New Potatoes- Harvesting early potatoes from the garden

This is my third year growing potatoes in the garden- they're one of my favorite things to grow. Potatoes are relatively low-maintenance, the plants are surprisingly    pretty, and potatoes are easy to harvest- I'd recommend them for your planting list next year if you haven't grown them before!

I had a few plants that have had yellowing leaves, despite frequent watering. All their neighbor plants look green and healthy, but these two sad individuals were languishing. When this is the case, or when you get a hankering for potatoes, you can harvest some potatoes early- these are called "new potatoes".

It's a pretty good bet that when the plants are flowering, you've got some small new potatoes available to harvest.
I decided to pull out the two yellowing plants, and got 13 very small-smallish potatoes (left). I believe these are little Yukon Golds from last seasons' garden. I'll be using them up quick in some awesome, ultra-local homefries with garden-grown onions and kale tomorrow- can't wait!

I planted a whole lot of potatoes this year- 60 plants!! Each one of these will yield 5-8 potatoes, and that makes for a whole lotta spuds. I don't usually harvest too many new potatoes, because I like to wait until they get bigger, but with a potential harvest of 300-450 potatoes, I think I can afford to pull a few early!

I think my next early harvest will be some of the Mountain Rose potatoes- those are the dark potatoes with pink flesh. The plants are already really beautiful; the flowers are a pinkish-purple, rather than the traditional white flowers that most potato plants have.

I'll post some pictures on my blog facebook page when I harvest the Mountain Rose potatoes, in case you're curious.

In the mean time, off to enjoy this beautiful weather!