2020 - A great year for potato

I have been growing potatoes for 3 years now and 2020 was just off the charts with production. These boxes of potato were 1/4th of what we harvested this year: Kennebec, French fingerling and Lindtzer.

Delicious, home-bred potatoes!

 

As usual I sourced a lot of different breeds of potatoes from Eagle Creek Farm. They have a ridiculously wide selection and you are just spoiled for choice. As I am learning, I keep ordering different types, but I can confidently say I have a few favorites. 

The packages with the precious load in them!

Kennebec stores well and tastes great. It also yields me huge tubers. Kennebec and Norland give me the best yield, one seed potato being able to produce sometimes 10 tubers on its own. But Norland does not store well, so it is a delight to eat and in 3 months it is trying to sprout everywhere in your kitchen and pantry! Better eat it fresh.

In second place comes the fingerlings. Fingerling potatoes are usually waxy, a great type for salads, soups and stews. They also have their own very particular taste and do not store for long either. So those are the ones that you could probably pressure-can if you intend to have them throughout the winter. Some people manage to get very big tubers; I never had that for fingerlings. They are usually on the small side, but that makes it great for they have thin skin and with small potatoes you would not need to peel them off. I have been in love with Lindzer and French Fingerling. Still waiting on the novelty of this year: Pink Fir. It is supposed to be very special in taste and the coloration of an off-pink is quite interesting. It is a late season potato, so it will be coming off the ground a little before Halloween.

Kennebecs from the raised bed. That was the largest I found.

 

Potatoes can yield more and become bigger the long you leave them in the ground. But as soon as the tops die, the only thing that can happen is the skin to toughen. Early season potatoes do not toughen up very much once the tops die off, so you have to keep on top of your harvest!

Another thing I learned is that potato is one of those crops that depend as much on the amount of sunlight and protection from the extreme heat as it does on humidity levels and the critters in your soil. For the critters I must say I have been successful with potatoes in grow bags. It was the first way I planted and I remained loyal. However, you need to pay attention to the watering levels, otherwise the skin will be scabby. Those are superficial blemishes, but I found they interfere with keeping abilities.

Still on the subject of growing bags and pots, You can drag them to the shade, which is something potatoes love in the summer. It also allows for me to start rather early. April 12th and my first 3 bags of Norland were out. I was able to eat my first potatoes by June!

Another thing I learned is that you can plant potatoes from seed! Last year summer was so cold my potatoes not only flowered: they fruited! This year I planted Clancy, a true potato from seed that is supposed to have minimal variation. The skin is salmon-rosy and the tubers are irregular in shape and small in size. But it is a fun discovery. I will plant it next year again and test the longevity of these seeds. It was a slow plant, though, I took care of it from April and it flowered and matured around August and keeps flowering now. So, tons of tubers in the making!! I did not plan on harvesting them yet, but squirrels dug up some for me.

 

Clayton potatoes that squirrels unearthed

This year squirrel damage was better understood. They are very active in spring, to dig up their nuts and in fall, to bury them. So those are the moments I really need to protect the garden beds and pots. A lot of holes and damage started before I could take notice. A lot of potatoes can end up unearthed too early or exposed to the sun and become green, which would make them inedible.

Several batches of Norland and French fingerling

 

Other potatoes I am trying with mixed success is German butterball, Russet, Yukon gold, Carlton. The last two did not generate a good yield in these years and I might just give up on them. Russet I have to keep trying because that thing stores so well on its own! And German butterball is of a deep yellow, creamy, delicious flesh. I think I will keep planting it even if I get only two pearl-sized potatoes! The taste is too good not to keep trying.

 On top of it all, potatoes are so much fun to plant! You start with a little potato, not a tiny seed that you might lose on the way to the garden. Potatoes are pest-free for the most part. You bury them, water them, and collect them in the end of the season (or when the tops die, for early season potatoes). They are beautiful plants. The flowers are lovely purple and white. Plus, chitting them is kinda cool!

 

 

 

 

 

Potatoes chitting from late March to early April

 

Chitting potatoes is also low effort and low technology. I reuse egg cartons just so that the potatoes do not roll from the table to the ground. We basically have no dinner table in early spring!

The nursery of potatoes in early spring!

In November the ordering window opens again. And a new cycle starts! I better select my new potatoes soon. I have so many I want to try! In the meantime, I will be eating potatoes for the whole winter, a lovely, lovely pay off for this gardening season!