Potatoes are a staple in many households. The wonderful thing about Irish potatoes is that they can be grown just about anywhere, in ground or in planters or buckets. They can be a quick shoulder-season crop or they can spend 120 days in the ground, making way for fall-planted crops when they’re done. You can pick them early for baby potatoes, leave them late for storage potatoes, or anything in between, and they are one of the easiest crops for beginners because they are pretty hands off. Which may be why this episode was so popular.
So, let’s revisit your second favorite episode of all time. Ready to grow potatoes? Let’s dig in!
References and Resources:
Hijmans, RJ; Spooner, DM (2001). "Geographic distribution of wild potato species". American Journal of Botany. 88 (11): 2101–12. doi:10.2307/3558435. JSTOR 3558435. PMID 21669641.
Potato Production and Consumption
Potato: Nutrition facts, recipes, benefits, side effects, and more (msn.com)
Soil Temparature Maps | GreenCast | Syngenta (greencastonline.com)
Growing potatoes in home gardens | UMN Extension
ORGANIC POTATO GROWING GUIDE (woodprairie.com)
Just Grow Something Gardening Friends Facebook Group
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This is Positively Farming Media.
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Hello my gardening friends, and welcome to another week of
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counting down the top four episodes of the Just Grow
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Something podcast of all time. This week is the #2 most
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downloaded episode, and it happens to be this year's number
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one episode downloaded almost 250% more than any other episode
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this season. And that is on growing potatoes.
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So just like last week's topic of onions, potatoes are a staple
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in so many households. We eat potatoes at least twice a
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week, if not more. The only starch we eat as
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frequently as potatoes is rice, and I haven't figured out how to
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effectively grow that on a small scale yet, but when I do, I will
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let you know. So for now, potatoes are the top
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home grown starch for us and for many of you.
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This episode was released back in February of this year and I
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timed that to go along with the most common time for planting
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potatoes, which is generally in March in the Northern
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hemisphere, although if you garden in zones 9 or 10 it is
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often earlier than that. The wonderful thing about Irish
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potatoes is that they can be grown just about anywhere in
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ground or in planters or buckets.
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And they can be a quick shoulder season crop that matures in
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roughly 2 months and makes way for a late summer planting of
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something. Or they can spend like 120 days
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in the ground making way for fall planted crops.
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When they're done, you can pick them early for baby potatoes.
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You can leave them late for storage potatoes or anything in
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between, and they are one of the easiest crops for beginners
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because they are pretty hands off, which may be why this
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episode was so popular. So let's revisit your second
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favorite episode of all time. We're ready to grow potatoes.
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Let's dig in. Hey, I'm Karen and I started
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gardening 18 years ago in a small corner of my suburban
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backyard when we moved to A5 acre homestead.
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I expanded that garden to half an acre and I found such joy and
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purpose in feeding my family and friends.
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This newfound love for digging in the dirt and providing for
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others prompted my husband and I to grow our small homestead into
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a 40 acre market farm. When I went back to school to
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get my degree in horticulture, I discovered there is so much
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power in food and I want to share everything I've learned
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with as many people as possible. On this podcast, we explore crop
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information, soil health, pests and diseases, plant nutrition,
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our own nutrition, and so much more in the world of food and
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gardening. So grab your garden journal and
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a cup of coffee and get ready to just grow something.
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All right, we're just going to jump right into it.
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Let's dig into potatoes, starting with, as always, the
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basics. The scientific name for potatoes
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is selenium tuberosum, the genus name.
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Selenium is the Latin word Solomon, which means comforting
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or soothing. The species name tuberosum means
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tuber. So it's a comforting tuber.
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And I absolutely agree that the potato is a comfort food.
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Now it's in the plant family Solanacia.
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Those are our nightshades. This is the same as your
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tomatoes and eggplant and Peppers.
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This is important to know for crop rotation purposes because
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they do share many of the same insect pests and specifically
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the same diseases, especially with tomatoes and Peppers, So
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that is definitely something to be aware of if you grow all of
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those plants. Now, potatoes are native to the
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Americas, and wild potato species can be found from the
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southern US all the way to southern Chile.
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Potatoes were domesticated there approximately 7000 to 10
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years ago, so domesticated potatoes have been around and in
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our diet for a very, very long time now.
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Potatoes were introduced to Europe from the Americas by the
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Spanish in the second-half of the 16th century, which is why I
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find it very funny that we refer to them as Irish potatoes just
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to differentiate them from sweet potatoes when they both
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originated in the Americas. I mean, I get it, they were
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heavily developed as a crop after they landed in Europe, and
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residents in Ireland depended on them as a staple.
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And of course, the potato famine there caused a lot of
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immigration, and those Irish immigrants brought the culture
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of the potato to the US. But I'm curious what the rest of
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the world refers to them as. It's got to be something
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different, right? China is now the biggest potato
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producer and almost a third of all potatoes are harvested in
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China and India. Potatoes are actually the
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world's fourth largest food crop after corn, wheat and rice.
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So they definitely have become an important food stuff for us.
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And so it's a good reason to just grow them ourselves.
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So let's talk about the cultural significance and etho botanical
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uses. Remember, ethno botany is the
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study of a region's plants and their practical uses through the
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traditional knowledge of a local culture and its people.
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These uses are cited as a historical and anthropological
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resource, never ingest the parts of any plant without being
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absolutely positive of its effect upon the human body.
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Please. And on that note, all of the
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green parts of the potato plant contain a toxin known as
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solanine and they should not be ingested, which is also why you
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shouldn't eat the tubers if they are green below the skin.
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Now often times the green skin just means it was exposed to
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excess sunlight and if you peel it back it's fine unless you see
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the meat of the tuber is also green and then it should be
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tossed in the compost. Now, the potato was used in folk
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medicine for the treatment of burns, corns, cough, tumors and
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warts. And this is the one that gets
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me. Reportedly, in Europe, raw
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potatoes were tied behind a person's ears to treat delirium.
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Look, if I'm delirious, I can think of a few other ways you
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could use potatoes to calm me down.
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Like make me some vodka from the potatoes and treat me that way.
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OK, don't tie potatoes behind my ears.
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That's just gonna tick me off and maybe make me even more
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delirious. As far as nutrition goes, A 75g
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serving of diced white potatoes contains 52 calories, 0 fat, 12
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grams of carbs and 1.3g of protein and is a good source of
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vitamins CB6 and potassium with a little bit of magnesium and
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iron to boot. So does all this make you want
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to grow potatoes? Good.
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Here we go. Let's talk about the in ground
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cultivation of potatoes. Now potatoes are a cool season
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crop and most varieties need between 60 and 120 days to
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mature. This is going to depend on the
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variety and the type of potato you are growing.
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You can pick them young for baby potatoes, you can let them
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mature to very large potatoes for storage, or you can harvest
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them anywhere in between those stages.
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Now, a lot of time I will plant 2 rows of the same variety, one
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to harvest early as small new potatoes that we can start
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eating right away, and then one to grow to full size for storage
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through the offseason. You can do this with containers
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too, by having some designated it as early and some as late.
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Now potatoes are typically planted from what we call seed
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potatoes, not actual seeds. The seed potatoes are just the
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best specimens from a crop the year before, put in storage, and
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then used the following year for planting.
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This is true whether you save them yourself, use potatoes from
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the grocery store that have sprouted on you, or you order
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seed potatoes from a supplier. That's not to say the potatoes
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don't produce seeds. They can.
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Potato plants do bloom and they will set fruit.
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Depending on where you're gardening and what your weather
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conditions have been, we get them pretty frequently on ours.
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They're small little clusters of fruits that look like tiny
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little wild eggplant or the fruits of those deadly
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nightshade weeds that you might see.
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Again, they're all in the same family, so that makes sense.
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And these fruits are not edible, but they do contain hundreds of
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seeds. So if you were to harvest and
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replant these, though the seeds may not grow, they may be
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sterile and the plants will not necessarily grow.
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Too true to type because there are literally thousands of
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cultivars of potatoes out there now.
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Many of them are hybrids of some sort.
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So I would recommend sticking to seed potatoes unless you want to
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experiment with growing from seed, which I mean, I'm all
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about a good experiment. So knock yourself out and let me
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know the results. I would love to see that.
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Now, if that's what you wanna try, stick with the more
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specialty varieties or the heirlooms and stay away from the
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more commercial ones. So choose like a German
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Butterball instead of a Yukon Gold.
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But I digress. Let's go back to actual seed
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potatoes. Okay.
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Growing potatoes from actual seed potatoes is easy, and I
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don't know why I didn't include them in that episode about the
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easiest things to grow for beginners.
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Maybe because it requires a little bit of effort in mounding
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them several times during the season, which I no longer do, by
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the way. And we'll talk about that in a
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minute. But it really is simple to grow
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them. So for in ground cultivation,
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you're going to want to do a little bit of prep work just to
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be sure you get the best crop. Remember, these are tubers, and
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tubers are the underground storage organ for a plant.
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They're going to be hungry as they develop, and so you want a
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good amount of organic matter and a good level of fertility.
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If you're struggling with any of that in your soil, work in a
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good amount of composted manure or a high quality compost the
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season before planting. Preferably you can do this just
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before planting if your compost is really well broken down and
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is biologically active, We just don't want it to be too hot so
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it won't burn your plants. But no, they do appreciate
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fertile soil and a soil that is loose without a bunch of
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obstructions to block the tubers as they grow.
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Tight soil is going to mean smaller spuds, so if you have
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heavy clay soil like we do, you definitely want to be adding a
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bunch of organic matter. They actually like the texture
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of a sandy soil, but if your soil is extremely sandy, adding
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organic matter is also going to be a requirement just to be sure
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you've got enough fertility to feed those tubers.
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The ideal soil pH level for potatoes is somewhat acidic
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between 6 and 6.5, but they will actually tolerate soil with pH
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that goes as low as a five. You do want the soil to be well
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drained though, so the tubers don't sit in the water and rot.
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So when you get your seed potatoes, preferably from a seed
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supplier, we'll talk about that here in a little bit.
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You want to store them in a cool place until you are ready to
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plant them if you get them early.
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Once you're ready, you're going to cut those seed potatoes up
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into pieces to increase your yield.
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Can you just toss a whole potato in the ground and get more
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potatoes? Yes, but if you cut it into
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multiple pieces, each having a couple of those little eyes on
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them, which is the point where the sprouts come out, then
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you've just multiplied your harvest.
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Each piece of a seed potato can produce as much as 2 lbs of
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potatoes per plant, so you want more plants from the same number
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of seed potatoes, so slice them into pieces that weigh around an
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ounce or so. That's about half the size of a
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chicken egg, each with two or more eyes or sprouts on them.
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You know, you can do this a day or two ahead of time or even the
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same day. You'll see.
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A lot of advice to let you, like tell you to cut the piece and
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let it dry out a little bit to avoid rotting.
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But we've cut ours the same day as planting plenty of times.
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We've never had a problem with the seed potatoes rotting in the
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ground, and we have pretty wet springs in our area.
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In fact, Wood Prairie Family Farm, who are seed potato
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suppliers in Maine where I used to get my seed potatoes.
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They do the same thing they slice as they plant, but it may
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be more convenient to plop yourself down in front of the TV
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and watch a show and cut them up at the same time.
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So I get that. Just don't cut them too early or
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they can start to dry out and that will affect their
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germination. You can also get an earlier
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germination by warming those seed potatoes up in the house
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for a few days right before you plant them.
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So keep them at around 70°F for two or three days ahead of time
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and you'll cut down on the germination time outside.
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So cold storage while you're waiting to plant, then warm them
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up just a little bit before they go in the ground.
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Oh, and the only reason that I don't get my seed potatoes from
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wood Prairie anymore isn't because I don't like them.
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I love them. It's just because we plant like
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200 to 300 lbs of seed potatoes every year now, so I have to get
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them much more locally than that or I would be spending a
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fortune. But I will link to them in the
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show notes if you want to check them out.
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They have a lot of fun varieties and heirloom potatoes too.
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So when you are ready to plant your potatoes, check your soil
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temperature or use an online tool that shows the soil
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temperatures in your area. I will link to one in the show
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notes. You don't want to plant your
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potatoes until your soil reaches 45°F, about 7.2 Celsius or above
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in the spring. You want them in early enough
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that they'll put most of their green growth on when your air
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temperatures are no higher than 70 Fahrenheit or 21 Celsius.
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But you don't want them in too early or they'll sit too long in
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the soil without sprouting and they could rot.
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So when you plant your potatoes is going to depend on your
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region. In my area this is typically
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around Saint Patrick's Day. Go figure usually sometime
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between the third week in March and maybe the first week in
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April is typical. You don't want the soil to be
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saturated when you plant. Cool soil is fine, but cold and
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wet is not. So you're just going to have to
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time it a little bit. Now, when you're putting the
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potatoes in the ground, plant the seed pieces cut side down
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about 10 to 12 inches apart, or 25 1/2 to 35 1/2 centimeters
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apart in trenches that are about 3 feet or just shy of a meter
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apart. If you want fewer but much
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larger potatoes, or for like a naturally large potato like a
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russet, you might want to space them a little further apart,
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like 15 inches or 38 centimeters.
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If you want lots of little new potatoes, then you can space
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them a little bit closer together.
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Do these a few different ways until you land on a spacing that
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seems to work for you, or do a combination of both.
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We plant slices in the Rose for the new potatoes a little closer
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together than we do the ones for storage purposes because we want
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them to have lots of room to get larger.
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Now, how deep in that trench? Here's a little trick.
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If you are planting somewhere further north in the northern
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hemisphere and your soil temperatures stay cooler for
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longer, you can plant your potatoes as shallow as one inch
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deep or 2 1/2 centimetres. This will allow the seed
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potatoes to get more of the sun's warmth and germinate more
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quickly. Then you will absolutely want to
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heal those up as they grow to protect the stems and protect
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the tubers that will be growing underneath.
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Now if you're in the South or a warmer region, you can plant
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yours deeper, like 4 to 5 inches deep or 10 to 12 1/2
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centimeters. This will keep those tubers
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cooler as your air temperatures begin to quickly rise in the
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spring and make it easier for them to germinate and thrive.
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It can take as long as three weeks sometimes for seed pieces
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to sprout, so keeping them cooler or warmer, depending on
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your climate, can be the key to getting those healthy sprouts.
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So now here's the thing about hilling potatoes.
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I was taught that you mounded the soil up around your potato
00:16:50
plants to encourage more tubers. I mean literally mounding them
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up to where there was only a few inches of growth at the top.
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And you would do this over and over again throughout the season
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until they started to flower. It turns out that this is only
00:17:03
really true if you're working with indeterminate potato
00:17:07
plants. Just like there are determinate
00:17:10
and indeterminate tomato varieties.
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The same goes for potatoes. But unlike what I was led to
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believe, a lot more has to do with how the foliage, flowers
00:17:23
and berries grow, and very little to do with the actual
00:17:27
tubers themselves. So indeterminate potatoes can
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produce a slightly larger yield, but the real difference is that
00:17:37
determinate potatoes just mature more quickly.
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They are the early and mid season varieties, the plants
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that are fairly short, they usually stay around 3 foot tall
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and they produce most of their flowers all at one time.
00:17:50
Just like our determinate tomatoes, indeterminate potatoes
00:17:54
are usually the late season varieties because they need a
00:17:57
longer time to mature and those plants continue to grow bigger
00:18:02
with longer stems and lots of flowers as the season
00:18:05
progresses. These are the ones they usually
00:18:07
call potato vines because they just seem to keep going, again
00:18:10
like our indeterminate tomatoes. So when potatoes are growing,
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the tubers form on stolons, those long thin stems that
00:18:20
emerge out from the main stems. So the thought is or was that
00:18:26
the longer the underground portion of the plant, the more
00:18:30
stolons that the plant might grow.
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So yes, if you have an indeterminate potato plant that
00:18:36
will put out growth over a longer time frame, you might be
00:18:41
able to increase your yield by the increasing the amount of
00:18:45
that stem that is underground. So this is the idea behind
00:18:48
hilling up around the stem. But increasing production is not
00:18:53
actually the most important reason why we should be healing
00:18:57
our potato plants. And yes, you can get away with
00:19:00
not healing them at all. Determinate or indeterminate,
00:19:03
right? Healing potato plants as they
00:19:06
grow actually just helps to protect the stems of the plant
00:19:10
as they grow and it covers the potato tubers as they develop.
00:19:14
Remember I said earlier that potatoes may turn green if they
00:19:18
are exposed to too much daylight.
00:19:20
So while peeling that back may make it safe to consume them,
00:19:23
the overexposure can actually make them taste bitter.
00:19:27
Plus the more they're exposed, the more possibility of them
00:19:30
being damaged before you get a a chance to harvest them.
00:19:33
So if you plant deep enough from the beginning, you may not need
00:19:38
to mound around your plants. If you need to plant shallow
00:19:42
though, because you need that sun to warm the tubers, then you
00:19:45
will absolutely need to heal these up.
00:19:47
So once the plants are up out of the soil by about four to six
00:19:51
inches or 10 to 15 centimeters, start healing them up by using a
00:19:56
hand hoe or a good rake to just mound the soil up around the
00:20:00
base of the plant. You can do this once really
00:20:04
good, or you can continue to build a nice big hill as the
00:20:08
season progresses, mounting up the soil from between the rows,
00:20:11
or even just adding fresh layers of compost a couple of times if
00:20:15
you don't want to dig or rake. Another way to do this is to
00:20:19
just add a heavy layer of straw mulch.
00:20:23
Our least backbreaking method to this is to be sure that we plant
00:20:28
about four inches beneath the soil.
00:20:30
Come back through once to mound the plants really well.
00:20:34
Once they've hit about 6 inches tall, put a nice deep layer of
00:20:38
straw mulch down on top of those mounds and then just call it.
00:20:42
Good, right? The mulch of course is going to
00:20:45
help keep the weeds at Bay. It keeps the soil moisture nice
00:20:48
and even. It keeps the soil cooler for
00:20:51
longer as the days start to heat up.
00:20:53
And only doing this one time saves our backs and saves time.
00:20:58
Now what you decide to do is entirely up to you.
00:21:00
Play around with different techniques and see what calls to
00:21:03
you. And fair warning, your technique
00:21:06
may change as you get older. Healing potatoes was no big deal
00:21:10
15 years ago. These days, yeah, I'd rather
00:21:13
spend my energy elsewhere now. What about growing potatoes in
00:21:22
containers? This can be anything from raised
00:21:26
planters to grow bags, wire mesh cylinders to 5 gallon buckets or
00:21:31
other containers. So you want to put about 3 to 5
00:21:35
inches or 7 1/2 to 12 1/2 centimeters of soil compost
00:21:40
mixture in the bottom of your container and then put your seed
00:21:45
potato pieces on top of that and then cover them with another
00:21:49
three to five inches of soil. Instead of healing, you can
00:21:54
continue adding soil as the plants grow all the way up until
00:21:59
the container is full and then to harvest in big planters just
00:22:03
dig under the plants and pull the whole mass up.
00:22:06
But if you grow in bags or in buckets, then you can just turn
00:22:11
the whole thing on its side and dump out the contents.
00:22:14
And if you're doing this in wire mesh cylinders, pull the
00:22:17
cylinders up away from the plants or disconnect them from
00:22:20
the side and just let the whole mess fall apart and pull your
00:22:23
tubers out. Easy peasy.
00:22:25
Your biggest concern with containers of any kind is
00:22:29
drainage. I would not recommend using old
00:22:32
wash tubs unless you've drilled holes in the bottom for
00:22:35
drainage. If you use something with a
00:22:37
solid bottom on it, then you're likely going to end up with
00:22:41
rotted potatoes if you get too much water, so have a plan to
00:22:44
mitigate that. Other than that, everything else
00:22:47
that you do with potatoes in containers is the same as what
00:22:51
you do in ground. So let's talk about like water
00:22:55
and nutrient requirements. Regardless of where you're
00:22:58
growing potatoes, they will do well with a little bit of
00:23:02
feeding every now and then. It, it takes a lot of energy and
00:23:05
nutrients to grow those tubers. And so if your soil is depleted
00:23:10
at all, the tubers will suffer. So side dressing about four
00:23:14
weeks after planting with a little bit of fertilizer or
00:23:17
amendment that is mainly nitrogen will give them a really
00:23:19
good boost. You can do this again about two
00:23:21
weeks later when you heal them up.
00:23:24
If you're planting in containers, a foliar spray may
00:23:28
be more convenient, or watering with something like a fish
00:23:31
emulsion or a seaweed extract. But if you've amended your soil
00:23:35
really well at the start, though, you may not have to do
00:23:39
anything. Always do a soil test at the
00:23:41
beginning of the season to know what you're working with.
00:23:44
I generally just make sure to use some really good compost and
00:23:48
add a balanced organic fertilizer when I prep the beds
00:23:52
and then that's it and our yields are just fine.
00:23:54
Now, as far as water requirements, potatoes do fine
00:23:58
with the garden standard of one inch of water per week, whether
00:24:02
that's rainwater or from you irrigating.
00:24:04
Of course, the heavier you mulch, the less you'll have to
00:24:08
water, especially if your area generally gets some really good
00:24:11
spring rains. Just know that if you have that
00:24:13
nice sandy soil the potatoes seem to like, you also likely
00:24:18
need to water more frequently because your soil doesn't hold
00:24:21
water as shallowly in the soil as like our clay soils do here.
00:24:26
So make sure if you have to water and this includes
00:24:30
containers, be sure you're doing it deeply and thoroughly.
00:24:34
So if you check the soil with a trowel and it's only wet a
00:24:37
couple of inches down, keep watering until that soil is
00:24:40
saturated. Just make sure it's getting it
00:24:43
about once a week in those dry periods.
00:24:45
Now let's talk about pests. There are two main potato pests,
00:24:49
and those are the Colorado potato beetle and to a lesser
00:24:53
extent, cut worms. Most everybody you'll hear
00:24:56
complain will be about the Colorado potato beetle.
00:24:59
Now, these beetles overwinter in the soil and they become active
00:25:04
in the spring, right about the same time that potato plants
00:25:07
begin to emerge from the ground. The larvae and the adults feed
00:25:11
on leaves, and they can completely defoliate your plant.
00:25:16
They can also attack other plants in the nightshade family,
00:25:19
including your eggplant, tomatoes, Peppers, and ground
00:25:22
cherries. Many pesticides are ineffective.
00:25:26
Your best bet is to make sure that you keep your garden free
00:25:29
of weeds that are in the same family, like the nightshades and
00:25:32
the ground cherries, so that they don't become a host for the
00:25:35
pest. And then you are regularly going
00:25:38
to have to check your plants for the orange egg masses that are
00:25:41
on the undersides of the leaf. Now if you have a small garden,
00:25:45
hand picking like this can absolutely be effective.
00:25:48
Just pick them off, drop the adults in the larvae into a pail
00:25:51
filled with soapy water, or if you find the egg masses, just
00:25:54
remove or crush the eggs. Of course, new adult beetles can
00:25:58
fly into the garden, so be sure that you check your plants
00:26:00
regularly. If they do become a problem, you
00:26:03
can cut down on the population by only growing potatoes every
00:26:08
other year, but this only really works if none of your neighbors
00:26:13
is growing potatoes within about a half a mile radius.
00:26:17
The good news is lady beetles eat potato beetle eggs, so
00:26:21
planting things that help attract ladybugs may help your
00:26:25
situation. And like I said, that other pest
00:26:27
is cut worms. They will chew off the potato
00:26:31
stem at the soil line as it sprouts.
00:26:33
They're not specific to potatoes, and there are a bunch
00:26:36
of different varieties of these worms depending on where you
00:26:39
live. If you have them, you likely
00:26:41
have already experienced them, maybe in another crop.
00:26:44
The best bet is to remove weeds which can serve as alternate
00:26:48
posts to the larvae and then rake up your garden surface
00:26:52
really good before you start to plant Maybe a week or two ahead
00:26:56
of time to expose any larvae that have lived through the
00:26:59
winter and this looks bosom and help to kill them off.
00:27:02
Now as far as diseases are concerned.
00:27:04
For potatoes, anything that affects tomatoes or Peppers or
00:27:09
eggplant like early blight or late blight or verticellium wilt
00:27:14
can affect your potatoes too. So proper crop rotation is very
00:27:19
important if you have experienced any of these
00:27:22
diseases in your area. Potato scab is another one to
00:27:26
watch for. This is a bacterial disease that
00:27:29
causes dark, rough, quirky spots on the skin of the potato
00:27:34
tubers, but it doesn't rot them. Now they may be ugly, but they
00:27:38
are completely edible, so this is not as bad as the other soil
00:27:42
borne diseases that can cause a complete crop failure.
00:27:45
And once disease spores are in the garden, it is often really
00:27:50
difficult to get rid of them. So This is why it's recommended
00:27:53
to always use certified seed potatoes.
00:27:57
You're not going to be bringing in any diseases with your seeds.
00:28:01
If they come from a certified grower, then you can't guarantee
00:28:04
that's the case when it comes to planting the potatoes that you
00:28:08
bought at the store that decided to sprout in your pantry.
00:28:11
Can you grow those? Yeah, for sure.
00:28:14
But you do run the risk of bringing a disease into your
00:28:18
garden soil. So know that risk before you do
00:28:21
it. Or only plant those.
00:28:23
Store potatoes in a container where you can change the soil
00:28:27
out if it ends up contaminated. And there's one more thing
00:28:30
that's not really a disease. It's considered a potato
00:28:33
disorder. It's called hollow heart and it
00:28:38
causes there to be an irregularly shaped hole in the
00:28:42
center of the potato tuber. It's caused by periods of lots
00:28:47
of water and then too little water.
00:28:49
Or it can be caused by not having enough nutrition in the
00:28:52
soil. Now, it does not affect the
00:28:55
taste or the safety of the potato, but if you've
00:28:57
experienced this in the past, be sure to water regularly and add
00:29:01
fertilizer or amendments according to your soil test to
00:29:04
prevent this from happening in future crops.
00:29:07
All right, so how do you know when your potatoes are ready to
00:29:11
harvest? Tubers will start to develop
00:29:15
right around the time the potatoes blossom.
00:29:17
But don't count on this as your only indication your plants may
00:29:22
not always give you blooms. This is going to be variety
00:29:25
dependent and weather dependent, although I hope they do blossom
00:29:28
for you because it really is so beautiful.
00:29:31
Truly, I think it was Marie Antoinette who used to wear
00:29:33
potato flowers in her hair. They really are very pretty, but
00:29:37
even if they don't bloom, you'll still get tubers.
00:29:40
Know the average maturity date of your plants when you when you
00:29:43
plant them and use that as a guide.
00:29:46
The good news is potatoes can be eaten anytime after the tubers
00:29:51
start to develop. If you want to check to see how
00:29:54
mature your potatoes are or you want to start picking them early
00:29:58
for new potatoes, just pull back some of the soil from your hill
00:30:02
or dig some soil out from around the plant in your container.
00:30:05
You can actually pull potatoes from the plants as you want them
00:30:10
and then leave the rest of them on the plant to continue to
00:30:13
develop. Just make sure you cover the
00:30:14
soil back up again. New potatoes.
00:30:17
I keep referring to new potatoes.
00:30:19
Those are tubers that are dug before their skins have
00:30:22
thickened and become tough. The tenderness of the skins
00:30:25
makes them just a little bit more special.
00:30:27
They're very tender and the texture is kind of silky.
00:30:30
Usually you're looking at about 7 to 8 weeks or so after
00:30:35
planting for new potatoes. So if we plant mid March,
00:30:40
usually by mid June we can start digging new potatoes.
00:30:43
In fact, we used to plant blue potatoes alongside our other
00:30:47
varieties so that we could harvest red, white and blue new
00:30:50
potatoes in time for 4th of July.
00:30:52
It's fine. You should try it if you're in
00:30:54
the US anyway. If you want to dig the whole
00:30:59
plant for new potatoes, just remember that the new tubers
00:31:03
will have formed above the seed piece that you planted.
00:31:08
So you should dig down at least a foot or so with a spade or a
00:31:11
shovel and sort of like wedge it up and turn the whole plant
00:31:15
upside down to pick the little tubers.
00:31:18
Now, if you want some new potatoes and some mature
00:31:21
potatoes, harvest some of the plants and leave the rest.
00:31:25
Or, like I said, dig out what you want and then just cover the
00:31:27
other tubers back up again. Whatever's most convenient for
00:31:30
you. Now for potatoes for storage.
00:31:33
You should harvest mature tubers after the plants have dried, or
00:31:38
when you see that those tubers have reached their full size and
00:31:41
you want to do this while the soil is dry, if possible.
00:31:45
The skins are usually thickened on those potatoes about two
00:31:49
weeks after the plants have died back, but if they're full size
00:31:52
and you want to clear the space in the garden, you can pull them
00:31:56
and put them in a warm, well ventilated area to allow the
00:32:00
skin to set. So for mature tubers it may be
00:32:04
easier to dig the hills using a spading fork, or you can use a
00:32:09
shovel or a trowel. Be careful not to Pierce or cut
00:32:13
the tubers with the fork tines or the edge of your shovel.
00:32:16
It's going to happen, trust me, But just try to dig under them
00:32:20
as best you can and lift them up out of the soil.
00:32:23
Of course, if you planted in containers, you can just
00:32:25
disassemble them or dump them and this makes the process a
00:32:28
heck of a lot easier and you actually have less chance of
00:32:30
damage. Now if you do cut into potatoes
00:32:33
as you harvest them, just sort those out.
00:32:36
Don't store those. Eat those first because they
00:32:38
won't hold. Speaking of storage, you're
00:32:40
going to want to choose varieties that work best for
00:32:43
storage. I used to pick one variety that
00:32:45
was just for new potatoes and one variety for storage.
00:32:49
No matter how you do it, this information should be in the
00:32:52
notes of the varieties you're looking at.
00:32:54
Some work better than others, and it's usually based on starch
00:32:57
content, so look for those ones that specifically stay good for
00:33:00
storage. Potato skins for storage should
00:33:05
be difficult to rub off with your thumb, so if you're rubbing
00:33:08
your thumb across the potato and the skin peels back, it needs to
00:33:12
be cured again. Place the potatoes in a warm,
00:33:15
well ventilated area to allow the skin to set.
00:33:19
Keep them undercover or in the dark and give them about 10 days
00:33:22
or so and they should be completely cured.
00:33:25
Check them over. Once they're cured, take any out
00:33:27
that are soft or shriveled or bruised.
00:33:29
Eat those first. Gently brush off any dried soil
00:33:33
that's on the tubers, but do not wash them.
00:33:35
You do not want them wet before you store them.
00:33:38
As a rule, potatoes are best stored in dark, cold, moist
00:33:44
conditions. We're talking 32 to 40°F and
00:33:47
about a 95% relative humidity. This is actually the conditions
00:33:52
of our refrigerators, so if you're not storing a huge amount
00:33:56
of them, you may be able just to store them in the fridge.
00:33:59
But you know, a basement or someplace like that is perfectly
00:34:02
fine too. Now, something that I didn't
00:34:04
know is that potatoes that are destined for frying should
00:34:09
actually be stored warmer than that.
00:34:11
You know how things like carrots or spinach taste better after
00:34:16
they've had a frost or they've been outside during the winter
00:34:18
time? And that's because the cold will
00:34:21
actually induce sweetness in those plants because it's
00:34:26
concentrating all the sugars. Well, potatoes that you're going
00:34:30
to use specifically for frying, like making French fries out of,
00:34:34
should actually be stored at 40 to 50 Fahrenheit instead because
00:34:38
you want to avoid that cold induced sweetening because it
00:34:42
can result in discoloration during frying.
00:34:45
I didn't realize that. So 32 to 40 Fahrenheit for most
00:34:50
of your potatoes, but if you want them specifically for
00:34:53
frying, then you can keep them in a warmer area.
00:34:56
Now, green skin, remember, occurs when the potato tubers
00:34:58
experience exposure to light. So remove any green areas before
00:35:02
you cook the potatoes. Don't consume potatoes with
00:35:05
extensive green areas under the skin.
00:35:08
You also want to remove any sprouts from the potatoes prior
00:35:10
to using them for food. And the longer potatoes are in
00:35:13
storage, the more likely they will begin to sprout.
00:35:17
And so long as you didn't have any soil borne diseases the
00:35:20
previous year, go ahead and plant those in the spring.
00:35:24
And yes, if you knock those sprouts off, they will still
00:35:26
sprout again once you plant them.
00:35:32
I hope this episode gave you all the information you need to get
00:35:35
started on your potato growing journey or to improve the one
00:35:38
that you're already on. If you have any questions along
00:35:41
the way, be sure to reach out. I will be happy to answer any
00:35:44
questions I possibly can. Until next time, my gardening
00:35:47
friends. Keep on cultivating that dream
00:35:49
garden and we'll talk again soon.
00:35:51
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00:35:53
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00:36:12
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