Canning Potatoes

If you ask, "Is it worth it to can potatoes?", the answer is probably, "No!"

In fact, you could probably say the same thing about growing potatoes in a home garden. Economically, there isn't much point. Potatoes are cheap and plentiful and of high quality in any grocery store.

This year's potatoes were planted cheaply. I had some Yukon Gold seed given to me by Denise Stafford. There weren't many, but it was what was left over from what she had planted. I also planted some Russets that had gone to seed in the pantry and some Reds that were of the same ilk. So, the planting was cheap. Essentially, it didn't cost me anything more than the effort and the ground. As a home gardener, I think it is better to be growing something in a garden spot than letting ground go unoccupied, so there might actually be a plus to having planted.

The harvest was honestly a bit skimpy. The Yukon Gold produced nice large tubers for the most part. The Russets and Reds were small. We used some in a few clay pot meals with chicken and some hash browns. There were still quite a few left over. My experience has been that potatoes in North Carolina don't store for very long. Too much humidity and heat. So, instead of just bagging them, I thought I would can some of them this year.

I bought a 23-quart Presto pressure canner. Kathy said it came 32 years late. But we now have it. I peeled for about an hour this morning. Small potatoes are a pain to peel, in case you couldn't figure that out. It made 18 pints and so far, have seemed to turn out OK, except for a few bottles that have too much air in them. Guess we should have tightened the lids a bit more. At least it appears they came out better than the pickles, which should have been canned a different way owing to the fact that I didn't understand the canning directions and over cooked them.

I'm not sure how we use these. We certainly couldn't survive on just our produce from the garden, but there is a sense of accomplishment in doing something.

One thing I learned is to not wait too long to harvest. This year, I kept the Reds in the ground a couple of weeks later than all the others. Too long in the ground tends to lead to some sort of decay.