In mid to late April, a friend gave me some potato starts as a gift. Excited, I planted them right away. Here and Wisconsin, April is the time to get potatoes in the ground.
Early on as my potato plants grew, I lost several plants by thinking that they were weeds and pulling them - imagine my horror once I realized what I was doing...
Several weeks ago, I harvested potatoes from a couple of plants (and was so pleased as this was really the first success we've had with potatoes). When I let my friend know of my initial harvest (harvested because the tops of the plants were starting to die), her significant other (a dairy farmer) educated me that I can wait until October - no problem. He even indicated that waiting would yield a stronger harvest. Having this knowledge, I vowed to wait.
But when in the garden today, I noticed that my potato plants were almost completely withered away (and they were overtaken with weeds). Worried that I might not be able to find where to harvest if I waited any longer, I got a shovel and started to dig. Once the dry hard dirt was loosened, my hands took over.
The picture represents is our final harvest of red potatoes from our Wisconsin garden.
I've still got a similar number of "yellow"(Kennebec) potato plants in the ground; but, because those plants are still fully green - I left them in the ground - hopefully until October.
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