Colourful Caribes

Yukon Golds & a Caribe

​Varieties We Grow

We're very fond of potatoes, and each year we devote a little more garden space to the them. Caribe (70-90 days) is a beautiful early variety. Its purple skin is a striking contrast to its pure white flesh, and it's a good boiler, baker and frier. We use it with the skin on in potato salad. Yukon Gold (85-90 days)​ is wonderfully flavourful, yellow-fleshed potato that's good for baking, frying, mashing, frying, steaming, roasting and for filling out chowders. Russets (120-140 days) are excellent for baking & mashing. 

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Getting Started

​We plant our Caribes and Russets Mid-March, which is pretty much when the soil in our garden has dried out enough from the wet winter to be workable. (Don't plant potatoes in really wet soil: they'll just rot). Caribes will be ready June-July, and the Russets in August. Our main crop potatoes, the Yukon Golds, can be planted in May, and they'll be ready for harvest in September.  ​

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How to Plant & Care for Potatoes

All potatoes need full sun and  a well-drained, well-prepared, compost-enriched growing environment; so dig in lots of compost or well-composted manure when you prepare the soil. We buy organic seed potatoes because we eat every potato we grow and can't bear to let any sprout in our storage room.

You can plant your seed potatoes whole or cut them in half like we do. If you cut them, let them to dry out for a day so that the exposed cut sides get dry and relatively hard.

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Plant your seed potatoes eyes-up, 8-10 cm (3-4 inches) deep and about 30 cm (12 inches) apart in rows. Keep the rows about a meter (3 feet) apart. Cover the seed potatoes with about 8 cm (3 inches) of soil.

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When the seeds start to sprout leaves, hill soil up around them to keep your developing potatoes protected from sunlight. Sunlight causes potatoes to turn green as a result of the formation of a mildly toxic substance called solanine. The production of this substance is a potato survival mechanism, as the bitter taste of solanine repels animals tempted to make a meal of the exposed potato.

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Keep hilling your potatoes as the plants grow, mixing in liberal amounts of compost with the soil from time to time. When the potato plants start to form flowers, you can apply a straw mulch to smother the weeds. ​

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Make sure your plants get enough H2O, deep watering the base of each plant during hot, dry summer weather. Try not to compact the soil by walking between your plants. (This actually is a principle we follow throughout our garden.) Use a hose, so you can squirt at a distance, or place wide boards throughout your garden to stand on. The boards will 'spread out' your weight when you stand on them, allowing you to work without excessively compacting the soil.

Harvesting Your Potatoes

One of the great joys of gardening: harvesting in general, potatoes in particular. We harvest our Caribes from when the plants are in full flower to when the leaves die. For the Russets and Yukon Golds, we wait until the leaves die. Work carefully with a garden fork from the outside of the plant toward the stem. After you pluck your potatoes out of the soil, leave them out in the sun for a couple of hours. ​

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​Companion Plants for Potatoes

​Some gardeners recommend planting bush beans among your potato plants when they start to pop out of the soil. Beans protect potatoes from the Colorado potato beetle, and potatoes protect the beans against the Mexican bean beetle. For extra insect pest armament and additional eye-appeal, plant some African or French marigolds and summer savory in your potato/bush bean patch.

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Storing Your Potatoes

Store your unwashed, dried potatoes in a cool, dark place. Ideally, the potatoes should be not touching each other and stacked in flats.

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