Potatoes

Probably my favorite crop in the garden is tomatoes followed by cucumbers. These two I simply love to eat! But of all the crops in the garden the one that has impacted the world and impacts us is potatoes. I can take a potato smaller than a golf ball and plant it whole, and it will produce from 3 to 5 pounds of potatoes of various sizes. Not bad for a small potato.

One way we like to eat potatoes is when dug early or as new potatoes with them being from ping ball size on up to goose egg size. These we just boil with the skins on and eat them with a little butter. As the potatoes grow and get baseball size, Marge cuts them in two and boils until tender. We just add butter and enjoy. We keep eating these new potatoes until the hides get thicker and tough. Then Marge either peels the skins off or bakes them. Some she turns into mashed potatoes. Of all the crops grown in home gardens, I would tend to say potatoes have kept more families from going hungry than any other crop.

Dad always had a bunch of larger potatoes left over from the previous summer before when he went to plant the next spring. This was mainly due to the cellar that they were stored in. The cellar had a dirt floor which was probably 5 or 6 feet below ground level and was slightly mounded up to give the necessary headroom to walk in the cellar. It was always cool in the cellar all summer long and never froze in the winter. So Dad's potatoes were larger.

Dad would cut his potatoes up so that there were at least two eyes on every piece. The eyes are small indentations on the potato where new growth comes from. You don't want to cut them any smaller than golf ball size with at least two eyes. I like to plant small potatoes the size of golf balls or so. We seem to have better luck. Last year we had enough potatoes from the year before to plant all the potatoes we wanted. We should have enough this year from last year's garden. Store-bought regular eating potatoes probably won't work as well as seed potatoes. The regular eating potatoes may have been treated to keep them from beginning to sprout. Most garden centers have seed potatoes.

We plant our potatoes with the eyes up about 3 to 4 inches deep and about 18 to 20 inches apart. The potatoes should come up in about two weeks or so. When the potato gets about 6 or 7 inches tall, pull dirt up on the plant until there is only about 2 inches above ground. Repeat when the new growth is again 6 or 7 inches tall. You may need to irrigate them if it gets unusually dry. Most of the time we get enough rain.

Later in the summer you will notice blooms on your potato plant. After the plants have fully bloomed out wait a couple weeks and dig one hill or simply take a garden trowel and dig down beside a potato plant. You should be able to find some new potatoes. We usually plant enough we simply dig a hill or two. You may only have a handful of plants so dig down beside the plant.

We grow Yukon Gold. We like the golden color and they seem to be fairly free from disease. They store pretty good as well. We try to plant a few red potatoes. They have a little different taste. The red small new potatoes are super fried in a cast iron skillet in butter.

I started writing for the Jimplicute in 1986 when we first moved to Scott City and have pretty much written for the Southeast Missourian since then. I've enjoyed the years of writing and hopefully helped everyone learn a little about gardening. It's time to move on, so this will be my last column. Thanks for reading down through the years.