Andalucian Potato Harvest

May 21, 2017

An old rusty rotivator refused to rotivate so it was a case of good old fashioned hard labour with a mattock to loosen the soil on our veggie patch.  Motivated by the thought of our own crop of home grown veg we were keen to try to grow some ‘earlies’ but would it be possible to grow new potatoes during the winter ready for the table in May?..  The potato seeds were sown in precisely measured rows; two welly boot footprints wide, with each seed one and a half footprints apart.  The temperate Andalucian climate aided the growth of the potatoes, but one overnight minus temperature and frost in January seemingly destroyed the crop, as the stems and leaves turned limp and black.

Amazingly though, the potatoes continued to grow.  Soil was piled up over the leaves ‘earthing’ to protect from more frost and encourage more roots and tubers.  A little watering and weeding and hey presto! The first week of May, buckets and buckets of little golden potatoes.  Is it worth the effort when there are bags of potatoes on offer in the supermarket?  Definitely, our boys were so excited to dig around to ‘find another one’ plus you can’t beat that fantastic taste of early home-grown new potatoes.  We’ve been serving them up boiled with a little salt and butter, or Spanish-style as Patatas a lo Pobre (poor-man’s potatoes), cooked in olive oil with chunks of garlic, onion and peppers…delicious!

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