French Fries! Mashed Taters! And....French Fries???

Monday, July 26, 2010

Uh....Scuse me. I was just dreaming about the kind of dishes that I will hopefully be enjoying as this glorious summer grinds on. The bulk of the Bird Family tomato crop is still weeks away from turning any other color than green -- but some harvests are coming in thank you very much.

Bill and Venus Bird once again find themselves buried under a massive load of spuds thanks to our weekend harvesting efforts -- as evidence by that rather tasty and blurry photo to your right.

The really good news is the sister-in-law -- Leana -- is coming to the rescue with the gift of a digital camera she no longer finds useful. And believe me -- it's better than anything Bill Bird has ever used. I had to promise Leana -- of course -- that the new camera will not be taken on a rafting trip down the Rogue or any other river for that matter. Done.

Folks -- the photo above and the one to your left is the result of planting one 4X8 foot raised bed with a single lb. of "All Red," "All Blue," and "Colorado Rose" seed potatoes purchased from Peaceful Valley Farm Supply in Grass Valley. The harvest appears to be a tad larger this year when compared to last year -- but it's also true that the sizes are down somewhat.

The lovely wife that is Venus and I were pulling monster-sized Red and Blue potatoes from the potato patch last year in an eye-popping harvest that apparently will not be duplicated anytime soon (last year was just "special" -- on so many fronts). It seemed as if every other potato pulled from last year's patch was a "baking" type variety. This year? Perhaps one in five?

But -- while the sizes are down -- production is up. Venus and I harvested so many spuds over the weekend that it took two sets of hands to haul the freshly harvested bounty into the GarageMahal. And Venus promptly brought the Saturday harvest to the Sunday table with a DELISH potato offering (I'll have to post up that recipe).

I'll be honest. Venus and I have been looking forward to the potato harvest for the better part of six to seven months. That's about when we ran through the last potato from last year's harvest -- our first. It was then that we discovered that --like heirloom tomatoes -- no spud is the same. The potatoes that you grow in your own backyard are unlike anything that you purchase at your local supermarket.

In fact? There is no comparison.

Our favorite meal? Well -- I'm almost embarassed to admit it -- but our favorite meal is not the healthiest use of this backyard produce. There is nothing better -- in my humble opinion -- than a tasty snack of "All Red" and "All Blue" deep-fried french fries. It's eyeball-roll-back-in-the-skull kind of good. McDonald's french fries are rumored to be the best fries on the planet bar none -- but I have no doubt that Mayor McCheese himself would be hard-pressed not to proclaim our discovery "Fries From Heaven."

Yeah -- it's that good.

Venus and I have come to discover that spuds grow best in a raised bed. The environmental conditions are so much easier to control in a raised bed when compared to direct-ground planting. Potatoes grow well -- and larger I might add -- in a bed filled with soil that is not compacted (in other words -- no clay).

Although our test planting in the direct-ground bed did yield a nice harvest -- the sizes of the spuds were noticeably smaller. Almost none of them were large enough to proclaim them as true "baking" type potatoes.

No matter. We'll still find a good use for them.

Our harvest -- like everything else so far this year -- is a tad late. We're about three weeks behind where we were last year at this point -- and there's also no doubt in my mind that our less-than-desirable spring weather also affected potato sizes this year.

But you know what gardeners say, right? Better late than never!

8 comments:

Greg Damitz said...

Nice harvest. My purples still aren't quite ready. My brother says you get the biggest potatoes from the first time in a new spot. You need to not replant there for 8 years or so if you want a repeat. Move your spuds to another box (that hasn't had potatoes grown in it) if you want big ones. I never doubt his word on farming type advice. One because he is the eldest sibling but mostly because he lives the self subsistence life we flirt with. If it makes economical sense to grow it or raise it he does, if not he buys it. His wife cans all sorts of fruits and vegetables as well as fish and game.

Bill Bird said...

EIGHT YEARS? Might not be able to do that. Five perhaps? But eight? I thought most crops were on a three year rotation? This was in a new bed -- and we'll rotate into another bed next year and see what happens. I can hardly wait to see Garry Erck's crop. He planted a metric ton of them this spring...

The Vintage Vignette said...

Eyeball-roll back-in the skull huh? I'll definately have to give those taters a try for sure! ;)

Anonymous said...

Ooh, this got my envy going. I think I'll plant more next year (than I did this year)...

MAYBELLINE said...

Wow great taters. I tried and lost mine to blight. You've inspired me to try again.

Jenn's Cooking Garden! said...

Nice haul of taters! I planted french fingerling and russets! We are still waiting for our plants to die back. Right now they are blooming away! I think your potato are gourgeous!

dave said...

Great, now I want french fries and McDonalds is 50 miles away.

Anonymous said...

If you are growing more potatoes than you need. you may want to visit www.AmpleHarvest.org - a site that helps diminish hunger by enabling gardeners to share their garden produce/herbs with neighborhood food pantries.

The site is free both for the food pantries and the gardeners using it.

More than 2,500 food pantries nationwide are already on it and more are signing up daily.

It includes preferred delivery times, driving instructions to the pantry as well as (in many cases) information about store bought items also needed by the pantry (for after the growing season).

If your community has a food pantry, make sure they register on www.AmpleHarvest.org.