How to Grow and Harvest Purple Potatoes - Thursday Two Question #157 Link Anything

I am posting T2Q early this week ;-)
Purple potatoes are very pretty to look at and amazingly good for you too. If you enjoy gardening and want to grow some yourself, it is very easy to do. Purple potatoes are also maintenance free, just water once a week and set the plant in some sun. They flourish great by themselves and are protected by being underneath the surface. You almost can't kill them. I had some last year, and apparently didn't pick all of them out. So this year, I was rewarded with more purple potatoes as the roots re-strengthen and grew back by themselves. It was a pleasant surprise.


How to grow Purple Potatoes:
1) Get a good size purple potatoes from your healthy super market. Sprouts, Trader Joe's or Whole Foods. For better success choose one with a few eyelets, although one eyelet is all you need.
2) Dig a hole in your pot about four inches in depth from the surface. Place your potatoes in the hole and cover up. Another technique is to plant them normally and hill (add dirt) the plants later. I get too busy with life to pull out more soil and revisit, so it works better for me to just plant deep and leave them alone until they are ready to be harvested. :-)
3) Be patient with the growth period. Potatoes grow slowly, but they will grow. When you see leaves shooting up, it doesn't mean it is time to harvest them. You will need to let the purple potatoes get bigger. They will even multiply when they get enough strength and roots going.
4) I made the mistake of harvesting the potatoes too early last year, so I got super small purple potatoes last year. To be on the safe side, you need to wait until the leaves or plant at least flowered and the flowers have fallen. But ideally, you should wait until the leaves or plants turn yellow, or die.

How to harvest purple potatoes:
1) Wait until the leaves or plant turn yellow, or when they die.
2) If the leaves are still attached, go to the bottom of the leaves, or stalk. Spread the soil lightly.
3) If you pull on the leaves a bit you can get a better idea where the potatoes are to move down closer around them. You see the scrape on the potato below, that was because I jabbed it too hard and scraped the skin off.
4) Once you see them in the soil, slowly lift them up and they should come out pretty easily.

Here are Self Sagacity's Thursday Two Questions #157

1) Do you garden, plant, or grow anything?

2) Have you had purple potatoes before?

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Message about Thursday Two Questions: Since I have been enjoying the shares from week to week, whether it's motivation, or tutorials, questions, recipes, or ranting from the commentators. I am open to ANYTHING you wish to link, so link-up and thanks for stopping by. Smiles.