This weekend Benzo and I worked in the garden, hacking away at the crazy weeds that shot up while we were gone on vacation. I was able to clear out a big section around some of the tomatoes, lettuce and carrots and Benzo cleared the weeds out of the potato patch.
After the weeds were clear of the potato patch we realize exactly how pitiful the potato plants looked. They were starting to yellow and they looked weak and wilted. It made me sad! The potatoes have been a bit of a roller coaster experiment this year. We planted them way back at the beginning of April. Then nothing happened for about 3 weeks. I thought for sure they had rotted in the ground. But sure enough the plants came up around April 20th.
They grew and grew and we kinda forgot about them. Until this week when we realized their pitifulness. I thought “Well maybe the potatoes just weren’t meant to be…”
Then on Saturday night Benzo went out to the garden to water and for whatever reason he decided to pull up the weakest looking potato plant. Lo and behold there were two tiny potatoes attached to the roots. So he thought he would plant it back in the ground and as he was digging out the hole he found two more larger potatoes. They weren’t attached to anything so he pulled them out and brought them in the house.
Well looky there! The potato plants may produce something edible after all. I am pretty excited. But I need to read up on when I am supposed to dig them up. Should I do it all at once? Or just a few at a time? If anyone has any knowledge on harvesting potatoes, let me know.
Benzo also dug up some of our carrots this weekend. I love how the tops are four times as large as the actual carrot. Based on the tops you would think we had some giant carrots in the ground. But nope they are normal-sized carrots.
They were a little tricky to peel but tasted very sweet. These were some of the carrots I planted back at the end of March.
Yea garden!
Everything Is Homemade 
So how do you know when to dig up the carrots? How do you dig them up? I have some planted and would love to eat them but I just don’t know what to do. The same thing for garlic and shallots, have you planted/harvested either of those? Thank you!!
Hi Jennifer. I would look at the seed packet to see how many days till harvest are expected for that variety of seeds. Then I would look back to when I planted the carrots and if it has been enough days and the green tops look big and fluffy, I would dig one up and see how it looks. If it looks good, dig more up, but if it’s still small you might wait longer. I don’t know if there’s a way to tell by the tops or not when they are ready.
As for the method of digging them up, I usually just loosen the dirt around the carrot with a hand shovel until I can pull the whole thing out of the ground by the top. I have broken the tops off before though, when the carrot was so rooted in the ground and did not want to come up!
That’s awesome! However, when the potato plant dies that’s the sign that it’s ready to be dug up. So all your potatoes that have yellow plants need to have the potatoes dug up right away so that they don’t rot in the ground. Congrats!
Thanks for the info Diana! Looks like I may be digging up the rest of the potatoes this weekend.
Not sure if you know this…I only learned it recently. But carrot tops are edible! They taste like a mild form of parsley and can be used just like parsley. I put mine in a soup and chopped some up for a salad as well.
Love your blog! I found you while looking for homemade cleaning supply recipes. Keep up the good work!