Harvesting Potatoes - How - You Dig them Up ?

[gunDriller]

I was watering my potato area earlier today and I got to thinking about last year's harvesting procedure. Basically I dug it all up with a shovel, and also watered it so the ground would be easier to dig.

The potatoes I couldn't find digging with a shovel, I got by feeling through the mud with my hands.

Now I don't really mind, but, I do have to wonder how other people harvest potatoes grown on a smaller scale, i.e. not agribiz where you have some big machine that does it.

But I was thinking maybe there is an easier way than turning the potato plot with a shovel and groping through the mud to pick out the potatoes. ;D

They must have a pretty automated harvesting machine to be able to sell 10 pound bags of potatoes at the supermarket for $2.

[Irons]

I plant my red potatos in raised rows about 16 inches high and 24 wide, just a couple long humps the length of the garden. when the spuds start pushing out of the dirt I just cover them with more dirt from between the rows.
Harvesting is easy, and being in humps the spuds stay well drained and crisp.

[RJB]

My grandfather would harvest them with a tractor and a plow blade, but he had a few acres.

I go small scale so I just use a shovel.

[Quixote2]

I use a spading fork. The dirt falls through the fork tines and the tines lift the potatoes to the surface.

[Bullfrog]

http://si4.shopwiki.com/i/data/__Joseph+Bentley+Carbon+Steel+Potato+Fork/120x120/0/341/450/aHR0cDovL2VjeC5pbWFnZXMtYW1hem9uLmNvbS9pbWFnZXMvSS 8yMW91aVlpeVNvTC5qcGc===.jpg?flags=NO_CHK

That works well, or a shovel. With the fork, you might miss some really small potatoes unless you dig by hand after using the fork. I like the really small ones for stews.

The potatoes that I slice into while digging usually get taken into the house to get eaten first. They will keep just fine in the root cellar too, but you will have to clean them up and cut away part of the potato before using them.