Grow Your Own Potatoes

I grew up in the country not on a farm but for many years when I was growing up there were farmer's fields behind our house. We had a big garden. I remember in the spring in the evening we would be out planting seeds -- peas, carrots, radishes, beets, corn, and then later tomatoes, peppers, and more. One year we grew peanuts and I know there were many years that we grew potatoes. That is not how my children are growing up. We don't have much of a garden -- right now we have three tomato plants that I am hoping produce a tomato or two.

Grow Your Own Potatoes is a great way to give children an opportunity to grow something. I signed up last year and we received two kits which included some stickers and promotional information about potatoes. This is for UK residents only. I just saw that you can sign up for 2016 now. You can sign up here.

There were two varieties of potatoes in the box as well as the bag to plant them in. You need to provide the dirt.

The kit had instructions on what to do includes the dates when it should be done. The dates is because there is a contest and the end. We put the potatoes on the chitting tray. 

This was the potatoes growing this spring. I really should have had more dirt in there. We did check the potatoes and water them at times. 

Then it was time to harvest them. In many ways the potatoes could have kept growing but we were following the schedule that we had been given. 

The harvest. It was enough for two meals. 

It was fun to see how excited the kids were to watch the potatoes grow and then to harvest them and eat them. There really is something to growing the food you eat.

I have my own memory of "picking potatoes" which not as messy as "picking chickens" but since this is about potatoes I will share that memory and save the chicken story for another time.

As I mentioned, I grew in an area that was rural. My parents had some good friends that were a bit more rural and there was a potato farmer who had some fields near their house. When it was time to harvest the potatoes, the farmer allowed us to go behind and glean the fields, just like Ruth. I remember one evening we were there walking through the field with our bucket picking up potatoes that had been dug up but didn't get dumped into the truck. (I might have grown up in the country but I don't know all the equipment.) We walked along picking up the potatoes we could find. 

I am glad that my kids had the opportunity to "Grow Your Own Potatoes". They are looking forward to doing it next year. 

Beth