Digging up the Potatoes - Potato Harvest from Permaculture Vegetable Garden

Hi there, I'm Linda and this is Huttons Valley Permaculture. The other day I harvested some of the potatoes in my potato patch to give the beans on this trellis a little bit more access to sun. In today's video I show you that harvest and I've come back out to the potato patch actually and discovered that the birds are really digging up the compost from around all the rest of these potatoes. They've exposed some to the sunlight which means they will grow green and you can't really eat those ones and the rodents are also getting access to them. So that they don't go to waste I'm going to pull out all the rest of the potatoes. Why don't you join me for the harvest. My potatoes have been in the ground for a couple of months, maybe two and a half months perhaps and I really didn't get my mulch on top of the compost layer and it's drying out a bit and the potatoes are really getting a bit exposed. Also I've got the climbing beans like I've got climbing up the trellis here. I've got the same beans on this side but they're not getting much of a go with these potatoes doing so well. So I'm just going to harvest the potatoes just right where this trellis is and then I will just trim back on this side just perhaps harvest some lettuce trim some of that nasturtium and just give these bean plants a bit of direction because they're going all over the place on this side. They don't know they're supposed to be climbing so we'll get on to that now. Now I'm just going to give these a big pull. Gotta love that. Now these are a Dutch cream potato. If any are green I'm just going to plant them straight back in the ground again. What I've been finding too because they're very close to the surface in here with the mulch I'm finding rodents are getting in so that's why I really have to get in here. But what I'm going to do, say this one here it's already green. I'm just going to plant that again Can you see it there? Any that are a bit chewed I can just put that back into the ground. So by the time the potatoes grow up in this spot again my beans should be well established on the trellis. One thing I've found by just plonking the potato plants right on top of the compost they come out pretty clean and easily. I might be a bit careful here where our beans are. I'll identify them and make sure none of that's coming up. You can see it's just still sitting in the compost layer. That one's been a bit gnawed on. I'll probably put that one around again. So that's not a bad haul out of those few plants. I'm just going to tidy up these nasturtium plants. No doubt they'll all just grow again and then I'm going to replant all these potatoes that have been chewed on. These beans should take off now and then they'll be well up here by the time these potatoes are back out blocking the light. Alright, just going to pop that in. All I'm going to do now is just clear some of these nasturtium carefully so that these beans have got a little bit of space. That's okay. Okay. Alright, there's a lettuce harvest. So we've got the potatoes in the ground and hopefully these beans will be growing as tall as the neighbours. I've got my two small harvests of potatoes here. This one is a Dutch Cream and this one is a Pontiac. Now it's only about four or five plants so it's not the whole harvest. What I've learnt over recent years is if you pull all your potatoes all at once, they do start to deteriorate. And while I'm mostly just cooking for one or two people, I find that I don't get through them and they all just start to sprout and deteriorate and then I'm out of potatoes again. But one year I did actually process the potatoes. You know I would parboil some for roasting, I'd mash and just freeze in cubes. I did do some fries. I parboiled the fries and again you just sort of freeze them on a tray before bundling them up. And I find that once I've got that all processed and in the freezer, cooking's a breeze. You can just drag out those potatoes, you know they're going to be perfect every time. The mash is simple with a bit of lamb casserole. It just makes things really easy. So when I've done a small harvest like this, I'm going to get into the habit of processing it straight away. I tell you what, when you plant just into the compost, it's really easy to harvest these potatoes, which is probably why the birds found it easy as well. But they're just up in that surface and you don't really have to disturb the soil which is a bonus as well. Some of them are down in the soil. The birds have really dug around these plants but they're really just sitting on the surface and it's sort of started to darken off a little bit there but I think we've got this one just in time. Let's get this plant out. See that one has got a little bit of green happening on it and it has been a bit chewed by the rodents. So I'll be using this one, I'll be able to just cut out that but all the rest of it, it's really good. This one's stuck in the ground. Gosh my bucket's just about full already. We'll be replanting that one. There's quite a few green ones here so there might be more than I need for planting. Okay, we're onto this second bed now. There's quite a few nasturtiums down the end there but I'm sure some will survive this. And I've also got some lettuce hiding down there which probably should be just about harvested. They might be going to seed soon so we'll see what we'll do with those. Let's get started with this bed then. Have a look down here. The rodents have really gone to town on some of the exposed potatoes so I'll be throwing some of these I reckon through the compost. There's still plenty down here that the mice haven't got to. These are the Dutch Cream. They seem to have done really well just out of, I don't know, about 12 plants and I've already harvested some of those. Also with the Pontiac I've got a great harvest there and I did get the mini harvest also. And this is all I got with the rustic Burbank that didn't seem to do that great. They were down the end of this bed where there was a lot more growth of the nasturtium which might have impacted on the growth of the potatoes. So they might not have got as much sunlight as perhaps these other beds got with less competition. So it's always good to evaluate how you did and what happened with certain varieties. Now that I've tidied up I'm just going to replant these potatoes. I'm sure there's still some left in the ground that will probably grow but I'll just make sure of a second harvest by planting these guys right in the same spot. After I've done that I will be sort of putting some more compost on top and mulching it well. Well that's the harvest done now. I'm quite pleased with my harvest of potatoes. What I need to do now is just take this lot inside. I'm going to be making some gnocchi and some grain free dough which I'll store in the freezer. There'll probably be enough left over to do some more parboiled roast potatoes and the fries and mash. I love to have all that sort of thing ready to go in the freezer. I'll actually also store just some whole potatoes in my bulk store pantry which is the coolest spot in the house just in case I need to use it for another purpose. I always love a good harvest video so I hope you've enjoyed this one. If you did please give me a thumbs up and consider subscribing if you haven't already. Thank you so much for watching and bye for now.