This! The first potato for 2013!
I didn't weigh it, it was too tiny to bother. I just washed it off, stuck it in the microwave for one minute, cut it open and topped each half with a tiny dab of real butter and some salt and pepper, then ate it in four delicious little bites. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. No store bought potato could be that good!
I miss potatoes.
ReplyDeleteSo do I, Daphne. I cut way back on the "white" foods, and only eat white potatoes once a week at the most. I'm afraid I'll be making exceptions to that practice once the garden potatoes start coming in more abundantly!
DeleteOh, yum! Makes one's mouth water! Nancy
ReplyDeleteYum! We had to buy potatoes this week :(
ReplyDeleteRachel, we have been getting horrible storage potatoes lately. They have no flavor (or a slightly musty taste) and dark spots all over them. I have to peel them, and I throw away a lot of potato and peeling. I'm so hungry for a nice baked potato with no rotten spots and some flavor!
DeleteGood to see cute little spud
ReplyDeleteSarada, I hope to find many more just like it, only a bit larger!
DeleteDo you grow yours over the winter? I think I'm going to try growing them in a garbage bin, but I haven't done my research yet so I don't know when to plant here in the SF bay area. I think I can plant in the fall for a spring crop. I can't wait for new potatoes!
ReplyDeleteKate, I never have, but they would probably sit there in the ground and grow in the spring. I always have a lot of healthy volunteers every spring, and I am letting some of those mature this year, even though they are in inconvenient places....like the middle of my corn, or in a pathway. I just don't think I'd like to take a chance on fall planting though.
DeleteOh, I'm SO looking forward to FRESH potatoes again.
ReplyDeleteHubby and I are now completely transitioned over to eating ONLY organic produce and way up here in the sticks, it's hard to find the stuff. When my supply is gone, that's usually IT until the next harvest.
I can only imagine how wonderful that tater tasted. Sometimes butter, salt and pepper are ALL that's needed .
Now don't go snitching too many in advance!
:)
I'll snitch if I want to, Missy! That's the main reason I grow them, for those delicious baby reds. I'll let the whites and yellows get bigger, but I gotta have my baby reds!
DeleteI really must try potatoes some day... Im thinking about one of those "potato boxes" I have seen all over pinterest... Basically, you build the box and fill it with dirt, and keep filling it as the spud plant grows, then when it is tall enough for your liking, you pop off the sides and open the dirt out onto a tarp and harvest the potatoes...
ReplyDeleteTiny, don't fool with the boxes, they don't work that well for most. You can grow great potatoes in a compost bag or a 5-gallon bucket, but when you start piling dirt higher and higher, it takes too much energy for the plant to continue trying to force out those leaves to the expense of producing tubers. Here in potato growing country, it has been proven that 9" of soil over the seed potato is optimum. No more. If you do a box, remember...24" inches tall is plenty. Maybe a foot of soil in the bottom, then the seeds, then 3"-4" of soil to cover, then add another 6" as the plants grow. They get really tall, so you could poke some bamboo sticks around the edge and run garden twine around to hold up the potato vines.
DeleteMy parents were home gardeners (as everyone was here at one time), and they always planted potatoes. Daddy would take a kitchen fork into the garden and grabble for potatoes. He'd come in with enough for supper. We'd wash them and scrape the skins off using the edge of a spoon. In my later, lazier years, I wonder why we bothered removing the skin. I daydream about those potatoes. Nothing from the store looks or tastes the same.
ReplyDeleteDianefaith, we would just scrub them, grab the salt shaker and eat them raw. My mother/grandmother always rubbed the skins off with the back of a kitchen knife. I almost never remove the skins from the baby potatoes, only if I want them creamed with peas, and that's just for looks (and out of habit). Now that I've tasted a 1-minute microwaved baby potato, with real butter and s & p, I think I'm hooked. I use my hands to search, not a fork, but I have a feeling I'll be out there looking for my afternoon snack quite often in the coming days!
DeleteOK, so that looks so good I am going to have to go scouting under my Red Norlands! I like your microwave, cut, butter, salt, eat....sounds like a great plan!
ReplyDeleteRay, poke it with a fork before you microwave it. Mine exploded (I thought the skin was so thin it wouldn't), but it exploded in half, so it was perfect!
DeleteIt's definately tater time. I harvested the last of my regular taters. There should still be 1-2 crops of sweets left this year for me though. ;-) Looks like I'll be back to buckets for the fall.
ReplyDeleteBarbie, I was a total flop at growing sweet potatoes. I did them in a half-barrel, and the potting soil I used turned as hard as concrete! I wish I had room for them in the garden, but Mr. Granny hates them, so I guess the half dozen or so that are consumed here are just as easily purchased at the grocery store.
DeleteOh i bet it tasted AMAZING!!
ReplyDeleteThat it did, Mrs. P!
DeleteSo, how can you tell if you already have potatoes big enough to harvest? Last year I grew Russet and waited til the leaves started to dry and came up with baby potatoes. Years ago I stuck a sprouted red potato in a pot, didn't wait too long, pulled it while the leaves were still nice and green, and came up with ... baby potatoes. I'm growing just a few potatoes right now, a couple of them are flowering already. You think I should harvest now if I want baby potatoes?
ReplyDeleteThe secret is....don't pull or dig the plant! You should find baby potatoes anytime after it begins to blossom. Just work your fingers carefully around the plant to locate and remove them, which doesn't damage the mother plant. That way it continues to produce....kind of like the way we remove the outer leaves from our lettuce so it continues to produce more. I only dig my plants after they die down naturally, or when I need the space for planting something else. Sometimes they just get so ugly I don't want to look at them any more, LOL! I suppose I could just cut the tops back and leave the potatoes where they are, digging as needed. My potatoes aren't all blooming at once this year, just a few of them here and there, so finding babies probably won't be so easy.
DeleteGee, did you run out of caviar? That would have made it perfect and added some protein to balance the whites.;) Lots of great potato advice in your replies. I just put some Red Pontiac in a 5 gallon bucket but will be careful not to fill it up too much.
ReplyDeleteLOL, David, I'll pass on the caviar! The only thing I'd use fish eggs for would be to put on a fish hook to catch more fish!
DeleteHeavenly. :) I agree. Fish eggs would ruin the delicate balance of a red new potato smothered in butter. ;)
ReplyDeleteCloud, I dug up a whole meal's worth a couple of days ago. Steamed and served with nothing but butter, s & p. It won't be long before we'll be eating creamed new potatoes and baby peas.
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