken feed). I am in love with them and will definitely plant them again. They taste spectacular, and aside from the fact that about 15% of the plants spontaneously croaked mid summer, they were easy and reasonably productive. They are the hardest to harvest due to the way they grow, but so worth it. Also of note, either fingers are bigger in Russia or finger means some other body part… because ours are WAY larger than my fingers. The biggest are close to 10″ long and weigh close to 3/4 of a pound. They’re in one doubled burlap bag, plus a second inserted containing the smaller spuds to eat first.

Baby Potatoes:
Added to the total above is a bag that ways about 25 - 30 pounds and contains Yukon Gold, King Harry and Red Cloud baby potatoes that are golf ball size or smaller. We’ll eat these first just because we can.

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What will I do differently next year? I may look for different varieties of white and red potatoes to try out. I’ll likely grow Yukons and Russians again since we’re very happy with them.

As for growing method? Well, I’m not sure that we’ll grow the in the ground again next year. The hilling was a pain in the ass and it was hard to have them in rows in the main garden. We’re considering a couple methods for container growing them and are closely watching for results on the blogs of other local gardeners. It will likely mean a smaller harvest, so that’s a consideration, but on the other hand we could likely significantly increase our yield per plant so maybe not.

One thing I know we won’t do is hill with straw again. When I lost steam on the hilling and the plants got beyond where I could reasonably catch up, I hilled about 10 row feet each of the Red Clouds and the Yukons with straw on the recommendation of one of my garden books.

The straw holds moisture really really well. Which means that when we got rain last week on potatoes that were waiting to be dug, we got rot. The really nasty kind where the potatoes are full of stenchy cream filling pus. Yuck. In addition, I think they held too much moisture all summer as there was greater bug damage on the straw spuds and lower yield over all. Oh well, chalk it up to a learning experience.

Anyone else got any recommendations on varieties that do well west of the Cascades?

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And just because he’s so cute, here’s Mike laughing at me taking a picture of a potato.