Spuds

This is 12 pounds of potatoes. Luke and I dug these from a single hill yesterday. This is in stark contrast to what we've been getting in the few hills we've dug prior to this. There are two notable differences with this hill. First, I planted it in one of the new garden beds, meaning the soil (Tagro potting soil) was freshly brought in. Second, I paid more attention to this one. The others were planted in an ad-hoc fashion wherever there was a bit of room and didn't get properly hilled or watered. This hill was in a bed with our sweet potatoes and some lettuce. The entire bed received more attention.

The potatoes in this hill weren't perfect, however. Some had small white, hardened speckles across their face and some were sporting a red hue around their eyes. Doing some looking around, I found a nice potato disease page. That lead me to:

Swollen Lenticels

White dots can often be seen on the skins of potatoes that have been left in very damp soil for a long time; they are swollen lenticels.

Pink Eye

Pink eye is a disease characterized by a pink discolouration of the skin around the eyes. During storage, or in the field before harvest, it causes a superficial rot (1) that closely resembles the first signs of infection with late blight. Infected tubers do not keep well. The cause of the disease is not known, but it is always found in tubers of crops affected by Verticillium wilt.

Pink Eye and Swollen Lenticels

The swollen lenticels won't be a problem. The Pink Eye looks like it means that I need to find a way to use them sooner than later.