Harvesting Potatoes is no Rocket Science. Or is it?

It was a beautiful morning to harvest potatoes in Prince Edward Island today, but Hans Wilting and family of Linden Lee Farms in Meadowbank needed some extra help to get their world-famous spuds out of the ground. While some may say that digging potatoes isn’t rocket science, they called in an astronaut anyway!

Prince Edward Island Potatoes was delighted to have Col. Chris Hadfield, former Commander of the International Space Station and an internationally recognized ambassador for science and Canada, helping to dig potatoes on Halloween morning against the backdrop of a clear blue sky and the beautiful West River. Col. Hadfield was able to dig some potatoes by hand from his “PEI Potato Patch,” followed by a shift digging Russet Burbank potatoes with the tractor and harvester.

Following his adventures in the field, Col. Hadfield and his wife Helene visited the Sherwood Produce storage facility in Canoe Cove, where Logan Docherty showed an astronaut what 20 million pounds of potatoes looks like!

The potato growers of Prince Edward Island are proud to have been a presenting sponsor of Col. Hadfield’s “Out Of This World” lecture at the Confederation Centre of the Arts in Charlottetown on Thursday, Oct 30th.

According to Greg Donald, General Manager of the Prince Edward Island Potato Board, “our growers were excited to have the opportunity to showcase one of the Island’s iconic products and an engine of our economy to Col. Hadfield, one of Canada’s most respected public figures. Col. Hadfield himself comes from a farm family in Ontario and has a strong connection to agriculture, so it was a pleasure to show him what goes into making a PEI Potato!”

Prince Edward Island Potatoes are world renowned for the great taste and quality that comes from growing in the unique red soil of PEI. The Prince Edward Island Potato Board is a producer-controlled association dedicated to supporting the highest performance of an economically and environmentally sustainable potato industry. The potato industry is worth over $1 billion to the Prince Edward Island economy each year.