The 'Great Potato Disaster' caused me to lose enthusiasm for keeping up this blog for a couple of months. Now that the days are visibly drawing out (not dark until after 5.00 pm last night!) my interest is returning. It also seems brighter because the snow that's covering everything outside my window reflects the light even more. The dark days of November and December made me feel lethargic but now.... I can believe that Spring is just around the corner. Whoopee!
Back to the 'Great Potato Disaster'. I stored my carefully nurtured harvest in hessian sacks in my old aluminium wheelbarrow in the garage; exactly as I had done last year. The potatoes were cool, dark and dry. I had five main crop varieties: Maxine, Argos, Desiree, Harmony and Valor. Careful watching for blight led to a good harvest and I was looking forward to eating my own potatoes for at least five months.
Some of my main crop harvest.
On 13th November I went out to the garage to choose a couple of potatoes to bake with our evening meal. I was thinking about which variety to have, it was such a luxury to have five varieties to choose from. As soon as I saw the chunks of chewed potato I knew - Ratty had been at the spuds! I was furious! There were chewed tubers, ones with what looked like a single bite taken out of them and bits of potato everywhere. A lot of tubers had escaped but the sacks were wet, with wee no doubt. I salvaged two untouched potatoes and cooked them and we ate them with no ill-effects. Apparently if Weil's Disease is present heat destroys it.
I washed all the whole potatoes but somehow, with the thought of the rat and the wee, neither myself nor my husband felt comfortable with the thought of eating any more of the crop. And I was not at all happy about feeding the potatoes to family and friends so, sadly, I tipped the lot into the wheelie bin and had a little cry.
Bye, bye my beauties.
Next year's harvest will be stored in our front porch. As for Ratty - I've taken steps........
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