Potato Time

After carefully planting, hilling, and weeding potatoes all summer, finally it's time to reap the rewards. Here are a few of the Red Pontiac and Kennebecs I dug today. They do not get washed; I just spread them out on cardboard box tops and store them in the pantry. It's cool and dark enough there for the skins to toughen up a little, and then they can be used for baking, mashing, whatever.

The pile here comes from about five plants total; I planted a dozen of each variety. The rest of the potatoes will stay in the ground a little longer, though I need to remember to dig the rest before it gets too cold!

Potato Flowers

Last year's potato plants all had sweet little white flowers, so imagine my surprise when I saw these! Red Pontiac is the variety, obviously one we haven't used before.

Seed Potatoes

Two varieties of potatoes will be coming out of the garden this year: Kennebec and Red Pontiac. Rather than growing potatoes from seed, which can be tricky, the usual way is to propagate them from seed potatoes. These are usually (but not always) smallish potatoes kept not for eating, but for planting. You buy them by the pound from feed and garden stores in the spring, then put them somewhere cool and dry (like a paper bag in the garage) where they can start to sprout.

May 5 - planting day! Normally I'd throw potatoes from the grocery store away if they looked like the picture above! But not these guys. The sprouts that emerge from the "eyes" of the potato are the beginnings of this year's plants. I've cut some of the larger ones into pieces, making sure there is at least one big clump of tubers or a few smaller ones per chunk.

There are many ways to grow potatoes (this article describes them pretty well), all suited to various types of gardens. I like the idea of growing potatoes in a bale of straw, or in a garbage bag, and some day I may try it - but for now I have a lot of room and no need to mess with container gardening. What I'm doing is a combination of hilling and mulching.

First I dug a long trench about 6 inches wide, 4 inches deep. I scooped out individual holes every 1-1/2 or 2 feet and plopped the potato chunks in with the sprouts facing up. I covered the potatoes with about 2 inches of soil, then filled in the trench with straw. This keeps water from evaporating too quickly, helping the plants off to a good start. It will also lighten the heavy soil later when I begin to hill the plants.

Two and a half weeks after planting, here's a stout looking plant poking out of the straw! Once the plants grow a few more inches, I will start bringing in the rest of the soil I dug out of the trench, and eventually create a small hill around the base of each plant. Potatoes will keep growing along the portion of the stem that is now buried! The plants are growing in heavy clay, so the straw mulch should help lighten up the dirt and give the potatoes room to expand.