Before we get started on this post I just want to reiterate that this year has been far more crazy than I enjoy. I am sure everyone is in that boat with me. I haven’t kept in touch with my blog as much as I had hoped back in January however I really hope to start sharing more from Wild Bloom Acre. So here is to the 2020 potato harvest! This post was originally from August and I am just getting it finished.

My husband and I were busy harvesting and canning potatoes through the end of August. We actually got a late start to the potato growing season and didn’t get our seed potatoes in the ground until April 21,2020. We planted 50 pounds of seed potatoes that day and ended up with over 120 pounds of potatoes with our 2020 harvest, WOW! This has been our best year for potatoes!

Typically our favorite way to store our potato harvest is by canning in our pressure canner. This year we also decided to put some away under the house to see if it work like a root cellar (kinda like a small experiment). We purchased some small clear totes and cute the tops out of the lid, added screen, placed straw in the totes and added potatoes before putting them under the house. Interesting and I can’t wait to see if it works.

Potatoes ready to go in the pressure canner.

We ended up canning over 50 pints and over 30 quarts of potatoes. Let me explain our process.

  • Typically we start by cleaning our work space and washing jars, lids and canning tools.
  • We gather all of our supplies and take to our outdoor kitchen (the back porch).
A glimpse of our set up for canning.
  • Next we get two pots of water boiling for blanching and filling the jars.
  • While the water is boiling we prepare the potatoes by washing, cutting and removing bad spots if any.
  • Now it is time to blanch the potatoes, we do this for about 3 minutes or so.
Blanching station.
  • Time to fill the jars.

We use Sea Salt and clean hot water to fill our jars. Once potatoes are in the jars I add the salt. I do about a 1/2 tablespoon of Sea Salt for pint jars and a whole tablespoon for quart jars. Now add the water leaving 1 inch of headspace. It is important to use clean water for this, not the water you used for blanching. When you blanch the potatoes it also removes starch from the potatoes which ends up in that water and you do not want all of that starch in your canned potatoes.

  • Sea Salt
  • Adding potatoes & fresh hot water
  • Cleaning the jar rim
  • Ready to hit the canner
  • Clean the rim of your jars after filling them to ensure that nothing is in the way of the seal.
  • Add lids and rings, now it is time to pressure can.

We have a 1970 something Presto Pressure Canner. The old girl needed new seals this year but has treated us well. We recommend reading your manual and determining the fill line on your pressure canner. Fill the canner to the fill line and let that water warm up while filling your jars. This will help your canner come to pressure faster.

Here is a glimpse inside of our canner once we have it filled with jars. Now we just place the lid on the canner and turn on our burner. Once our canner comes to pressure and the weight starts jiggling we set our timer. Typically we let pints go for 30 minutes and quarts for 35.

Throughout the year these potatoes are enjoyed in soups, fried, roasted, cooked in green-beans , hashbrowns or made into breakfast burritos. They are delicious and once we started canning potatoes we received a lot of questions and had conversations with people who had no idea this could be done and that inspired this blog post. Thank you for reading and just let me know if you have any questions, I will be happy to try and help.