One potato, two potato, three potato, four

I always hope for some strange shaped potatoes.

One potato, two potato, three potato, four,
five potato, six potato, seven potato more.
Icha bacha, soda cracker,
Icha bacha boo.
Icha bacha, soda cracker, out goes Y-O-U!

I don't remember the... "icha bacha" part of this chant.
 
Potatoes have been cultivated for food for more than 2,000 years. In South America — Peru's Inca Indians, it is believed, had cultivated potatoes by 3000 B.C. per a google search.

My potato bin.

   
Potatoes are very easy to grow. You can grow them under straw, in 5 gallon buckets, in a wooden bin or in the ground. I've grown potatoes all these ways. My potatoes are currently grown in a wooden bin. I read somewhere, maybe Mother Earth magazine, that when the plant above the ground falls over — the potatoes will stop growing. My husband built us a potato bin, out of recycled boards.

Our neighbor's small deck was rotting away...one day his wife fell threw the deck. I guess she was laying on the ground swearing...can't blame her. He ripped the old deck apart, threw the boards on his burn pile and then got a divorce. I kept looking at the boards...finally asked if my husband could build a tater bin. This bin is 4 feet by 4 feet and maybe 4 feet tall. All four sides are attached with screws. One side is attached with nails. That way I can take my rusty hammer and each of the front board come off to dig the taters in the fall.

What kind of potatoes should you grow? Depends on what you're using them in.  If you want to add potatoes to soups or stews you should use yellow, blue or red potatoes. These are low in starch, when boiling, they will not fall apart. If you want to bake, then you should use potatoes with a dry texture like the Yukon Gold type. I planted Yukon's, Cal Red, Cal Whites, Finns and some sort of pretty blue ones.

Red, white, yellow and blue potatoes.

My potatoes go in the ground in late April or early May. Add about 2 inches of soil to cover the potatoes. As the the potato develops the plant above and the leaves show through the soil, add more soil to cover again.... repeat. Harvest potatoes when the tops have withered in the fall.

Ready to dig those potatoes.

When you dig your potatoes, don't clean them off. Gather them and let them dry on newspaper in a dark place. I have an old chicken house that I cleaned up and painted to make it my potting shed. This is where I dry mine for a few days.

Drying potatoes.

I store my potatoes in cardboard boxes with lids. Put newspaper on the bottom, add as many potatoes as you can without letting them touch each other. Add another layer of newspaper and more taters...etc. Then I put the boxes in our shop, which is not heated. If there are any potatoes left over in the spring, I use them for seed potatoes and plant them in the spring.

Box for storing potatoes.

Putting them taters in a box.

Potatoes are a member of the nightshade family and leaves are poisonous. Potatoes should be stored in dark, but dry places. Light will cause the formation of solanine on the skin of the potato. Not likely to cause serious harm, green skinned potatoes can taste bitter and could give you a stomachache.

Potato berries.

I found small, round, green, tomato-like fruit on my potato plants. These fruit are not the result of cross-pollination with tomatoes. They are the true fruit of the potato plant. The edible tubers are actually enlarged, underground stems. Normally, most potato flowers dry up and fall off the plants without setting fruit. A few flowers do produce fruit. The variety 'Yukon Gold' produces fruit more heavily than most varieties. You might likely get a hybrid from these potatoes, from cross pollination with other potatoes. But I wouldn't eat the berries, may have a high concentration of solanine.

I think I'll go make a potato salad with blue potatoes.
You should try growing some potatoes too.