Digging the potatoes: Part 1 -The Final Harvest of The Season! 🥔

Digging the Potatoes - The Harvest

Following on from our post back on the 29th June (Feast of St. Peter and St. Paul), a date when many farmers digg the first spud, we caught up with local potato farmer John Somers again in Carnew, South Wicklow as he harvested his last crop of the season last Wednesday 4th September. A busy harvesting time for many farmers throughout Ireland over the coming few weeks….

John chats with us about the 'Grimme All Rounder' potato harvester which won an award for being one of the best harvesters in 1988. Spending time with John in his field it was great to film this process in operation as the simple harvester goes along the drills and picks up the potatoes in a very slow, steady and organised fashion. Tractor and harvester working seamlessly together as the potatoes are collected in the old wooden crates. The methodical process and the beautiful South Wicklow landscape in sync with each other...

We had barely enough time to shake the muck from our boots and John had us picking up the little aul small ones that had dropped off 😉 picking them on our knees!

This is part of an ongoing project called 'Your Farm Tells a Story' and it's also part of our ongoing research into 'Harvest Customs & Traditions'. You can catch up with our recordings on our Traditional Archive Channel.