Potatoes have a place in our kitchen and our culture that is unlike any other crop. They are cheap to buy and easy to grow. They are filling and delicious. From the Irish potato famine to the American potato chip, no other vegetable carries a legacy of such mythic proportions. And can you really call them a vegetable at all?
Technically a starchy tuber rather than a vegetable, potatoes fill the same carbohydrate part of the food pyramid as bread, rice, and pasta—moderately simple sugars. Potatoes stand out from this crowd because they grow well in many different climates and soils, and are very productive in small areas—much more so than wheat or other grains.
That means you can grow a lot of calories in not much ground, which has made potatoes a beloved crop around the world—and given rise to a million different inventive ways to cook them. Let’s take a look at some of the approaches to growing potatoes.
Varieties Of Potato
Most people are familiar with the russet potato—it’s large, brown-skinned, with a soft starchy interior. The russet is the potato of the French fry and the baked potato—when the russet potato is cooked it has a fluffy interior texture that is unmistakable. It also has a relatively low nutritional value, as far as potatoes go.
土豆的营养价值因品种而异。像育空黄金土豆这样坚硬糯糯的土豆,淀粉含量比赤褐色土豆要低。红色和紫色的土豆含有抗氧化剂。一般来说,颜色越鲜艳的食物所含的营养成分就越多。Heirloom potatoes, like thepurple Peruvian potato, are less highly bred and contain a much higher nutritional value.
Potatoes grow best between 55-80 degrees Fahrenheit, although they will continue to grow in temperatures as hot as 95 Fahrenheit. They thrive in temperate climates, although many potato diseases also thrive in moderately warm, damp climates. Some types of potato have been bred to be resistant to certain kinds of disease, including theinfamous potato blight.
Try growing several varieties to see what does best in your climate and ask for tips from your local garden store, agricultural extension office, or farmers growing potatoes at the farmer’s market.
Planting And Growing Potatoes
As always, prepare your beds by testing and amending the soil. Potatoes like soil with acidity between5 and 7 on the pH scale. Like all root crops, potatoes need soil that is light and fluffy in texture and well-drained, containing lots of sand and organic material. If you have acidic soils, adding lime will help both your pH and your calcium levels, giving you a more successful crop.
Potato seeds are … potatoes! If you’ve ever seen potatoes sprouting in your cabinet … yup, that’s how potatoes grow. Each growing nub is called an eye. When you buy seed potatoes, find the eyes and cut the potato in half or thirds, as long as you have two to three sturdy-looking eyes on each chunk. That way, you get more plants per pound of potatoes.
一旦被割下,种土豆就很容易了。挖一条沟,把土豆埋到4-6英寸深,间隔8-12英寸。土堆在上面,然后浇水。要经常给它们除草和浇水,尤其是在生长季节的早期。Once the plants have established themselves, they provide good soil coverage with their leaves to out-compete weeds.
There are lots of different ways to grow potatoes in small gardens or even on balconies. One estimate is that you can grow up to100 pounds of potatoes in 4 square feet of ground.这可能是一个人一年吃土豆的量——每周2磅——而且不会吃腻。如果你是在容器或有限的空间内种植,你可以在植株生长的过程中不断在根部添加土壤,以鼓励马铃薯沿着根系长出更多的块茎。
Potatoes will be harvested all at once and then stored, so you don’t have to plant successions.
Growing Potatoes In Containers
There are lots of different ways to grow potatoes in small gardens, or even on balconies. One estimate is that you can grow up to100 pounds of potatoes in four square feet of ground.That’s probably all the potatoes one person could eat in a year – two pounds a week – without getting really sick of potatoes.
Potatoes can be grown in any large container, from a raised bed, to a plastic bin. If you are repurposing a container like a plastic bin, poke holes in the bottom for good drainage. Be sure to put something under it to catch the excess water.
If you’re planting in a container or a limited space you can keep adding soil at the base of the plant as it develops, to encourage the potato to set more tubers along its root system. This “vertical planting” allows you to grow significantly more potatoes per square foot of soil.
Troubleshooting Diseases
Potatoes are very susceptible to disease. Potato疾病可由细菌、真菌或病毒引起。
Bacterial diseases include various kinds of rot, which can attack the stem, leaves, roots, or tubers. Rot turns various parts of the plant gray or black and slimy. Planting clean seed is important in preventing transmission of bacterial disease. We never save our potatoes for seed—each year we buy new potato seeds from a reliable seed distributor. This is the primary preventative measure for some diseases and important to combine with other preventative tactics for others.
The famous potato blights are fungal infections—there are two varieties, early and late blight. Symptoms are black or brown spots, leaf-yellowing and withering. As their names suggest, early blight can come on at any time and is not usually as serious as late blight, which is triggered by wet weather and will kill potato plants and ruin crops.
Potatoes are also susceptible to powdery mildew, a fungus that infects many crops, including cucumbers and squash. Try not to over-water as bacteria and funguses both thrive in wet, warm conditions. Well-drained soil and a wide planting space helps prevent trapped moisture encouraging fungus. Some potato varieties are more resistant to blight than others.
Good biosecurity means not transferring diseases from one site to another or harboring them on your property year to year. If you visit another agricultural operation, always wash and bleach your boots before and after, or wear a different pair to prevent transferring soil diseases. Although potatoes are tempting to save for seed, it is more important to plant clean seed. Wash and disinfect all your equipment at the end of the season, including shovels, boots, and tractor tires.
Dead potato plants for compost and cull potatoes should not be included in your regular compost facility unless you use a hot-compost method. Instead, burn or bury your potato waste 3 feet deep. Likewise, your kitchen compost should not be included in the compost you spread on your fields since it contains not only potato peels but any pathogens remaining on the food you bought from a grocery store or farm.
If you begin to have pests or if you notice a plant showing signs of disease, always catch the problem early. When potatoes start to show signs of late blight, the easiest course of action is often to just harvest quickly, before the blight infects the tubers. Best practices in biosecurity, crop rotation and early action can save you big headaches in potato diseases.
Harvesting Potatoes
Potatoes have a relatively long window of harvest. You can start digging the smallest potatoes after the plants start flowering—just about 5 weeks from planting with some varieties. However, the plant won’t have produced its maximum potential crop by then. The ideal time to harvest potatoes is when the top of the plant has begun to die back.
马铃薯需要在第一次霜冻或潮湿天气到来之前从地里挖出来,以当地气候中最先出现的为准。冷冻会破坏淀粉的结构和储存潜力,长时间潮湿的土壤会加速腐烂过程和促进枯萎病。只要土豆本身没有枯萎或发霉,就可以从枯萎植物上收获和食用土豆。
Harvesting potatoes is simple but laborious. The soil has to be turned over and loosened, the potatoes picked out by hand or with a machine. You can buywalk-behind potato harvesters这两个步骤都可以做到,但经典的方法是用一把铲子和一个小帮手。开始挖土豆的外缘,而不是茎的根部,这样你就能在不损坏土豆的情况下得到尽可能多的土豆。
Damaged or bruised potatoes will begin to spoil faster, so dig gently and don’t throw potatoes around. They look sturdy, but they can still get damaged. Freshly harvested potatoes usually have thinner, flakier skin, which doesn’t protect the potato as well as a hardened skin. They are good for eating but less than ideal for storing.
Potatoes harvested for storage should not be washed—the drier the potatoes, the longer they will last. To help the skins harden, after harvest, leave them out to cure in moderate temperatures between 45-60 degrees Fahrenheit. During curing, the potatoes shouldn’t be stacked or piled, and they should be in a dark, dry area where they can completely dry.
土豆腌制后,在阴凉、黑暗的地方可以保存三到六个月。像所有储存作物一样,一个坏土豆会开始破坏所有其他的,所以要定期检查你的储存是否有任何腐烂、发霉或黏液。去掉任何开始变软或变软的土豆,这通常是变质的早期迹象。如果土豆开始枯萎、发芽或变绿,这是可以的。只要剪掉绿色的部分和发芽的眼睛。
Shepherd’s Pie Recipe
There is perhaps no more diverse vegetable than potatoes—since the introduction of potatoes to Europe and the globalization of food, most cultures around the world include recipes with potatoes.
Baked potatoes, mashed potatoes, potato salad, potatoes au gratin, hash browns, latkes, boiled, roasted, fried. It’s so hard to choose just one, but one of my favorite childhood dishes was shepherd’s pie.
Ingredients
- ½ pound cubed or ground meat of your choice—substitute mushrooms for vegan option
- 2 cups of broth (meat or vegetable)
- 1 ½ pounds potatoes, cubed
- 2 tablespoons butter (or olive oil)
- 1 cups milk (or substitute)
- Diced vegetables—onions, carrots, peas, celery, mushrooms
- Flour or cornstarch for thickening
- Salt to taste
- Season to taste: thyme, oregano, basil, marjoram, rosemary, black pepper, bay, Worcester sauce
Directions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Saute onions and meat on the stovetop until cooked and brown.
- Add additional vegetables and pour in the broth.
- Turn down the heat to a low simmer and add the thickener, stirring steadily until broth thickens.
- In a separate pot, boil the potatoes until tender. Drain the water and put them in a bowl with melted butter and mash until smooth, adding milk gradually until it achieves the desired texture.
- In a cast iron, casserole dish, or ramekin, fill the dish with pie filling and use a spoon or pastry bag to top the pie filling with mashed potatoes. Place the dish in the oven, cooking until the potatoes on top begin to brown. Serve hot.
Whether you are just starting out or if you are an experienced potato grower who is looking for new tips, always remember to ask other gardeners, local experts, farmers at the market, specialists at yourcounty extension或者是当地园艺大师项目的成员。一如既往,当我们在耕作或园艺时,我们培育的最重要的东西是社区。
Leave a Reply