My own private Idaho

I’m quite pleased with this year’s potato caper…at least, to this point.  I’ve been here before only to have my hopes for an abundant harvest disappointingly dashed when I unearth a measly 6 potatoes that are only marginally bigger than when I planted them several months previously.  But what is gardening but a continuing series of experiments, trials and optimistic enterprises?

I don’t really have a great deal of room in my tiny urban backyard farm; one could reasonably ask why I’m giving over valuable real estate to a crop that can be cheaply purchased at the local grocer.  Truth be told, my neighborhood farmer’s market offers an amazing harvest of more varieties than I ever hope to cultivate at this address!  I can only attribute my potato persistence to pure (pigheaded) pride.  If Joe-Schmo can grow potatoes in a garbage can I should be able to produce a few measly tubers in a plot of real dirt!!!

Danger sign:  gardening  is not, in fact, a competitive sport; no one get points for producing.  You do however, get delicious, succulent, healthful and vibrant produce the freshness of which will never be matched by even the most local of farmers markets.  It’s simple…I want homegrown potatoes!

I’ve selected and duly chitted my spuds (read here).  I planted said “chitted” tubers with their bulging eyes and waited…and watched and waited.  The cold wet weather finally abated and “Holy French Fry” the plants went nuts!!!

Here’s a potato passage from the Starchy Roots chapter of Growing Your Own Vegetables, my newest book:

Potatoes (Solanum tuberosum) are easily grown in the home garden. Technically the potato is a member of the Nightshade family, along with tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant, but it appears in this chapter because potatoes are grown for their edible tubers or “roots”; indeed, all other parts of a potato plant are toxic.

Potato varieties include yellow, rose, blue skin/white flesh, blue skin/blue flesh, white, russet, red, black, purple, red skin/red flesh, red skin/gold flesh, color-splashed (multicolored), scab-resistant, best keeper, heirloom, and more.  You can also choose from varieties that mature in early, mid-, and late season, and between quicker- and slower-maturing varieties. 75 to 130 days to maturity.

Planting: Potatoes grow best in fairly cool weather with long days. They are impervious to light frosts and may be planted very early in the spring, 3 to 4 weeks before the expected last frost. Successive plantings may be made every few weeks until early summer for a continuous harvest. In warmth and humidity potatoes are subject to rot; southern gardeners should either choose a variety that is heat resistant or plant in winter for a spring harvest before the hot days arrive.

Potatoes prefer an acid soil, so do not apply lime to the planting area. Prepare a well-dug soil with lots of organic matter and plant seed potatoes 3 to 6 inches deep every 6 to 8 inches in rows 2 1/2 feetapart. Plant with the eye pointing up; sprouts will be up in 3 to 4 weeks. Keep beds well watered and free of weeds.

Straw bed planting is a method that simplifies planting and harvest but somewhat reduces your yield. Place seed potatoes on top of the soil, top with a foot of straw mulch, and water well.  Make sure the developing potatoes are kept well covered with straw throughout the growing season. At harvest time, rake back the straw and pick your crop.

Harvesting: You can harvest baby potatoes before the main crop by gently digging near the surface under the soil or straw mulch to unearth the small tubers. Resettle the soil around the plant to allow the remaining tubers to keep growing. About 3 months after planting the potato plants will begin to yellow and whither. At this point the potatoes have stopped growing and are ready to dig. In hot weather they keep better in the ground; just dig as needed.  After the weather cools the entire crop can be dug up, plant by plant, carefully sifting the roots and soil to get all the tubers.  Cure the potatoes for storage by spreading them out in a warm dry place out of the sun for a week or two to allow small surface cuts to heal and the skins to thicken. Note: Don’t leave potatoes lying in the sunlight. They will develop a greenish tinge that not only tastes bad but is poisonous as well.

The next vocabulary term in our potato lexicon is “hilling”.  Tubers form along the stems of maturing potato plants.  As mentioned above if the spuds are exposed to light they will assume a green cast which indicates the presence of a toxin…this is bad.  While the plants revel in the sun, the developing tubers prefer the dark.  Which is where things get interesting.

Field grown spuds are “hilled” by hoeing soil from the adjacent pathway up over the growing stems.  In a sort of a race to continually bury the rapidly elongating stems, pubescent potatoes form in utter darkness, safely shielded from the rays of the sun.  “Straw bed planting” as described above is another approach.  Garbage cans represent another tack.  Google “Garbage Can Potatoes” and you’ll get an astounding 909,000 hits.  Go ahead – check it out.

Me?  I’ve got a “crate” idea of my own.  In full “urban Hillbilly Chic” mode, I cast about the garage for something I might employ to fashion a potato-growing chimney.  The only place to go in a small garden is up, so I needed something I could stack in tiers and gradually fill with mulch to keep the light off the developing potatoes.  I found just the thing in my stack of wooden crates accumulated from years of ordering bulk bulbs for my retail nursery.

I banged out the bottoms to create hollow frames and set to work.  Hopefully the following pictures do a better job than I at describing my thinking and process.

Warm weather has finally arrived and the potato plants are growing like weeds.  Already I need to add another tier after having just added my second rung last week.  I’m experimenting with two different mulching materials: compost and shaved wood excelsior (packing material I scrounged at my local nursery from a pot delivery).  The theory is to keep the spuds in the dark; this is not nutritive growing medium.  I figure if straw works (see above) than why not other relatively inert organic materials.  You could also try dried leaves, salt hay, dried grasses, etc.

Before I get too “me-so-clever” I suppose we should wait and see if this grand experiment works.  But I must admit, the annual challenge of McGyver machinations is at least part of the charm for me.  That and those delicious, moist, golden spuds roasted with rosemary in an unctious olive oil – yum!

Stay tuned!

Tagged as: Carla Emery, creative reuse, Edibles, growing your own food, Growing Your Own Vegetables, organic gardening tips, potatoes, Urban Hillbilly Chic