The Potato Crop

This is my potato crop--two barrel's worth.

I drilled some holes in the bottom of two plastic garbage cans, gratefully accepted the gift of several seed potatoes, added soil and I was in business.

It's pretty simple: as the green leafy stalks push up, add more soil until finally the top of the barrel is reached. by that time, the plants have flowered and apparently that is the signal that the little duffers are plumping up down there. I can't remember when one harvests them. I'll wait another month and then try a trial test burrowing in one corner to see what's what.

Last year on my first try, I used ordinary wizened out-of-the-grocery bag potatoes with green shoots and my crop consisted of twelve spuds. Twelve.

This years I think the crop will be larger.

After that comes the problem of storage. I recall books on pioneer life when root cellars were the way to go. To accomplish that I'd have to dig under my nice new brick "lawn" so we'll forget that and there's no cold room in my tiny basement.

So- during the winter my basement is warm and the garage is freezing cold. Where to store the home-grown veggies?

That's my conundrum.