One Potato, Two Potato, Three Potato, Four

One Potato, Two Potato, Three Potato, Four

by Zen Gardener John

One of my newer additions to my garden inventory includes potatoes. Potatoes were originally harvested between 7,000 to 10,000 years ago in Bolivia and Peru and have several mythical stories surrounding their name.  They can now be found all over the world.  Potatoes are a part of many home dinner menus (baked, mashed, boiled) and a staple at almost every fast food restaurant or diner (French fries, curly fries, potato puffs, and once again...mashed potatoes).  

I decided to grow our ancient, but world-famous potato in my garden for fun.  There are four varieties (Yukon Gold, Purple Majesty, Red Pontiac, and Gold Rush White).  They have taken a strong liking to the fabric pot that I have placed them in and are growing pretty fast.

So what about sweet potatoes?  Well, as most growers know, sweet potatoes are distant members of the potato family.  Regular potatoes are "tuber" plants, while sweet potatoes are more of a "tuberous root" plant.  Sweet potatoes belong to the "morning glory" line of plants in the broad potato family umbrella.  They are also more enriched with vitamin A and have a lower glycemic rate in our body sugar levels than our regular potatoes.

My gardening challenge is that sweet potatoes are a tropical plant and need about six months to produce an adequate harvest.  It's May.  I'm a little late for July and August harvest.  Oh well.  I may decide to try anyway for an October harvest.  What's your opinion?  I would like to know.

These large, green leaves of my potatoes