a selection of twelve heritage and modern varieties.
Potatoes are the perfect crop to grow in an area where you’ve just started a garden. Maybe you’ve reclaimed an area of lawn or have developed a bed that has been neglected. Potatoes are tolerant of heavy, acid soil and don’t need much care between planting and harvesting. If you mulch them well it will keep down the weeds and keep them moist. It’s a good time to sow potatoes now – there are seed potatoes available in the shops and the risk of frost has passed in Wellington.
There’s lots of advice about how to sow potatoes. I plant the seed tubers with a trowel in a grid pattern, 30cm apart in each direction, between 5 and 10cm below the surface of the soil. ‘Chitting’ is the process of starting tubers into growth indoors – laying them out in a cool, light room to grow shoots. I don’t bother with this, although it’s a good way to get very early potatoes in a frosty area, as long as your careful not to knock off the shoots when you plant them.
When the shoots appear above the ground I mulch between them with seaweed or straw. I’ll add another layer of mulch when the shoots get taller. Potatoes are ready when the leaves turn yellow and die down. Store in a cool, dark place in a calico bag. We’re still eating potatoes I harvested at the end of last summer that have kept very well.
The photo shows a selection of twelve of the potato varieties I grew in 2006 – I leave you to match them with the photo. Try some Maori, heritage and modern varieties. They all have strengths and weaknesses. I’ve just finished a fascinating book about the history of the potato, Propitious Esculent: The Potato in World History. Who would guess the humble spud had had such an influence on the world?
catriona long oval tubers with attractive blue eyes and pale yellow flesh.
huakaroro creamy skin and cream coloured flesh, slightly knobbly small tubers.
agria smooth, cream-skinned, medium oval with deep yellow flesh
gladstone white tubers with slight pink blush on skin.
tutaekuri or urenika long yam-like tuber with dark purple skin and flesh.
ladies finger long uniform fingerling tubers, yellow, firm, waxy flesh.
te Maori smooth purple skin with white flesh and occasional internal purple pattern.
golden wonder long tubers with creamy flesh, dry, floury.
jersey bennes oval to kidney shaped with white skin and white flesh.
red rascal bright red skin and white flesh, even, smooth, oval tubers.
pink fir apple salad potato with distinctive, long, knobbly tubers, yellow flesh.
old blue blue, almost purple skin and blue all the way through.
Can you tell us what could be killing our chickens. I go down to the hen house on dusk to put the girls to bed and the last two nights we have had a chicken killed. Same place, same way. Neck is bare, feathers off the underside and the feathers in two places around the chicken run. Not a lot of the chicken is eaten, just left dead. The other chickens are all inside. We have hawks flying by from time to time and have put clothes line over the run and put up stakes so they hawks can’t fly in. What could it be? Can anyone help us?
The most likely culprit is a stoat or weasel as they tend to kill with a bite to the neck and often don’t eat their prey. Usually nocturnal but they are sometimes about in the day. Could be a cat (pet or feral). We always have a DoC trap set and have caught several stoats over the past month even though we have never seen them. You might also want to try a cage trap and see what is about. You may be able to borrow it from your local council.
hi there…..I have recently moved from scotland to new zealand and need a few golden wonder seed potatoes….can you help please…..peter
Hi Peter, I got my ‘golden wonder’ seed potatoes from a gentleman in Havelock North several years ago who used to advertise in the small ads in the NZ Gardener magazine. I haven’t seen anything about him since so I don’t know where you’d get them now. I don’t have any remaining I’m afraid. You might want to contact Potatoes NZ (www.potatoesnz.co.nz).