Planting the Season's Potatoes
The beds in my vegetable garden are filling up quickly. We already planted a variety of crops including onions, leeks, a selection of brassicas, as well as seeds for fava beans, soy beans, beets, cilantro, and more.
A few weeks ago, we also planted our potatoes. Potatoes are grown from “seed potatoes”, which are certified disease-free and specially grown in nurseries for planting purposes. This season’s “seed potatoes” came from Irish Eyes Garden Seeds, a small family-owned business located in Ellensburg, Washington.
Here are some photos - enjoy.
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- Every year, we plant a large variety of potatoes in my vegetable garden. I’ve been getting ours from Irish Eyes Garden Seeds for years. The company is one of only 10-certified organic seed potato growers nationwide. Here is one of the potato “seeds.” Each tuber or potato has several buds. These are the small sprouts we call potato “eyes.” It’s from these buds that new potato plants can grow.
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- I like to plant different varieties – some of our favorites from years past as well as those I haven’t yet tried. Among this season’s selections – ‘Albertine’, a new variety exclusive to Irish Eyes. Albertine potatoes have yellow, smooth skin, shallow eyes and yellow flesh. It is disease resistant and a good variety for first time potato growers.
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- ‘Kennebec’ potatoes are short oval potatoes with smooth, pale yellow skin, shallow eyes and white flesh. They’re great for fries, hash browns, and many other uses even without peeling.
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- The ‘Yukon Gold’ potato is a round tuber with smooth, thin yellow skin with pink coloring around shallow eyes and yellow flesh. It provides excellent flavor when baked, boiled or made into salads or fries. This best selling early variety is a moderate keeper, and is drought-tolerant.
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- The potatoes need some preparation before planting. Some of the bigger varieties – bigger than the average sized chicken egg – are cut into pieces. Each piece should have at least two eyes.
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- Next, Ryan takes each cut side of a potato and coats it with Douglas fir bark dust.
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- This dust helps to heal the sliced area, so it doesn’t shrink or curl. The slightly acidic bark is also a natural fungicide and moisture buildup barrier.
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- Ryan carefully dips each piece into the dust until it is completely coated. Potatoes contain 18-percent starch, two-percent protein, and small amounts of vitamin-B6, iron, niacin, magnesium, thiamin, folic acid, and potassium. They are also a good source of vitamin-C, low in sodium and easy to digest.
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- Here is is easy to see the coated potato halves.
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- Ryan does the same for all the potatoes, keeping them separated in trays by variety. ‘Dark Red Norland’ potatoes are loved for their richer red skin color. These are round to oblong tubers with white flesh. They store well, and are excellent for roasting and boiling.
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- Here’s another new variety exclusive to Irish Eyes – ‘Sunrise Gold.’ These have yellow skin and moist yellow flesh. Each ‘Sunrise Gold’ potato is large, round to oval in shape with very shallow eyes. ‘Sunrise Gold’ is a great breakfast potato.
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- Ryan lines up all the trays of potatoes so they’re ready to take down to the vegetable garden for planting. The potato is a starchy, tuberous crop from the perennial nightshade Solanum tuberosum.
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- Potatoes perform best in soil with pH levels 4.8 to 5.5. Potatoes are easy to grow as long as they have access to full sun and moderate temperatures.
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- Potato plants are perennials that grow low to the ground like vines. Brian places each of the potato pieces about six to eight inches apart. The bed has already been prepared with twine, so the potatoes are planted in straight, tidy lines.
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- Three rows of twine run the entire length of each bed about 10 to 12 inches apart. Potatoes can be planted in cooler soils at least 40-degrees Fahrenheit. They do best as rotation crops and should be placed away from where potatoes, tomatoes or peppers were grown in the last two years.
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- Next, Phurba follows behind planting each potato. He starts by digging a hole about four to six inches deep using a garden trowel.
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- The seed potato pieces are placed in the ground with eyes faced up and cut sides down. When selecting seed potatoes, avoid planting those from supermarkets in case they were treated by sprout inhibitors. And look out for any green areas. The green parts of a potato’s skin, as well as the leaves of the potato plant, contain a toxic compound. Although poisoning from potatoes is rare, it’s always best to cut out these green areas when peeling potatoes before cooking.
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- Once the potato is in the hole, Phurba backfills with the same nutrient-rich soil, fully covering the potato. Today, potatoes are the world’s fourth-largest food crop, behind rice, wheat, and corn.
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- As each row is planted, Ryan places a marker, so every variety can be identified. These large white markers come from Johnny’s Selected Seeds. They’re birchwood veneer stakes made in Maine, and are treated with an environmentally-friendly, water-based preservative so they last longer through the season.
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- Phurba is careful to cover the seed potatoes without disturbing how they are positioned. In the United States, Idaho and Washington produce the most potatoes each year. Other states with major potato crops include North Dakota, Wisconsin, Colorado, Oregon, and Maine.
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- Once the potatoes are planted, Brian removes the twine from the bed. Long lines of twine can be saved for later use.
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- Potatoes need at least one-inch of water per week. Potatoes require less water to grow compared to other staple foods such as wheat, rice, and corn. I cannot wait until harvest time – a first modest harvest of potatoes should be ready about 65 to 70 days after planting.
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