Potato
stats/requirements at a glance
Ease of
Raising:
|
5/5 - Very
easy, plant & leave
|
Water:
|
3/5 – Moderate, every second day
|
Sun:
|
3/5 - Full sun, can grow in shade
|
Training:
|
2/5 – Needs some (spindly branches)
|
Fertilise/Feeding:
|
3/5 – Moderate (monthly)
|
Time to Harvest:
|
3/5 – Moderate (small potatoes at 2 months
and larger 3-4 months)
|
Frost
Hardiness:
|
3/4 – Mildly Hardy
(can’t take severe frost)
|
|
|
Uses
|
Culinary
|
Most
Problematic Nemesis:
|
Dust Beetles
|
Container
Plant:
|
Yes – especially in small gardens
|
 |
Potato
Solanum tubersonum |
Quick
intro
If I could eat potato fries every day
without consequences around my hips I would. Store bought potatoes are no match
for ones fresh from the garden. Again, there are many varieties to choose from,
traditional white potatoes, red, yellow and even blue! The red and yellow
potatoes have superior flavour to the traditional white ones and should be more
resistant to pest and disease as there are more closely related to wild potato
species. There is no end to what can be done to a potato- from baked, steamed,
fried, roasted, boiled, mashed and smashed.
 |
French fries
Rainer Zenz, Wikipedia |
History
Potatoes have and remain an important food
crop worldwide. It comes fourth in food production after wheat, maize and rice.
Remains of wild potatoes from 11 000 BC were found in southern Chile.
Sixteenth-century accounts describe the use of potato tubers by Indians in the
Andes of South America and were brought to Europe, likely by the Spanish
conquerors, but the details are unclear. And then there was the infamous Irish
potato famine during 1845-1846 as potatoes was a main stable for the Irish
during this time and their potato crop was destroyed by a fungus (Phytophthora infestans – an Oomycete
fungus, I did my Honours seminar on oomycetes J). The crop the Irish had was susceptible due to it being an inbred
cultivar. The famine led to mass emigration of the Irish population to England
and America.
 |
Potatoes
Agriculural research service USA, Wikipedia |
Science
Stuff
The humble potato belongs to a plant family
already widely covered in my blog, the Solanaceae Family, which includes
tomatoes, peppers, eggplants and the deadly nightshade… Its scientific name is Solanum tuberosum.
Again, this plant, like the most of the
Solanaceae family has toxic solanines (aka glycoalkaloids) in the green parts
of the plant. So do not eat green tubers! If your potato has a green spot, you
can cut it out before eating – tried it myself, the toxin seems to be restricted
to the green spot – just make sure you get every green bit J.
Growing
Potatoes
The big thing about potatoes is getting it
to form lots of tubers. All the books recommend ‘earthing up’ the soil around
the base of the potato. Earthing up encourages new tubers along the length of
the underground stem and also protects the tubers from sunlight. Sunlight makes
tubers go green and then they are poisonous! There are various ways to
accomplish earthing up.
1
potato spud) You can dig about 30cm down into the
soil in the garden, plant the potato their and leave it 5cm of soil in the
hole. As it grows up you can earth up the 30cm of soil until you get to level
ground and then earth up another 30-60cm of soil thereafter.
 |
Earthing up
Ranvieg, Wikipedia |
2
potato spud) You can use a barrel (planting the
tuber in 30cm of soil at the bottom) and earth up until you reach the top of
the barrel. There are specially designed potato barrels that you can purchase
or you can use a regular black plastic barrel.
3
potato spud) You can use a potato grow-bag which
has special pockets cut into the sides for easy access to potato tubers … you can
get them from Amazon.com!
4
potato spud) You can use tiers and stack them up to
4 high – apparently you can get worn out tiers from garages and motor service
centres.
5
potato spud) I use upside-down plastic pots with
the bottom cut out. As the first option takes up a lot of space, so I compact
the soil into a smaller space (still enough for potato tubers). I cannot buy or
import potato barrels or bags, as they are either too expensive or they cannot
be imported. I cannot get tiers from local service centres, so I am stuck with
doing the best I can, which is the good’ol plastic planter with its bottom out.
.JPG) |
Potato plants
Solanum tuberosum |
The plastic barrels I tried had relative
success with; I think that is due to the fact that you cannot get much
nutrients (or earthworms) in the barrel with the potatoes. So I moved to the
garden and use upside-down plastic pots – this works fairly well, depending I
think mostly on the potato plant itself… and some bugs… I can get anything from
0.4-1kg of potatoes from a plant. I read that you should get up to 2kg worth of
potatoes from a plant, so I be trying for that this season.
Potatoes are grown from ‘seed potatoes’,
which are small potatoes that are left to grow eyes (sprouts). We usually leave
really small potatoes (not worth the effort of cooking and eating, usually the
size of cherry tomatoes) in a warm windowsill. The seed potatoes are left in a
bowl with plastic wrapped around in the sunny windowsill until they have
sprouts that are 2-5cm (some of them will go green due to sun exposure). You can cut out the sprouts, with a little bit of
potato flesh as a nutrient reserve, and plant that in the ground. So this way
you can get multiple potato plant from one seed potato – just remember that you
are effectively creating a crop based on clones (all plants from the same
parent) as no sexual reproduction occurred, since tuber are produced
vegetatively and you may get problems with resistance later on – but this will
probably be >10 generations later, so as long as you replace the potatoes
with some new ones every five years or so, you should be ok J
.JPG) |
Chitted potato with eye sprouts
Solanum tuberosum |
Otherwise you can use potato seeds! I was
astounded to find that my potato plants produced fruits! Potato fruits! I first
thought a gall mite or something got into my plants, but I checked on the
internet and in my new oxford book of food plants and found that potatoes do
produce fruits. Which I suppose makes sense, since technically all flowering
plants will produce a fruit of some sort, it is just that I never heard of or
saw a potato fruit before J. The
fruits are green and are therefore poisonous – so do not eat them! If you have
multiple potato plants, they will pollinate each other without much
intervention from your side. The fruits are very similar to tomatoes and are
jam-packed with seeds. Under the seed collection and storage section I will go
into more detail on the seeds themselves.
.JPG) |
Potato fruit
Solanum tuberosum |
Other
potato tips
Them nasty maize beetle larvae! And the
adults are cannibals, I was appalled to witness!
3.JPG) |
Black Maize Beetle,
Heteronychus arator |
Ok, so the maize beetles belong to the same
family as chafers and dung beetles – Scarabaeidae. The photos I post of their
larvae are similar to dung beetles, so make sure you don’t wipe out the dung
beetle larvae as they are your friends J. It is safe to say that if you find larvae like this with your
potatoes that they are maize beetles.
 |
Curl grub
Toby Hudson, Wikipedia |
There isn’t much you can do about them. When
I dig up my potatoes I find lots of larvae and adults and holes in my potato
tubes L – usually chuck them nasties in the
same pot – this was where I saw the adults eating the larvae- the horror! So I
thought it deserving that they all go to the chickens – the chickens thought of
me as a super chicken friend afterwards (the grubs get really big and juicy in
chicken terms). Besides the chickens also require protein in their diet and at
least I get some use out of the nasty things.
 |
| Black Maize Beetle (Heteronychus arator) vs. Dung Beetle (Scarabaeus spp.) |
The maize beetles are cosmopolitans and are
found in Africa, Australia and South America, so I suppose the rest of you
potato growers will have problems with weevils, which I don’t – so not much
help on that front unfortunately. I know that weevils don’t like dried bay
leaves’ scent, so maybe try that?
Harvesting
and Storing
Potatoes are lifted from the soil with a
garden fork to prevent damage about a month after the flowers have died (3-4
months after planting), you’ll probably have potatoes before carrots if planted
the same time.
 |
Potato flowers, purple and white
Solanum tuberosum |
The potatoes can be left in the soil for
winter storage. Otherwise dig them up, scrub them good with some dishwashing liquid
– with a soft brush to get all the soil out – check the potatoes over while you
clean them for any fungal growth or black spots which might indicate disease
and discard these. A good potato is one with nice smooth skin, some will have a
scaly skin and are still edible J. Washing
with dishwashing liquid is basically a safe anti-disease (anti-bacterial and
anti-fungal) treatment and a good rinse will remove the soap. Place the tubers
in the direct sun for a few hours 2-4h, turning them regularly (once every half
hour). This makes the skin dry out and harden slightly, readying the potato for
storage in a brown paper bag or egg carton in cool dark place. Potatoes stored this way can
keep for 3 months and check regularly for any disease. Otherwise boiled
potatoes can be frozen and will keep for 6 months in the freezer.
.JPG) |
Potato storage
Solanum tuberosum |
Seed
Collection & Storage
The potato fruit must be left to ferment
(aka become rotten) on the plant – this usually means digging up the potatoes
and leaving the plant to become a dry husk. The seeds are removed and cleaned.
Pour enough water into the container to sort the seeds, bad ones float and good
ones sink. You can allow the seeds to ferment (place in little water and allow
to stand for about a week) this increases germination rate and helps with seed
disease prevention. Then leave the seeds to dry for about 2 weeks on a sunny
windowsill. The seeds are stored in glass bottles and properly labled.
I have not tried growing potato plants from
seed yet, and it is apparently a bit challenging. The seeds is dormant immediately
after collection and for immediate planting will require gibberellic acid
treatment (this is a plant hormone involved in germination) – but no luck of
this in my stores. Also, the plants grown from seed often do not carry a good
crop.
Seeds are planted in soil of 18-27oC
(65-80oF) and the germination percentage is variable. Even though, I
am going to give the seeds I saved a try J
My
Potatoes
Oh, dear! I do not actually have a ‘cultivar’.
We couldn’t find anyone to supply seed potatoes to us (not unless you want 10kg
worth!). So we left the shop-bought ones to chit (sprout eyes) and planted them
in the garden, probably another reason why I don’t get 2kg of potatoes back
from my plants. In the mean time we found another guy that sells seeds potatoes
in 1kg bags – so I think I can cope with that J.
-Update 09 Feb 2013-
After some experimentation I have new information to share:
1) Potato seeds do not germinate, so rather use the tuber propagation method to get more potato plants
2) Potato tubers can be stimulated to produce shoots by adding a bit of water (1-2cm) in the bowl in the window sill (this even gets them going out of season!)
3) We some how got a red potato harvest as I do not remember planting any red tubers in the first place, but the plant seems to be better adapted to our hot climate and produces a decent crop. Also, the curl grubs do not like them - might be due to the pigment not being palatable (anthocyanin). The actual red potato plant has purple leaf veins and red striped on the stems.
 |
Red Potatoes
Solanum tuberosum |
-Update 30 Dec 2013-
If you are having problems with glassy potatoes check out the wonderful replies from the MyFolia community on the
question I posted @ MyFolia
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