Potato Patch

[karstopography]

@bower we had mashed purple majesty potatoes last night. Purple majesty might be in the must grow category for us, they are really good eating, they have a pleasing earthiness, this rich taste to them and a great texture. I probably won’t grow Norland again as I think Pontiac tastes better, but dark red Norland isn’t really a bad potato, but maybe not in the top tier for flavor for the red skin ones, just my opinion.

German Butterball is one that I want to try some day. Most well known online potato seed vendors don’t start to ship seed potatoes for spring until it’s far too late to plant here. Sort of a back burner issue.

[AKgardener]

There are so many varieties out these days I’m only doing 10 Yukon golds since my daughter has her first garden this year

[GoDawgs]

One of the potato plants in the middle of the row was dying back so Pickles decided to dig around under it and see if there were potatoes.

25.05.24 Middle Yukon plant dug, 2.5 lbs.JPG

Yep! There were eight, about 2.5 lbs! She said there might be more but she didn't want to disturb the other plants on either side of the dying one. We'll wait until the rest of the plants start showing their age before we dig them.

25.05.23 First Yukons from dying plant.JPG

The row is 12 hills of Yukon Golds. We've been planting one of those and one of Red (Norland or Pontiac) every year but can't properly store them down here. The excess end up getting canned and that works really well. They're not mushy at all. However we have enough left over from last year's canning that no more are needed this year. So only one row was planted.

[bower]

I have Yukon Gold to plant at Mom's, and my Norland's are the last that hasn't been planted yet here.
Today my friend got some stuff out of the cellar including her fingerling seed potatoes, and I swapped a few leftover German Butterball for blue fingerling.
Mom likes blue potatoes and asked about them, so for sure, she will now get some blues. I didn't see a single blue potato in all my trolling of available seed at the hardware stores.

[Gardadore]

The blue interest me. Quite by accident I picked up some Adirondack Blue potatoes mislabeled at our local feed store so I didn’t catch that they were blue. They were starting to sprout so I cut some in half and saw they were blue! Planted carefully only to find the other day that some critter had pushed the straw aside and dug a large hole in the center of the straw. No potatoes left but a shriveled one I found today under leaves of a nearby lupine. Most mysterious.
Another patch of blue ones nearby is intact but none have come up. Maybe all our rain rotted them. The yellow ones in a different section are coming up fine.

[GoDawgs]

I saw yesterday that the remaining plants are starting to die back so potato digging will probably happen this coming week.

[Danny]

Beyond late getting in, but planted out 6 tubs of russian fingerlings today, shaded area. Mix of top soil ( clay) with some miracle grow potting soil and some black cow, plus leaves and teeny sticks. Sprouting had started, so had spent a few days on the porch to color up a tad and get used to here. If they do well, good, if not, that's the roulette wheel.

[Danny]

Rained nicely last night, so the taters got a good drink. The soil had some moisture to start with, so with all the sprouting, hoping for them to fly right and take off good.

[GoDawgs]

The rest of the potato plants had declined so it was time to dig the rest of that 12' row.

25.05.31 Yukons ready to dig, w'melon to right.JPG

We ended up with 28 lbs (12.7 kg) including the ones from that hill dug a week ago. The 12 sets we planted cost $1.27 so the potatoes cost 4.5cents/lb. Cheap eats!

25.05.31 28 lbs of Yukon Gold potatoes.JPG

25.06.02 Yukon Golds.JPG

These were planted March 4 and dug 71 days from planting. That fits right into the 60-80 days to maturity I found for Yukons.

[bower]

Just planted a 4th and last bed of potatoes yesterday - early ones went in last including Yukon Gold and Norland, and a miscellany of other leftover seeds. Would love to see those YG and N in 71 days, that would be mid August I guess.
Meanwhile the latest potatoes, which I planted first, are up and just got first barrows of fresh compost on top. These beds were a reconfiguration and enlargement of an existing long bed into two. So they weren't fully filled before planting. Piles of stuff to fill them up now as the spuds grow.

gotspuds-111.JPG

[Danny]

The little fingerlings are sprouting up with true leaves, more to come in yet. Even though wrong timing here, it's when I got them, so they just have to grow or not.

[Danny]

The potatoes are popping up, so that is good to see. Haven't grown irish potatoes in years, so this is a treat. The leaves are a very rugose and dark green, appear strong and determined to grow.

Great on the return on Investment there, godawgs!! Those look great. Makes you feel good to eat out of your own garden truck.

Bower, your babies look good too. Coming right along, hope you get plenty of potatoes for both you and your mom.