"Nevah, Nevah, Nevah Give Up!"

I decided to check the potatoes this morning since most of the green plants had died, and my gardening books say to wait "several weeks" before digging up.  Well, I'm not listening to them anymore!  A bunch of the potatoes (mostly from the bed where I used organic store potatoes as seed) had already rotted.  :(  I dug up what I could save, then went on to the second bed (where I used Yukon Gold seed potatoes) which still had partly green plants.  Good thing I did, because some of them were starting to rot, too!  Rot was not the worst enemy I faced today.  I moved a board covering the concrete block edging of the bed, and out swarmed a bunch of wasps!  So I ran off for a can of spray and let them have it.  Happily digging away, I suddenly felt some sharp stings and realized that fire ants had built a nest in the end of the bed.  So I grabbed a pitchfork, turned over the soil to loosen the potatoes, sprinkled on a can of DE, and put on long, leather gardening gloves.  Thus armed, I was ready to do battle with the fire ants for my last 2 lbs. of potatoes!

Neither rot, nor wasps, nor fire ants could deter me from harvesting MY potatoes!  I got 5 1/2 lbs. from the first bed and 7 1/2 from the second one.  And we dined on a Spanish potato tortilla for lunch.  As Winnie said, "Nevah! Nevah! Nevah give up!"