Anyone here from Idaho? Tater question

***OBIO*** · July 2nd, 2012, 23:22

For the last 3 months, I have been working at a produce packing plant....processing and packaging fresh fruit and veggies. Not a hard job, not a bad job...not a great job either....but it's a job...an honest day's pay for an honest day's work.

We do a LOT of potatoes. LOTS and LOTS of potatoes. Have a line that does nothing but wash, dry, inspect and wrap potatoes for all of the Wendy's Restaurants in Eastern US of A....basically every Wendy's baked potato served east of the Mississippi River comes from our plant.

Tonight we hand inspected and hand bagged nearly 20 tons of Idaho Baking Potatoes. And will do pretty much the same amount of Idaho Baking Potatoes tomorrow. These taters are destined for grocery stores in 5 pound bags.....and I put each and every one of tonight's bags onto a calibrated and certified digital scale to ensure that they all weighed between 5.1 and 5.8 pounds....my right shoulder is about twice the size of my left shoulder and strong enough to snatch an Abrams tank off its tracks!

Now....I got to thinking....Idaho potatoes....are these taters from last Fall's harvest or are they actually harvesting potatoes in Idaho already.

So, if anyone on SOH is from Idaho....are they harvesting taters already? Is Idaho's weather so much warmer than Ohio's weather that Idaho grown potatoes can be harvested 2 to 3 months earlier than Ohio grown potatoes?

OBIO

***Naismith*** · July 3rd, 2012, 02:42

Not from Idaho I'm afraid, but 1/2 way through reading that I thought you were going to tell us you'd dropped your wristwatch or your lunch in a bag and have us look out for it lol. Idaho grow some nice spuds but not as nice as our BC ones though...

***Dain Arns*** · July 3rd, 2012, 06:06

I grew up in the region.
Usually harvest was August to October.

***deKoven*** · July 3rd, 2012, 06:08

Originally Posted by OBIO

Much snippage...................

Now....I got to thinking....Idaho potatoes....are these taters from last Fall's harvest or are they actually harvesting potatoes in Idaho already.

So, if anyone on SOH is from Idaho....are they harvesting taters already? Is Idaho's weather so much warmer than Ohio's weather that Idaho grown potatoes can be harvested 2 to 3 months earlier than Ohio grown potatoes?

OBIO

Soz chum, they're from last fall. Potatos are dug in late fall and stored overwinter. Same with the large onions, I think. Green onions and the Walla2 Sweets come to market earlier. The greens in spring and the Walla2's earlier fall.

***OBIO*** · July 3rd, 2012, 07:23

Gents

Thanks for the clarification. I was fairly confident that the taters we packaged last night were from last fall's harvest.....just can't see Idaho tater farmers harvesting taters this early in the season.

I did supply a bit of off info in my post last night. We did not hand inspect and hand pack 20 tons of taters. It was 20,000 pounds....10 tons. Which is still a crap load of taters by any measure. Eight inspector/packers, me weighing all 4000 of those 5-pound bags, one person running the bags through the clinching machine that puts the wire ring around the bottom of the bag to seal it shut, one person putting 6 5-pound bags into a larger brown paper bag and taping it shut, one person putting that larger bag onto skids and one person setting the 80 pound boxes of taters up on the production table. Not bad production for 13 people. 4000 5-pound bags in 8 hours. 500 bags an hour. No wonder my right hand, wrist, elbow and shoulder hurt this morning.

OBIO