First Frost & Final Potato Harvest

I've been meaning to harvest the last of the spuds before the first frost, and had planned to do that this Sunday which was actually our first frost day and I ended up scraping ice off the car windscreen before going to the allotment, the grass paths were white frosty and there was a covering of frost on the weed membrane over the potatoes I had gone to rescue plus water in buckets had a layer of thin ice on the top.

Luckily the weed membrane had kept the frost at bay and it not raining on the 5th of November which does not happen that often, the ground was good for the extraction.

The last remaining spuds were in beds 1 and 4 and I started in bed one because the sun just about gets to that end of the allotment this time of year as a large tree in plot 3 shades my plot during the winter months when the sun does not rise as high in the sky.

Normally my kids mock the fact that I don't get a good jacket potato size crop, well they cant do that this year and I will most defiantly be growing Sarpo Mira, Blue Danube & Axona Potatoes again next year, In fact all the spud I grew this year did really well.

I'm actually saving some of the egg sized spuds to use as seed potatoes next year to see how they produce from my own saved spuds. Lets face it, if you happen to leave a small spud in the ground it grows and you get volunteers the following year anyway.  

I ended up with five B&Q builders buckets worth of spuds to fit in the back of the car.

Having cut the Scarlet Emperor Runner beans off at the base a few weeks ago, I had a flower bucket full of dry pods, and again because of the frosts, these were harvested as I want some beans for myself for growing next year, but I'm also contributing the Bean and Pea seed circle on the Grow Your Own Grapevine forum.
   
I sorted through the five buckets and extracted the largest of the spuds and washed them and they have been left to dry off on the draining board so they can be bagged up into a potato canvas preserving bag for storing potatoes, it has a breathable black liner that keeps out the light and prevents sprouting, with a drawstring at the top and a zipper base that allows easy access when hung on the back of the outside kitchen store. It's around 260 x 380mm, and holds approx. 2.5kg of potatoes.

These sell for £4 - £5 each on Amazon but I bought a load when the 99p shop had them, I just hope the £1 shop who have taken over the 99p shops also sells them in the future.