Harvested Yukon Gold Potatoes

[Rahab222]

Hello! I was out picking the garden in the rain this evening and decided I'd check to see if I had any Yukon Gold potatoes in the 4' x 4' box where the plants are dying. I started with the plant that died first and only has the stem remaining. I just dug my hand down into the box and pulled up two, beautiful Yukon Gold potatoes. I used a really loose soil in my potato boxes, so they hardly had any dirt on them at all. It started raining really hard, so I abandoned my potato harvest until it quits raining, which might not be until Friday according to our weathermen. OR, I'll make a mad dash out between showers since I'd like to make a venison stew with cornbread for the nephew tomorrow evening. If I pull more potatoes tomorrow, I'll take a picture and post them. I may harvest these sequentially and harvest the potatoes whose plants died first, etc. This may keep the potatoes fresher, longer than pulling them all at once. I am absolutely delighted with the two potatoes I pulled today HOORAH!

 

[Rahab222]

Houston is getting nailed by rain. It started on Monday and didn't stop until Tuesday evening. It's supposed to continue through the weekend and we've already got a frog strangler gripping the city - traffic snarls and overflowing bayous. My section has gotten another 6 inches of rain effective this evening. So.....once the weather cleared, I ran out and harvested the rest of my Yukon Gold potatoes, because I read you're not supposed to water two weeks before you harvest. Sam said he was interested in seeing what I got out of my 4' x 4', 12 inch deep box, so here are pictures. The first picture shows Yukon Gold potatoes that I washed and I'm intending to use within the next few days. The second stack of Yukon Golds, unwashed because Sam said to leave the dirt on while they dry, I put in some tulle; tied it at the neck and hung on a nail in the garage to dry. These two pictures comprise the entirety of the 4' x 4' box. All the Yukon Gold potatoes were in the upper six inches of bedding mix, around the roots. There were no potatoes found in the box's lower, six inches of bedding mix. I'm sure, because I removed half of the dirt in the box while harvesting and then put it back in. I dug all the way down to the clay soil beneath the box. I now plan to plant purple hull peas in this box that held the potatoes, so I went ahead and prepared it. I also saw lots of earthworms have made their home in this virgin soil. Is this about what I should expect for this size box for Yukon Gold potatoes? It's definitely more than the 2' x 2' towers I've watched people harvest on YouTube. My two, 4' x 4' boxes of Red Potatoes aren't ready to harvest yet. Will I get more potatoes from the red potato boxes? Thanks for all your input. I will definitely plant these again next year, since they aren't sprayed with chemical retardant like those in the grocery stores. However, I will probably make a larger box. I did do the 18 inch, recommended spacing between plants in this box that held 12 plants total.

 

[Rahab222]

Also, there were a lot of "nodules" around some of the roots that probably would have eventually turned into potatoes, but the plants had all died 2-3 weeks ago, so it was time to harvest. Plus, I'm nervous about what all this rain may do to my root crops, so I concentrated on those today, while I could.

 

[w_r_ranch]

Very nice! I'll post a picture of my 'Red Pontiac' harvest when they're done.

 

[Mike]

Great looking potatoes!

 

[w_r_ranch]

I did do the 18 inch, recommended spacing between plants in this box that held 12 plants total.

I forgot to add, that you can plant them much closer together... I have always planted them 10" to 12" apart.

 

[Rahab222]

I'll remember that next spring. Do you plant potatoes in the fall? If so, what month? My Red Pontiac potatoes aren't ready yet and I have two 4' x 4' boxes of those. Does the volume of my Yukon Gold potatoes look like what I should expect from 12 plants?

 

[w_r_ranch]

I sometimes plant in the fall, although the yield is a fraction of the springtime harvest.

It's hard to judge 'volume' from a picture... How much was the total weight of your harvest? In a typical year, I expect to harvest 10 lbs for every pound I plant.

 

[Rahab222]

The bag of seed potatoes said it was 3 lbs. and a good yield would be 30 - 40 lbs. I probably planted half of the bag (1.5 lbs.) and got about 12 lbs., so I guess I'm right in there. I'm still hoping to do better on the red potatoes