Edible Yards

Valentine’s Day marks potato planting season in Austin. I think these red lasoda potatoes would make a sweet valentine for your beloved gardener! Seed potatoes can be purchased at many garden centers around town such as the Natural Gardener or The Great Outdoors. You can also buy seed potatoes online or at the grocery store – just make sure you purchase organic potatoes. Non-organic potatoes may have been irradiated so they won’t re-sprout. (Seed potatoes are basically just potatoes that can be cut up and re-planted.)

Once you have some seed potatoes, you should cut them up into pieces for curing. Make sure that each piece has at least two eyes. The new potato plants will sprout out of these eyes. To cure the pieces, simply set them out in a cool place with good air circulation for at least a few days. You can also dust the potatoes with dusting sulphur to prevent them from rotting. If some of the eyes sprout, that’s good – it will give your potato plants a head start when you plant them in the ground.

Potatoes do best in loose soil (double-dug soil is ideal) with plenty of added compost. You can even grow potatoes in a bucket full of straw! Plant each potato piece about 6-8 inches deep and 12-18 inches apart. Once the potato plants are about 8-12 inches tall, hill the potatoes by raking or push soil or mulch up around the stems. Hilling potatoes allows more potatoes to form off of the stem so don’t be afraid to pile that soil up until there’s only a few inches of plant remaining above ground!

When your potato plants begin to bloom, you can harvest new potatoes. They will probably be small but very tender and tasty. The longer you leave your spuds in the ground, the bigger they will get. You can harvest or dig your potatoes using a digging fork in late spring or early summer. Wash and dry them, then store them in a cool, dark place for many months.