You Say Potato?

February: it’s time to plant asparagus crowns, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, kohlrabi, radishes, turnips, beets, carrots, mustard, collards, chard, lettuce, spinach, peas, and potatoes. Broccoli and winter greens are commonly found in vegetable gardens this time of the year. I feel many gardeners are unaware of how easy and fun it is to grow potatoes. I added potatoes to my garden after reading the list of soil fumigants, herbicides, fungicides, and insecticides used on commercially grown potatoes in Michael Pollan’s book Botany of Desire. This will be my fourth season to grow my own potatoes. The first step is to purchase seed potatoes. Potatoes have a rest period before they sprout. By using seed potatoes you can be rest assured they will sprout and that they are certified disease-free. Also grocery store potatoes may be treated to deter them from sprouting. At the Great Outdoors we carry white Kennebec, red LaSota, and red Pontiac varieties. We are also going to bring in Russets and Yukon Golds. The first three varieties recommended for Travis County and have grown successfully in my garden. The last two potatoes, even though they are not on the recommended list, I couldn’t help but give ‘em a try. You can order seed potatoes on-line but my experience is that they don’t ship in time for our growing season. Last year I tried growng some blue potatoes from the grocery store. I made sure they were organic and picked out only ones whose eyes were already sprouting, still they did not produce as well as my seed potatoes. Before planting, I lay the seed potatoes out on cookie trays on the kitchen island and wait for the eyes to start to grow. I recently learned that this is called chitting and that the sprouted potatoes are called chits. Seed potatoes can be planted whole or you can cut them into pieces. The pieces should be no smaller than a large egg and have at least two eyes. Allow the pieces to set out 3-5 days for the cuts to heal. Now you are ready to plant. For step by step instructions look at http://aggiehorticulture.tama.edu/extension/easygardening/potato/potato2html I plant my potatoes in trenches and fill them in as the plants grow. For fertilizer I mix in compost before I plant and spray with bioform later in the spring. I’m lucky to have a nice size yard, so I space my potatoes about 8” apart in rows 16’-24’ apart. For small areas you can space them 4” apart though you tend to get smaller potatoes. One way to grow potatoes in a small space is to plant them in a tire. If you ask around it is pretty easy to find someone who is happy to get rid of an old tire or three. Start by laying the tire on the ground and filling halfway with flower and garden soil or potting soil. Place four seed potatoes on top and finish filling the tire up. Once the potatoes have sprouted and reached about 6”-8” lay a second tire on top and add enough soil to cover the plants halfway. Allow the potato plant to reach about 4” above the tire before filling the tire up. You can repeat with third or fourth tire. I have grown potatoes this way twice, once successfully, at a children’s community garden and last year here at the Great Outdoors. Last year’s tire tower was on asphalt and did not drain well, so instead of the bounty of potatoes we were expecting we had a soggy and very smelly mess. This year I will try again, but with a layer of pea gravel on the bottom and some lava sand mixed in with the flower and garden soil. In Texas we will probably get at least one more freeze in February. Potatoes can be covered with sheets of N-sulate, or left unprotected, the plants will freeze back but will send up new shoots as soon as it warms back up. Potatoes take roughly 100 days to mature. Before this time you can perform the act of grabbling. To grabble is to feel around in the soil under a potato plant stealing new potatoes without disturbing the plant itself. The whole plant is ready to pull up once the leaves have turned brown. This may be my favorite time in the garden and probably the only time I use my pitch fork. It’s like a grown up Easter egg hunt, but be careful when harvesting as it is easy to spear a potato. I separate any potatoes I accidentally cut or knick to be eaten first since they do not keep as long. Kept dry and out of sunlight my potatoes lasted until ----. Last year my husband and I planted 14 lbs of potatoes and dug up 60 lbs and that’s not counting all the ones I grabbled earlier on. And I never had to worry about eating the skins. Growing Taters In Austin

2009-05-05T00:00:00Z

2009-06-21T23:16:51Z