The Homestead Gardener: Seeing Eye to Eye when talking potatoes
by Derrick Gentry –
“So you grow your own potatoes, do you?” I may be overly sensitive, but I sometimes detect a certain tone in the response of people when they find out I am among the tribe of DIY potato-growers. Relatively few home gardens devote space to potatoes, whereas growing herbs and vine-ripe tomatoes and other above-ground seasonal goodies are common and accepted practices. The reasons for prioritizing the latter are fairly clear. Tomatoes require minimal effort; you can grow them on your patio; and we all know they taste much better than the ersatz tomatoes that are shipped in from elsewhere and ripen in transit. That’s why homegrown tomatoes have become a staple of our culture, so to speak.
But potatoes? The difference in taste is not nearly as dramatic, the rationale for growing them at home a little less clear. In fact, there is something decidedly squirrel-like in the decision to grow one’s own potatoes for long-term storage as a genuine staple crop. It’s not that there is anything “wrong” with the practice. But it does strike many in our world today as a quaint and gratuitous opt-out gesture – something like using a scythe rather than a brush hog or a riding mower, or (at one time) like the decision not to participate in social media. And because potatoes do store well for long periods and are one of those few garden crops that you could theoretically live on if you had to, growing them in the squirrel mode – in large quantities, enough to put away for the winter – can begin to seem like the anti-social hobby of a survivalist who is anxiously prepping for something.
In this day and age, moreover, there is no real need to grow them yourself. Yes, we all know that it matters how our potatoes are grown and what harmful chemical residues might be on them and leached into the environment where they were grown. But the reasonable thing to do – according to standard wisdom – is simply pay a little extra at the store and buy organic potatoes, which are readily available today at Wegmans or at any farmers market.
It’s interesting how often Wegmans serves as the frame of reference in our thinking and our conversations about food more generally. I have a friend who grows some of her own vegetables in a small garden plot at home, and she will grow only those varieties of peppers and tomatoes that are not already available for purchase at Wegmans. A neighbor of mine, who maintains a partly edible landscape and still shops at Wegmans, likes to characterize home gardening as a self-evidently dicey proposition, an epic of spraying and fussing and worrying over, an ultimately futile battle against birds and insects and the elements. “It must be hard work” for someone like me who chooses to remain in the battle (this almost always presented as a statement, not a question). Our casual conversations sometimes close with a final benediction, a sentiment I am expected to share: “Thank god for Wegmans!”
I am not sure what to make of this outpouring of emotion channeled within the narrow frame of small-talk. Perhaps it is a reminder that hobbies are hobbies, and we should not get too carried away with our delusions of self-reliance. At least my neighbors are looking out for me; and I do try to express my gratitude for that concern by giving the gift of surplus potatoes. In the half dozen years I have been growing potatoes on the squirrel model – that is to say, in large quantities for gifting and eating and long-term storage – the only real stress I have experienced is figuring out what to do with all the extras that we do not have the space to store.
It is good to have choices and back-up plans, and there are obviously good reasons for choosing organic potatoes if that is the choice. Thank god for Wegmans, I suppose. But it seems to me that far too much self-generated anxiety has come to be associated with this innocent root crop. We do have one other option, one that is both practical and has a lot going for it in terms of meaning and satisfaction. I think it is high time to change the subject, to shake up a conversation that is narrowly focused on dangers to avoid and on choices that are based on fears and concerns. I want to go “beyond organic,” so to speak, and talk instead about some of the spiritual pleasures, and some of the plain old earthly pleasures, that are deeply rooted in the practice of growing nearly a whole year’s worth of potatoes in a modest-sized plot of ground near your home.
Before we ponder the pleasures, the first task is to relieve some of the common anxieties regarding the alleged perils and hardship involved in growing your own. (Next month’s Homestead Gardener will move on to consider the more deeply rooted question of pleasure and meaning…).
Anxiety #1:
“I do not have good soil or a reliable source of fertility…”
Well, the short and simple answer is that potatoes are not at all demanding in terms of soil tilth or fertility. Potatoes will grow in some pretty rough, newly converted ground. Like all root crops, they would love a sandy loam in which to spread out. But unlike carrots, potatoes can also deal with less optimal conditions: heavy clay, rocky soil, even grass turf that has recently been turned over. In fact, potatoes are a perfect pioneer crop if you want to convert a stretch of lawn into a rough draft of a garden bed. (Planting winter rye or winter wheat after Fall harvest builds soil and improves tilth for the following year.)
Nor are potatoes very demanding in terms of fertility. The one nutrient they really do need is potassium (and the potatoes we eat, by the way, are particularly high in potassium, along with many other nutrients). How do we get potassium in the soil and to the plant? One traditional method was to sprinkle some potassium-rich wood ash along with the seed potato when planting. The problem, however, is that potatoes prefer slightly acidic soil. Ash turns the soil alkaline, which creates the ideal conditions for the bacteria that causes what is known as potato scab – a minor problem, but one that you can easily avoid.
In my experience, the best and most convenient source of potassium for potatoes are the leaves of the perennial comfrey plant (Symphytum officinale). Comfrey deserves an entire column to itself; it is easy to establish and maintain and has a wide range of functions in the homestead garden. One of its earliest uses comes when it is time to plant potatoes in the Spring.
The potassium-rich leaves emerge in April/May just in time for potato planting (around mid-May in Zone 5). I pick some of the giant leaves of comfrey, allow them to dry out a few days in the sun, and I then swaddle each seed potato in a single dry leaf. Make sure the leaves are dry to prevent rotting of the seed potato. Comfrey continues to play a role once the plant tops emerge. I let a handful of comfrey leaves ferment in a bucket of water for two weeks or so and make a batch of “comfrey tea” that can be used as a foliar spray — a potent fertilizer for the plants in their early and middle growth stages.
If you have a row of comfrey planted along a garden bed border, then you have all the fertility you need for your potatoes (and comfrey also makes a wonderful rhizome barrier for the surrounding grass). There is no need to haul in organic matter or manure or make loads of compost; a few comfrey plants, some leaves and grass clippings for mulch, and a bag of cover crop seed are all you need to keep the show going year to year.
Anxiety #2: “What about the Colorado potato beetle?”
Well, before we get to the notorious beetle from out west, let’s talk about an even earlier visitor: the flea beetle. Flea beetles are tiny but visible, and they are of most concern when the potato tops begin to emerge from the ground and have little foliage. You can sprinkle diatomaceous earth to control flea beetles, but I have found that the best way to deal with these tiny nibblers is to promote rapid growth of the plant foliage with a weekly spray of comfrey tea (or, if you prefer, a foliar spray of liquid kelp meal diluted in water).
And now for the much-discussed and (on the whole) irrationally feared potato beetle from Colorado (home to Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, as well as the altitude-induced high commemorated by John Denver). I am afraid the potato beetle is something that every potato grower must live with. But that is no reason to be afraid. The beetles and their larvae are pretty easy to control by hand, so long as you make your regular rounds in the garden to pick off any visitors you happen to see and crush any of the eggs they lay on the undersides of the leaves.
There are the pretty striped beetles, and then there are … well, the not so pretty larvae that are their offspring. You will always miss some of the bright orange eggs laid upon the leaves, and they will soon hatch into the plump, orange-red larvae that munch on the leaves of your plants. They are as easy to spot as their beetle parents, and the other good news is that their devouring project proceeds slowly. This gives you plenty of time to contemplate how much you really, really do not want to perform what must be acknowledged as the one truly unpleasant chore of potato growing: pulling these ugly little munchers off and squishing them between your fingers.
I think it is worth mentioning that the manual form of pest control that I have just described is feasible only at the garden scale, according to the principles of what many now call the “attention economy.” Larger growing operations must rely on chemicals, either organic or conventional. Apart from recruiting beneficial insects as predators, the most ecologically sensible form of pest control involves a pair of eyes and a pair of hands. For the least exploitative form of labor, make use of your own eyes and your own hands. These are advantages of the small-scale garden model that are well worth pondering the next time you read about the many fateful compromises that define the project of large-scale agriculture.
Anxiety #3:
“What about the threat of late blight, particularly in our region?”
Another common myth is that potatoes are hopelessly prone to disease and potato-growing is therefore no game for the amateur home gardener. The most notorious of these diseases, the fungal disease known as late blight, is one that strikes us in the Finger Lakes about every other season. Late blight was the cause of the Irish Potato Famine, which is lodged deeply in our cultural memory. Thank god for Wegmans, right?
Like many disasters, the Irish Potato Famine was due to a complex set of factors; the potato does not deserve a bad reputation on account of it, and late blight should no longer be thought of as a dire existential threat. There are many more blight-resistant varieties available today than there were in the mid 1800s. In my experience, most potato varieties commonly grown in the Finger Lakes have at least some measure of resistance to blight (some of them are surprisingly resistant).
Even if your potatoes are struck with late blight, the experience is quite different than it is with tomatoes, which are in the same nightshade family and have long been more vulnerable to blight. (We’ll talk more about tomatoes and blight on another occasion.) You are not a fully mature gardener until you have weathered the emotional trauma of a complete and sudden loss of your tomato crop due to late blight. With potatoes, however, you have a bit of time to control the damage and cut your losses. It is not a zero-sum game; you can ride it out in the final weeks of the growing season when the potatoes are probably close to maturity anyway.
At one time, I responded to the first signs of late blight by removing the affected leaves by hand and promptly spraying the unaffected foliage with a spray of diluted copper – after more than a century, still the most commonly used organic fungicide. I no longer take such measures. Once blight spores are in the area, there is little that can be done other than to delay its spread (this is also true of powdery mildew, a common mode of slow-mo senescence for winter squash).
The good news about late blight and potatoes is that the spores affect the top foliage, but if you cut and carefully remove the affected top growth all the way to ground, especially before there is a heavy rain, the spores will rarely make their way down to the potatoes in the soil. When you dig up the potatoes a few weeks later, simply take the precaution of curing and storing them in discrete batches so as to minimize risk of any remaining blight spores spreading. Your harvest of potatoes may be less than what it would have been, depending on how far along they were, but I think you will be pleasantly surprised.
I am not a fatalist about late blight, nor do I fear it. A common disease like blight teaches one (has taught me, at least) how to manage and, even more important, how to live with “disease pressure.” I would go further and say that living with pests and disease and uncertainty are all a part of resilient gardening, not antithetical to it. There is wisdom here that extends beyond the perimeter of the home garden.
Anxiety #4: Isn’t it dangerous to save seed potato?
(And doesn’t that make me dependent upon suppliers of certified disease-free seed?)
I believe the answer to the second question is yes, and that dependency is a serious problem for me and for most anyone who aspires to resilience and self-reliance, and who would like to get into the exciting game of selectively breeding potato varieties that are well-adapted to the location (and are pest and disease resistant).
We save seed for so many other crops, so why are we so often advised not to save our own seed in the case of potatoes? It is true that potatoes serve as a conduit for a variety of diseases in ways that other seeds generally are not. Fusarium wilt, a soil-borne fungal disease that can remain in the soil for years once it gets there, is one of the most concerning on the list. But that does not mean you should not save some of your potato for seed; in fact, there are very good reasons for doing
Entire books have been written on the art of saving seed at the garden-scale, and the practice has broader significance that ought to come up more often in conversations among neighbors and policy makers and average citizens. (I am still waiting for a presidential candidate who is eager to debate the issue of biodiversity…) I am more of an average citizen than an expert on seed saving. All I can do here is tell you that saving and selecting seed potato in the home garden, while it does involve some risk, is entirely worth doing as long as you adopt certain precautions in selecting and storing and open yourself to a self-training process that involves time and practice (something required with any art).
Speaking of books and other resources, let me mention a few that address at length some of what I do not have space to consider within the narrow scope of a single column. If you want to learn more about specific varieties of potato, and about growing potatoes at home, mainepotatolady.com is a popular go-to resource (also a small business that sells seed potato). On saving seed potato, I recommend the relevant chapters in Carol Deppe’s book The Resilient Gardener. There are even a number of fascinating books on the social history of potato growing that I would recommend. The classic one is Redcliffe Salaman’s magisterial The History and Social Influence of the Potato from 1949, a book that is no longer in print, but well worth ordering through your local library. Salaman traces the history of potato growing to those DIY pioneers who were the first to cultivate potatoes and saved seed in their modest plots in the Peruvian Andes somewhere between 7,000 and 10,000 B.C.E. Thank god for those curious and self-reliant indigenous peoples.
