As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I like to keep several rotating tubs of potatoes growing through most of the year. I rotate the planting so I’m able to harvest a new batch as I run out of the old, especially during the spring & summer. I have learned to plant potatoes in containers rather than in my vegetable beds. Trial & error has taught me that its difficult to screen out every little seed potato when harvesting. So, if the plants aren’t grown in a contained environment, and one tuber is left behind, a new plant will emerge –usually somewhere you don’t want it.

Someone who lived in our home before us grew red potatoes in the garden. Perhaps they had planted them not knowing they would spread and take over. Perhaps they didn’t know that growing vegetables near a home foundation might not be a great idea. They may not have realized that the soil at the base of a ~90+ year old house might be contaminated. And they may have not realized that the potatoes would grow into foundation nooks and become impossible to remove. Whatever the case may be, I continue to be weeding red potatoes out of my garden beds. (I sort of consider them my last ditch food source if we find ourselves starving someday. This helps keep my frustration of their consistent recurrance at bay.)

Yesterday I was in need of some new potatoes, and it was time to harvest a batch of red ones –not the weedy ones. I had planted the seed potatoes into a nursery tree container in early June. The nursery tree containers are great for potatoes! They are black, so they absorb heat for the roots. Plants love this. Warm roots are a huge growth promoter. These containers also hold about 1 good size bag of potting soil. The amount of potatoes I get varies with time of year, strength of the plants, and more. This batch of reds was fairly weak and the plants (not roots/potatoes/food) had died back before flowering. I was concerned they hadn’t produced much. (On Monday I had spoken with Dr. Ribeiro about the die back, and he advised it was happening this year and to just harvest them.) So, I dug in with bare hands. My efforts were rewarded with about 3 pounds of tender, creamy, thin-skinned reds of varying sizes ranging from a tiny pebble to a child’s fist.

As I was digging up the reds, I noticed that the neighboring batch of yellow finns I planted a couple of weeks ago were starting to send up leaves. So, in a few weeks we’ll have those to harvest. Today, I will probably plant another batch in hopes it will come in before the weather turns in fall. I haven’t had luck producing potatoes into the winter months, but I’m going to try putting my containers under a hoop house (a sort of a greenhouse) this fall & winter to see what I can do. I’m in a fairly warm microclimate in Seattle, but we do have freezes and short days to contend with.

With dinner we enjoyed red potatoes roasted on the grill in olive oil with some salt & pepper along with roasted cauliflower, steak, tomato/basil/garlic/mozzarella on french bread, pea salad and beet salad. Yum!We have some leftover roasted potatoes, I’m thinking I may make a nice egg ‘n tater farm breakfast this morning before I start pulling weeds and start my vegie bed rotations. Lettuce & broccoli is going to seed in one bed, and its time to find something else wonderful to foster in the precious vegetable bed space. Any suggestions?!

If you plan to plant your own potatoes, be sure to start with healthy organic tubers. Potatoes are the storage system of plants, so going organic is pretty key with these foods. As well, if you start with organic tubers, you’ll have better luck with sprouting. Have you ever bought organic potatoes and noticed how quickly they produce sprouts and how slowly their non-organic counterparts do? Make sure the potatoes don’t have “bad spots” or are soft & soggy. If the “eyes” are sprouting, all the better. They’ve got a head start. Plant them in a good size container so they have room to produce a lot of new storage roots (read: potatoes for you to eat). Water them regularly, but don’t let the soil stay soggy. Its easy to cause your potatoes to rot out. They need air space as well as water in the soil around them.

If your body gets sore bending over planting, weeding or harvesting, do some gentle backbends to reverse the forward bend effect. If your toes or legs get tired from squating, be sure to stretch them out. In gardening, you benefit from being outside, touching the earth, involving yourself in your food production, and you get exercise!

Now get out & garden! (I think I’m saying this more to myself than to you, reader.)