Delicious and filling and so much better from your own garden, potatoes are a deserved family favourite. Justin Newcombe gives us his top tips.
When you first start gardening there are a few plants which are well and truly on the radar - potatoes are one of them. Like most things you grow yourself, the taste of a freshly dug spud will never be beaten by its shop-bought counterpart. Combine that with a high yield, a relatively hardy nature and, ladies and gentleman, we have a winner.
Native to the Andes mountains in South America, a large variety of potatoes were cultivated by the Incas. Some estimates put the total number of different cultivars between 2500 and 3000. Potatoes were initially unpopular with early European explorers to America until they learned to cook them. The Spanish took them home, gardeners cultivated them and their popularity spread. Basque fisherman took them to Ireland where they dried and salted their cod catches and probably ate the first fish and chips.
Later, in Europe, potatoes were grown commercially, first in France and then in Russia. The Russians credited the potato with saving thousands of peasants during the "Little Ice Age" during the 18th century. From then on, the European spud really flourished.
Potatoes provide more calories than any other crop, making them ideal for feeding a manual workforce, so dependence on potatoes soon grew. Industrial scale agriculture whittled the potato varieties down to two, which were intensively farmed all over Britain and Europe. This may have been a good idea from an economic point of view, but from a horticultural perspective, this reduction in varieties reduced resilience to pests and disease which proved disastrous.
Meanwhile, down here in Aotearoa, sealers, whalers and other assorted ratbags began trading the spud with Maori who knew a good thing when they saw it. Of the varieties traded taewa tutaekuri is the most popular grown today and after 200 years, its keeping qualities and easy propagation are well proven.
As far as crop rotation goes, the potato sits in a funny spot on the cusp of fruits and roots, so I often grow them after fruits and before roots. When rotating your crops don't plant potatoes in the same place more than once every three years and if possible exclude other members of the nightshade family such as tomatoes, eggplants, tamarillo and capsicum. This will help discourage fungal damage.
For soil preparation I try, where possible, to avoid soil with too much brown matter in it such as leaves or bark because these tend to attract slugs - and if I have had one big problem in the past it's been little slugs. There are many remedies for this but the most ecologically friendly one I could come up with was paying my kids pocket money to go out and catch them. Beer traps work well but get washed out in the rain, while bird-friendly slug pellets such as Quash are also available.
Preparing seed potatoes is called "chitting "(I chit you not). All this means is that you let the seed potato develop small shoots before planting. Potatoes love potassium and I like to plant my spuds in furrows lined with comfrey leaves. If I want early potatoes then comfrey is not usually available. In this case dress the furrow with blood and bone, make sure they get fed and watered regularly and harvest during dry weather so you can let the potatoes dry out for a few hours before being stored.
Have a look for heirloom varieties at koanga.co.nz, but for all your family favourites go to your local Bunnings store.
