Jonathan & Denise >

This is one of our regular stock-takes of our winter store of spuds – with three varieties of main-crop potatoes. We do this every 3-4 weeks, normally.

The Big Garden : Checking our winter stock of potatoes – one third eatem, two thirds left

The blue boxes are fish boxes that come ashore on the beach by the walled garden. It’s handy we have so many of the same design, as they stack neatly.  With a thick board of plywood over the top box, they are pretty much secure against rodents.  We keep the stack within the wood store – ie sheltered from wind and rain, but not indoors : this seems to be the perfect conditions for keeping potatoes (and perhaps also, if we needed to, other root vegetables).

The brown bucket is for our handy supply of potatoes, kept in the utility room, next to the kitchen. Every week or two we go to the wood store to top it up.  On this occasion, the top blue box (shown here on its end), has been emptied, and has to go to the bottom of the stack, so that the full boxes go up one. We take the opportunity to check the potatoes in every box for any rot or starting to sprout (both are high risk if the weather is mild and very wet – typical of south-westerly winds).  This time, there was not a single spud that had to be thrown out.  Typically, any problems are before Christmas : in the new year, it’s rare to lose any of our stores, and the spuds will probably last us until early summer.