I dug my first potatoes today. Going to make some nice baby red potato salad! Some were a bit too big for that, so I'll use them in a different way. I used to always plant potatoes on or around Good Friday, and dig my first ones on July 4th. I learned that if you plant them around the first of June, you don't have to deal with potatoe bugs, and you seem to get just as many potatoes as before.

Never grew my own potatoes myself.

You should try it, Rita. They are very easy!

That is what people tell me. I am not so sure. All that "hilling". I don't use potaoes much in the summer as I have so many other fresh garden produce. But by the time I want them in the winter they would be rotted. Doesn't seem like a good match for me.

I usually don't get all of mine dug at the end of the season, so for the past two years I've just enjoyed having a few volunteers. I'm guessing that I'd better move them next year to confuse the wireworms.

I always grow mine in Smart Pots, and put some plastic fencing/netting around them to keep the vines contained as I have very limited real estate. THey do great this way, and it's easy to just throw some shredded leaves or straw around them to "hill" them. I'm getting ready to harvest as well...got mine started way late this year due to my hand surgery. Gardening with your dominant hand in a cast is very difficult, as I quickly found out.

I'm munching on my potato salad as I'm reading the posts. This time I made it the way my mother always did in the summer, with cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, peppers, boiled eggs, and radishes mixed in with the potatoes. Dressing is miracle whip, mustard, a bit of milk and sugar. I usually make it more of a cajon style with dill weed and black olives etc. But I was hungry for some of what I remembered as a kid.
You don't really HAVE to hill the potatoes, I just hill them a bit, maybe 5/6 inches, and that's it. If you leave them in the ground until the cold weather sets in, then dig them, they store very well in a cool place like a basement, or root celler. I usually plant enough to give my family some in the fall, and enough to keep me going until about Christmas, then I run out.

I think I have over 280 hills. I find that you get close to 3 time more potatoes by hilling them
It wasn't bad weeding this year...just the mustard, which we rotortill into the soil. I love baby potatoes with a bit of fresh dill.

Oh my gosh! What a lovely setting. And all those potatoes, wow! Is that all you grow, the potatoes or that only a portion of the garden? Or should I say farm?

The farm has been in my family for over 100 years and is where I was raised. I bought it 15 years ago and we just plant potatoes & carrots there. It is a 6 hour drive one way from our home in Calgary, so we only get up to the farm monthly during the growing season. Potatoes seem to do ok with what ever Mother Nature provides. The property is about 460 acres + I lease 60 where a slough used to be (the meadow behind the garden). The water (slough) disappeared about 7 years ago, but is showing signs of coming back. I rent the entire property to a fellow to run his cattle on. Here's last year's potato picking

Some nice spuds Joanne! Do you market them, or just feed a large family. I had 125 hills about 8 years ago, I fed half the county! Now I just plant one row, half reds, and half Yukon golds. I have only me to feed, so I give the rest to friends and family. I know you get more if you hill them, I just hill them once, and that's it, I used to keep piling the dirt on, and they keep growing taller and taller. Ever raise them in piled up tires? Just add a tire, and some dirt, and the potato will keep growing taller and taller. I've never done it, but for those who have space problems it might work.

Oh my. Amazing. And I LOVE that you bought the family farm. All that sense of family history.

I harvested my first Smart Pot of potatoes today....variety was "Caribe". I started with approx .5 lbs of seed potatoes per pot, and harvested 4.5 pounds today. I'm happy with that, and the potatoes look beautiful.

Joanne--beautiful pictures of your farm. I just can't imagine being responsible for that much land. I can barely keep up with my small suburban lots sometimes!

I would love to move to the farm, but work is in Calgary for us.

I sell the potatoes to my network of gardening friends. Most city lots are too small to have enough of a harvest to store. Last year I sold a bunch to a small restaurant.

What a wonderful way to share your harvest, Joanne.. I imagine the restaurants are thrilled to get some locally grown produce.

I grew up in Northern Wisconsin, and I remember my mother working picking potatoes during the fall to make extra money for the family. It was all done by hand back then, and I don't remember how much they paid, but I know she got paid by the number of 100 lb. lots she picked. When I got older, I remember picking beans for a farmer, and I got 3 cents a lb. for those. How times have changed. I still love digging my potatoes in the fall. It's always such a surprise to see how many each hill has, and then there's always some weird shaped ones that are fun.

It really is fun! My potato beds are so light and fluffy that I just stick my hands in and pull them out! Finally, the reward of an easy chore.