Best Potato Harvest Ever

I was taking photos a couple of weeks ago, trying to post a June food forest update when I accidentally shattered my camera. This photo above was the last picture I took before the camera was dropped on its head. I have had this camera for years, so it was kind of sad to see it so broken. We have gone on so many journeys together. I had to say proper goodbye to my beloved, hardworking camera and mourn for its death.

For now, without a good camera, I have to use my phone camera to document what's happening in the food forest. Most of the potatoes have died off now from the heat. I have been too busy to harvest until now. I was out of the country when it was potato planting time for our area, so I planted my potatoes this year three weeks late. I was not expecting a good potato harvest . I have had very little time to take care of our food forest this year, so it just sort of takes care of itself. I am pleasantly surprised by how everything is doing in the food forest without the normal human input. All the rain that Mother Nature has provided this year helps tremendously of course.

There is something very satisfying in harvesting potatoes in the heat with my sweat dripping down my face non stop. I can see all the earthworms happy in their environment. I tried my best not to disturb their homes too much.

I no longer harvest potatoes unless I have these long, awesome gloves. We have a lot of fire ants around our property. We treat them with natural stuff but they just move to a different location instead of dying and moving on. After being bitten by several fire ants while harvesting potatoes, I swear these gloves are must haves when growing and maintaining a food forest.

To my complete surprise, we were harvesting a ton a potatoes from the first plant. Even better harvest than previous years. Could this be? I have not done much to these potatoes at all this year. Maybe it's just this first potato plant. The rest might not have many potatoes I thought. I carefully dug up the second and third plant and found the same amount of potatoes laying there in the dirt waiting for me to pick up. I planted a total of 10 plants this Spring. We harvested three 5-gallon buckets full of potatoes this year. It is the best harvest of potatoes I have ever had, and we still have some volunteers in the garden growing. Can't wait to dig up those and see what happens.