New potatoes

New potatoes

I have hardly touched  my computer this last three weeks. Instead I took part in a local group art exhibition, spent time child minding for a mother who was racing to finish a Masters Thesis during school holidays and helped an HSC student revise for finals exams. I also spent more time in the garden because it is spring and everything needs doing at once.

I am converting the driveway into a vege garden and a few weeks ago I planted some spouting potatoes in a spot so hot and sunny that not much grows. When the first summer heat hit the potatoes wilted and died and I expected little of them. Today I dug the soil over and discovered I have quite a crop.  Some of them are tiny, but I shall eat the lot!

Tiny potatoes from the no-dig garden

In August shortly before leaving home for 5 weeks I created a no-dig garden (newspaper laid on the grass covered by some compost and blood and bone, then lots of mulch) behind my garage and planted some potatoes. Early in October when I got back home I was pleased and rather surprised to see that the potatoes had sprouted and were still alive despite the drought.

Tiny potatoes .. smaller than they look here

I had not had much compost so they were growing on whatever the worms could create for them under their mulch blanket. Some plants died early and today I gathered up the tiny baby potatoes that had formed under one of those plants so I could plant some lettuce seedlings. I cooked these tiny potatoes, some only a couple of cm long and as I peeled them I thought how only the very wealthy or the home gardener would get to eat such tiny-potato deliciousness.