Growing potatoes

Every spring about the second week in May, Dad would put the plow on the C International and get it ready for work. We all would then start pulling potatoes from the cellar that had been stored there through the winter. All the runners had to be broken off, and the potatoes then had to be cut so that two or three eyes were on every piece. Then Dad would plow and we kids would plant taters.

Having grown up in the Sandhills of Nebraska, pretty much every meal started with meat and potatoes. Depending on the meal, you added something such as eggs, toast, a vegetable, dessert and on and on, but the main course was meat and potatoes. I loved mashed potatoes, but like them lumpy with onions in them. New potatoes with just butter are hard to beat. Baked with butter and sour cream. Roasted in the oven with a big beef roast along with carrots and onions and cabbage makes my mouth water.

The potato is a starchy tuber or root vegetable and is native to the Americas with the wild potato version being throughout the Americas, from Canada clear down to southern Chile. It originated in Peru. The potato as we kind of know it today was domesticated something like 7,000--10,000 years ago. The Spanish took potatoes from the Americas back to Europe in the last part of the 16th century, and from there they spread worldwide. According to what I read, back in 2014 potatoes ranked fourth as the world's largest food crop falling behind maize (corn), wheat and rice. Back in 2018, China and India were the leading producers of potatoes in the world. It is interesting that potatoes and tomatoes are both a nightshade plant in the genus Salanum, so the plants contain the toxin solanine, which is dangerous to humans if they consume it, especially the plants.

Potatoes are one of the few vegetables you can plant something as small as maybe an ounce and maybe get five to 10 pounds of potatoes off the vine. Potatoes take a minimal amount of work and will grow in about any soil. And to top it, off potatoes, if stored right, will last through the entire winter and be there to eat or to replant the next spring. Most potatoes can be planted and they will grow, but seed potatoes are best. Look for them in garden centers in early spring.

Potatoes can be canned as well. My mom used to can new, small potatoes to be used as a quick meal, a meal that was pretty much dump and heat and eat. Marge has canned potatoes, carrots, onions, green beans and whatever the garden was producing together in the same jar for an instant meal. One can even add meat in the canning process and make an entire meal from one jar.

We plant our potatoes about 2 to 3 inches deep about 18 inches apart. The rows are maybe 30 inches apart, or wide enough that our Troy tiller can till between the rows. Potatoes can be planted two to three weeks before the last expected frost in the spring. They will frost. Normally potatoes take one to two weeks to come up unless the ground is super dry. When the potato plants get up 6 to 8 inches, one needs to pull dirt up to the plant so that maybe 2 inches is exposed. We pull the dirt up to the plant a couple times. We normally don't water our potatoes here in Southeast Missouri, but if you don't get much rainfall, you will need to water them.

About the only pest that bothers potato plants is potato bugs. You can spray for them or just physically pick them off. Dad would put a little kerosene in a gallon coffee can and usually we kids did the dirty work. My plants here in Missouri turned blue one year, which I read was a fungus. A little fungicide fixed the problem.

It is hard telling how many families would have gone hungry or even starved if not for potatoes. If you don't have room where you live, then make room.