Before After The potatos are coming along, they are blooming now, so harvesting is just around the corner.
@Melody Mc. I have grown potatoes by digging trenches, filling in, and not hilling up more than that. I still got a good crop. I think there are as many ways to grow potatoes as there are gardeners. This year mine are in trenches that I further hilled up. I'm also experimenting with the container method. My mistakes in the past were not fertilizing and not watering. Sometimes I got good crops of good size potatoes, and sometimes not. I wonder if I fertilized too much this year - they are very lush. My red skin potatoes have lavender flowers. My yellow flesh ones (Yukon Gold, Soyaya, Yukon Gem) haven't bloomed yet but if I recall correctly they have white flowers. The white ones too I think.... My current bloomers are red skin (Norland? Pontiac? I don't know) and have a red/purple flower. I have Envol blooming, an early white. In Wikipedia, they show a white flower for Red Norland but in web search it's more lavender. We love Red Norland for potato salad. They are moist and tender but don't become mushy in potato salad. It's an interesting idea - I wonder of potato flower color is related to potato skin color, or just my imagination? I bet @Sjoerd knows Last year I also grew potatoes from seeds, a variety called "Clancy". I wasn't very impressed with them and one row never was dug up. The overwintered ones are blooming now, various colors. The skins and flesh were also various colors. Here are my early variety "Envol" that I bought from a supplier in Maine. On the left are Four O'clocks. I'm hoping the Envol and red somethings (Norland is early, Pontiac is late) will be ready to harvest in a few weeks. This supplier gives early, mid, late season categories for their potatoes. Fedco, in Maine. https://www.fedcoseeds.com/moose/
That double row of spuds are looking very good, mate. About the flower and potato skins: I have asked myself that and spent time investigating it. What I came up with was that the colour of the anthers and bloom petals can correlate with skin colour but not consistent enough to make a flawless rule. The key word being, “can”. The flower colour is genetically determined like roses or phlox—you have different coloured flowers in the same genus. Some spuds produce white flowers and some purple, for instance. Because of the presence of the pigment in the DNA, one can say that they could produce a similar colour in the skin. Could. No guarantees. It was an interesting subject for me.
Thank you for this Daniel. The blossom information really helps. Very interesting to hear about the genetics. I tried so hard to keep acurate notes, but in the end the garden won and I didn't get a chance to write things down. We arrived in late last evening, but in time to scope out the garden's wish list. On the garden's list was potatoes. This is the first year I've ever fertilized my potatoes. ( yup..... {hangs head in shame}. )I have a correspondence from my northern seed company about what to fertilize with and when, so I'm very excited to see if it helps. Everyone was either filled in, or hilled a wee bit. I think water was a real problem for me last year Daniel. ( we're not going to talk about the fertilizer). Your potatoes look great! My hubby thanks you both as I grow them for him.
Today was in the 90s so I mostly stayed inside. I should get up early tomorrow and water anything not on the drip irrigation.
Elba late potato blooming. I haven't attempted to dig any of the crop yet. They say. Marie Antoinette wore potato flowers in her hair. I won't be doing that.
Daniel, those spuds look really good. You ought to be harvesting them soon. The foliage looks good as well.
Is potato! Envol potato, an early white type. These were in 25 gallon containers in the big planter box, drip irrigated. The leaves were becoming yellow and starting to dry out, so I dug them up. Eight pounds. I also have the same variety in the ground. Those tops are still very green, and I'm not in a hurry to dig them yet.
Oh, I say!! Would you polish off your eyeballs and lookit that ! Aren’t they just the picture, all cleaned-up and looking very smart. How many containers produced the eight pounds? Interesting that the container spuds became ready earlier than the ones in the ground. I have forgotten—were they planted at different times? Gadzooks though, they are gorgeous. Chapeau.
Here are some of the late variety, "Elba". As in the palindrome that Napoleon supposedly stated (in English, at that), "Able was I, ere I saw Elba". These are nice - late season, after the others are mostly gone, supposedly good keepers, nice flavor, air fry very nicely, disease resistant. I've been digging a few plants each day. Fortunately no rain yet, so the soil isn't heavy and they are not sprouting. I have one and a half rows remaining to dig. This one was 563 grams. "Is big potato" LOL.
That is big potato. I read up above, the list of good properties these spuds have. The piccies tell a story as well. Interesting that you told us that they work well in an air fryer. That is something to think about. BTW, what else have you been getting to lately? Please don’t go all silent on us just because the season is ending. Heck mate— you still have a lot of baking to do…and I want to read about it.
