If you bought a piece of property in south Pierce County you could be surprised to find potatoes growing wild.  They have been found around Victoria Canada and Neah Bay as well. Currently, researchers of the Hudson Bay Company farm sites have been trying to determine the varities of potatoes that were grown by the company on the 1833-1869 farms.

Since a large portion of Pierce County from the Puyallup to the Nisqually River  was part of the farm land cultivated by the Puget Sound Agricultural Company it is possible you could find these spuds growing wild. Wild asparagus has also been reported in one of the farm locations in Spanaway not far from Cedarcrest Middle School.

If you find one of these garden items going wild in an area that appears not to be occupied, let us know at the Post. We will bring in the experts to find out if you have found one of the old gardens.

Here’s a note about potatoes from Nancy Anderson, an HBC researcher from Victoria Canada left on the Fort Nisqually Descendants Facebook page:

“I am reading Fort Nisqually journals and am finding many kinds of potatoes mentioned, other than lady fingers. For example: kidney, early, red, and Spanish. I think Spanish might be the sweet potato bushes that came from South America to Fort Vancouver — they could also be some of the potatoes the Spaniards left at Neah Bay (I think) with the natives there. I am interested in the potatoes grown in the fur trade because a reader of my blog wrote to tell me of potatoes growing wild on Quesnel Lake before the gold rush. He had rescued some of them and now grows them in his garden, and the Royal BC Museum botanists are VERY interesting and doing DNA testing on them. I haven’t heard the result, unfortunately.”