The Variegated Thumb

I just hauled in my first crop of potatoes.  I didn’t get them in the ground as early in the Spring as I had meant, but they grew anyway.  I was surprised to see the nice, little purple blooms they produced in mid-Summer.

Purple blooms on my potato plants

The plants died about a month ago, so I decided to go ahead and try sticking my fingers in the soil to see what was there.  I was happy to find about 10 potatoes, ranging from small pebble to fist size.

My first potato crop, washed and ready for cooking

Since my first crop isn’t all that plentiful, I cooked them all together in the crock pot with a pork loin and some other veggies.

Crock pot dinner: pork loin, carrots, onions and potatoes

They were great!

In the next month, I’m going to work some compost into the veggie garden soil, so that the dirt is a little looser for next year.  Next Spring, I’ll be trying to get them in the ground as soon as the freezes are over – mid March – and keeping them watered so the plants stick around a little longer and the potatoes can get larger.

Maybe after one more successful crop of cheap seed potatoes, I’ll order some different fun varieties to experiment with, like “All-Blue” or “Fingerlings.”