Selwyn Times: August 29, 2017

SELWYN TIMES Latest Christchurch news at www.star.kiwi
Tuesday August 29 2017 27
Gardening
Potatoes – the veg for gardens of all sizes
• By Paul Hoek
NOT SO many years ago every
quarter-acre section boasted a
large potato patch to feed the
family.
As a tasty, versatile and affordable
addition to any meal, it just
made sense to grow your own.
But as property sizes shrunk, the
demand for growing your own
spuds also diminished.
Not so any more, we’ve seen a
big resurgence in home potato
growing. Gone are the days when
you were obliged to purchase a
2kg bag of seed potatoes to get
your own crop growing. Packs of
five, 10 or 20 seed potatoes cater
for all garden sizes.
Whether you’ve got a small or
large garden, potatoes are a musthave
vegetable. Growing potatoes
is a great way to get children into
gardening, and nothing beats
your own home-grown spuds on
the Christmas table.
So, where to start? With quality
certified seed potatoes. Seed potatoes
look just like regular potatoes
but are usually smaller, and are
certified free of disease, so you
know you’re getting the best start.
Some of the well known varieties
are jersey benne, agria and rua.
The type of potato you choose
to plant will depend largely on
what you want to do with it and
when you want to harvest.
Seed potatoes fit into three
categories – early, early-main and
main crop. Early potatoes are
ready to harvest early, and really
need to be harvested early as
they are not long-term growers.
They also taste a lot better when
harvested early – the classic early
sweet-tasting new potato.
Early-main crop potatoes can
be harvested early to get ‘new’
potatoes, or can happily be left in
the ground until the top growth
dies back and the skins thicken
up. Harvested later, they are no
longer ‘new’ potatoes, but larger
and thicker skinned.
And main crop potatoes need
longer in the ground and should
be left in until the tops die back in
autumn before harvest. They will
be larger, thick-skinned and also
keep well.
If you want to ensure you’re
serving home-grown spuds at
Christmas, plant early potatoes
such as rocket, swift, jersey benne
or cliff kidney. These ones can be
harvested after about 90 days so,
if planted in September, will be
ready for Christmas.
Potatoes also vary in their make
up. Some are called ‘waxy’ potatoes
and these are lower in starch
and hold together much better
when cooking – they are more
suitable for salads, boiling and
casseroles. Others varieties are
called ‘floury’ potatoes and these
ones are higher in starch and
FRESH: The
best way to
check if your
potatoes are
ready is to
loosen the dirt
around a few
of the plants,
put your hand
in the soil and
gently pull
out a spud or
two to check
progress.
ideal for wedges, chips, roasting
and mashing. The earlier potatoes
tend to be more the waxy
types, and the later varieties more
floury.
If you’re looking for a general
purpose potato, try desiree or rua
– these are suitable for most uses.
Leave your seed potatoes in a
light, dry place for a few weeks so
they can start to shoot.
When the shoots are approximately
2cm long they’re ready to
plant. Before doing so, work in
some compost to the soil to make
it more friable and easier for the
potatoes to grow, as well as easier
for you to harvest.
Next, dig a v-shaped trench
about 15cm deep in your garden
and place the potatoes in the bottom
of it – approximately 40cm
apart.
You don’t need to fill the trench
back up at this stage, just cover
the planted potatoes with at least
5cm of soil. New spuds hate frost,
so keep an eye on them and as
the shoots start to push through,
cover them a little more each
week until you have turned your
trench into a mound of 15-20cm
in height after six to eight weeks.
The more growing stem beneath
the soil, the more opportunity
for the plant to produce
potatoes and the bigger your crop.
To keep diseases away, don’t
overhead water your potatoes
excessively. Once planted the
rain should be enough to keep
them going until they’re ready for
harvesting.
I also recommend covering
your potato crop with some
insect-proof netting which will
keep out the potato-tomato psyllid,
a small insect that can cause a
lot of damage.
The best way to tell if your potatoes
are ready is to ‘tickle’ a few
up to check. Get out your trowel
and loosen the dirt around a few
of your potato plants, put your
hand in the soil and gently pull
out a spud or two to check progress.
If your potatoes are small,
cover them up again with dirt and
leave them to grow.
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