It’s time to plant potatoes, and we have a tempting variety of seed potatoes available in our Garden Shop.
Why plant potatoes when they’re readily available at any grocery store?
Taste is why! Your freshly-dug homegrown potatoes will be so tender, so earthy, and so satisfying – no store-bought potato can remotely compare to the supreme freshness of potatoes harvested from your garden. Saying that again – homegrown potatoes are just plain delicious and you’ll never experience that tastiness from a grocery store potato.
If you have kids/grandkids, harvesting potatoes is so much fun. Kids love the delight of digging up potatoes from the earth and then eating them for supper. It is magical seeing children make the connection that food is something we grow – not just another grocery store product.
Did you know? Potatoes originate from Peru/Bolivia and may have been cultivated as long as 10,000 years ago in South America. They were introduced to Europe and the British Isles by the late 1500’s, and are now eaten on every continent.
“The International Potato Center in Peru has preserved almost 5,000 varieties. The range of potatoes in a single Andean field, Zimmerer observed, “exceeds the diversity of nine-tenths of the potato crop of the entire United States.” – Smithsonian Magazine, November 2011
Planting Potatoes:
- In WNC, plant potatoes on St. Patrick’s Day (March 17) or later in full sun.
- Cut seed potatoes into golf-ball sized pieces with at least 1-2 good eyes. If possible, let scab over for a few days before planting.
- Regular potatoes – plant 4” deep/12” apart/with rows 3’ apart
- Fingerling potatoes – plant 4”deep/18” apart/with rows 3’ apart
- “Hill up” your potatoes when they are 6-8” tall, pulling 4” of soil up around both sides of the plant with a hoe – to increase production and prevent greening. Hill up 3-4 times until you reach about 12”.
- Harvest “new potatoes” 7-8 weeks after planting. Start your main harvest about 2 weeks after the plant’s foliage has died back.
Potatoes are found on our plates for breakfast, lunch, and dinner – whether it’s hash browns, potato salad, French fries, mashed potatoes, roasted potatoes, or simply boiled with a little butter. No matter how they are cooked, people not only love them, they crave them. Mashed potatoes are the classic comfort food!
Seed Potatoes in Stock:
- Kennebec: Brown skin, white flesh – a mountain favorite and good keeper.
- Yukon Gold: Brown skin, yellow flesh – butterfly flavor, staff favorite.
- Huckleberry Gold: Purple skin. yellow flesh, low-glycemic potato.
- Russet Burbank: Brown skin, white flesh.
- Dark Red Norland: Red skin, white flesh, more rust resistant than Red Pontiac.
- German Butterball: Brown skin, buttery yellow flesh.
- Cal White: Buff skin, white flesh.
- Banana Fingerling: Brown skin, buttery pale yellow flesh, resistant to scab.
For more information about Growing Potatoes, see Reems Creek Nursery’s Potato Garden Guide.