When you aim for a gold rush but come up with a souvenir nugget.
Now, before you go scrambling to find your pickaxe and gold pan, the elusive nuggets I’ll be talking about here are potatoes.
This year, we tried a new method of growing potatoes. Well, new to us. We had seen multiple places on YouTube and other places where people used this idea with seemingly great results. So, since our family can go through 5 pounds of potatoes in one meal, we decided to give it a go.
Step 1: buy seed potatoes.
It seemed easy enough. We got Yukon Gold, as those are Tim’s favorite. Not that I have a problem with them, but with living in Idaho as a teenager, I had gotten used to Idaho® Russets and never really branched out much.
Step 2: get a barrel.
We found what looked to be the perfect barrel. It was sturdy, bright blue plastic, with a wide mouth, a drainage hole, and it could hold 50 gallons. Sounded like a great size for an epic potato harvest.
Step 3: plant seed pieces.
We cut the potatoes in pieces with healthy eyes on them and buried them waaaay at the bottom of the barrel.
Step 4: wait.
The waiting was probably easier than it might of been with everything else we had going on this spring, but that didn’t dampen the excitement when we saw the first green shoots sticking up through the dirt.
Now, up to this point, we had done close to everything right. But, unfortunately for us and our potato harvest, there were a lot of things we didn’t know.
- Yukon Golds are determinate potatoes. They only produce one round of potatoes and won’t produce more if you keep hilling them higher.
- Potatoes need lots of drainage to keep the moisture from getting too high and rotting the potatoes. Apparently the one drainage hole wasn’t enough to handle all the rain we got this spring and early summer.
- Potatoes need light fluffy soil and all we have here is clay and more clay.
- Mixing half-composted wood shavings into the dirt to break up the clay isn’t a good idea, as it leaches the nitrogen from the soil.
- There’s probably more that we just don’t realize we don’t know.
To make matters worse, now that it’s all said and done, the potatoes grew beautifully.
This was how they looked when the barrel was about half full. We thought for sure they were doing great.
The flowers came on nicely and we even had several ladybug larvae to keep the aphids off.
They look sad here, but this was not too long before we dumped the barrel. Harvest is supposed to wait until the stems have all died so we were excited to see what they had done.
How much did we harvest, you may ask? One potato. One little round nugget slightly bigger than a golf ball. And a snail shell. Kaitlynn found a perfect snail shell almost as big as the potato. Oh, and one enormous nightcrawler. At least something liked the moisture. 🙂
If only they had the decency to shrivel up right at the beginning, so we could have known something was wrong right off. Instead, they stayed green and healthy-looking the whole time while producing nothing.
But, in all actuality, I think learning the lesson of how not to grow potatoes will stick with us longer this way. So, you win some, you lose some, but what counts is that you learn some and keep going.
Micah’s mind and mouth rarely stop running, and he devours books the way some kids do candy. He loves helping and working with Tim, is fascinated by taking things apart, and—thankfully—is learning how to put them back together, too! It’s hard to pin down Micah’s exact interests because he wants to learn about everything. His zest for life is both inspiring to watch and exhausting to keep up with.
Our blue-eyed bundle of energy, Alayna, has a warm, bubbly personality and is always looking for ways to help—whether in the kitchen or with her younger siblings. Her love for gardening runs deep, and she jumps at any chance to tend to the plants. She also seems to have inherited her daddy’s quick wit and she’s learning to dish it back just as well as she gets it!
Kaitlynn is our go-getter with a face full of freckles and a giggle always at the ready. She does her best to keep up with the older two and is determined to be big, taking on tasks that often require a little ingenuity to finish. If I need something cleaned, Kaitlynn is the first to roll up her sleeves and dive in—no hesitation, just pure enthusiasm. She has a huge love for animals and is eagerly awaiting the arrival of our rabbits, ducks, and chickens.
Harold could hardly wait for March when he could turn that “measly” 4 into a great big 5. As the self-proclaimed clown of the family, Harold keeps life interesting! Lately, he’s been testing the waters with some bigger-kid jobs, like helping with dishes and hauling wood. Though he may not move as fast as Micah, Harold is his own person through and through, always holding his own opinions. He is far more likely to do his own thing rather than simply follow the crowd.
Elsie proudly announces to everyone that she’s “free” now (she means three). With a head full of bouncy blonde curls, she throws herself enthusiastically into everything—including eating and teaming up with Harold to make plenty of noise. She loves snuggling, coloring, and “helping” the others with their chores. She’s also working on learning her letters and numbers and already enjoys “reading” alongside her older siblings.
For now, Niel is the baby of the family—at least until July! He’s a happy little guy, always eager for new adventures. With his growing vocabulary and deep love for playing with his siblings, he’s quickly finding his place in our lively family dynamic. 
Bringing Life 