first ever potatoes

This is my first attempt to grow potatoes--Yukon Golds--and although it's a small yield, I'm very pleased. They were delicious sauteed in butter with a little salt--very creamy. I should have a handful more ready in a few days.



I think I'm getting so few because the potato plants didn't get enough sun because my huge American elm leafed out earlier and more profusely this year from winter and early spring rains. The huge American elm covers both my raised bed areas and last summer it was drought stressed and not very lush, providing just enough shade to protect my tomatoes and cucumbers from the intense heat.

This time around, I think there's just too much shade for the tomatoes I put in more than a month ago, so I recently planted Sun Golds, Juliets, a Black Krim, a Creole, and a Cherokee Purple in pots in the sunny side yard. This pot hodgepodge isn't pretty but it's practical, and I should at least get a fair amount of cherries and Juliets.



Next fall we'll make a raised bed in that area, which wasn't sunny enough for vegetables until a few weeks ago, when husband Kurt cut down an ailing cherry laurel tree. Already too hot to mess with making that bed this season, though.