Growing Potatoes

By Janet Wallace
Published on November 28, 2008
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Potatoes with flower and leaves isolated on a white background.

Folks offer all kinds of reasons for not growing potatoes. Some say potatoes are so inexpensive at the store it just isn’t worth the effort. Others say that potatoes take up too much space in the garden. Still others say potatoes aren’t worth growing because they attract pests like the Colorado potato beetle. I, on the other hand, will always grow potatoes because that’s the easiest way to sample the delicious palate of heirloom potatoes, and there’s nothing like the flavor of a new potato when it’s eaten just hours after harvest.

Picking a Potato

At a typical market in Peru, you might find 200 varieties of potatoes. The crop was developed by the Incas, and a great diversity of potatoes wild and cultivated is still found in the Andes. Of more than 5,000 varieties of potatoes, only a small fraction is available as commercial seed stock in North America.

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