Never knew potatoes came in so many colors
Jest Another Day in Pear-A-Dice - Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm in Alberta
- Thread starter CanuckBock
- Start date
Tara, you don't have nearly the number of potatoes as last year, but you still got a decent crop of them. I don't see any sweet potatoes. Are they harder to grow, or do you just not like them? Your babies are growing fast, but still so adorable.
Well Tara, don't you like sweet potatoes???? The world wants to know
I love them with marshmallows and brown sugar.
I love them with marshmallows and brown sugar.
@drumstick diva this is for you!
Read this
http://www.raisingmiro.com/2012/04/23/4000-types-of-potatoes-in-peru/
Last edited:
- Thread starter
- #2,745
Heel low:
Four year anniversary here on BYC...strange? Seems like only yesterday I was being nagged to join up and here it is four years flow by. Must be having a fun life, eh?
Yikes DD...close to freezing...you better stay in and even if zombies were out and about, you're safer inside!
One day, some day...there will be zombie Flamingoes here...there will be!
I went looking for different veg. It IS vividly apparent why I have never used parsley root, fennel, kohlrabi or celery root. They are not easily available here!
That said, I'll get more serious and see if there is a veg market at one of the bigger centers/cities. I am thinking without the turn over of a larger population, you'd not see these special vegetables on offer.
I will like to taste these varieties too.
Have to wait another year for that though. I ate some when my son visited--just boiled them, but now the ones I photographed are all destined for seed for 2018. 
I put the seed potatoes in paper bags and into a cart for temporary storage in the garage. Will need to find a mouse proof but breathable container to store the paper bags in...I am quite frustrated with the amount of potatoes the voles harvested. And as with all varmits...lots of the bitten and eaten potatoes were the Russian Blues and the All Reds...GRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!
Both these are late season types, so never really truly large but to lose them to varmits like voles...
Here's some info I have gathered on the varieties I grew for seed this year. Not for eating, to make more to plant in 2018...now that's planning...I buy seed potatoes, plant it, AND harvest it for seed for 2018! Be just a year in the works before I even plant them for eating. So two year game plan!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Potatoes
early – 60 days
mid season – 90 days
late – 120 days
measured from the time of planting until harvest
https://www.westcoastseeds.com/shop/seasonal/russian-blue-organic/
Late season. Russian Blue Organic seed potatoes are CERTIFIED ORGANIC. Dark purple skin on round to oblong tubers, plants are very heavy setting so give them more room in the row. It withstands dry conditions better than most. Russian Blue’s texture is much like a russet, so they are good to bake or mash, cook as French fry or even make into chips, but they also can be steamed or boiled. Roasting or grilling the halves will actually darken the colour and is most recommended, as the mild flavour needs help with herbs and seasonings.
Moderately resistant to late blight, hollow heart, second growth, shatter bruise, PVA, PVM, PVX, PVS. Susceptible to PVLR, PVY, common scab, bacterial ring rot, and black leg.
https://www.seedpotatoes.ca/product/russian-blue/
Russian Blue - late season
Description
This late maturing, dark blue skin and flesh variety has round to oblong tubers. A very heavy setting, large plant that should be spaced at 12 inches or more in an effort to get it to maturity by fall. The flavor is remarkably normal for such a distinctively visual variety.
https://www.seedpotatoes.ca/product/dakota-pearl/
Dakota Pearl - mid season
Description
One of the best uses for this potato is making chips. It has a pale yellow skin and white flesh. Dakota Pearl also has a good resistance to scab. Also a great storage potato.
http://www.parklandseedpotatoes.com/varieties/chipping/dakota-pearl-11#sthash.0Q9i0HZh.dpbs
The Dakota Pearl has a smooth, white skin and a white flesh. It has medium sized round tubers with shallow eyes. Although originally intended for potato chip processing because it has excellent chipping qualities, the Dakota Pearl has also become a very popular fresh variety in the "round white" market. It is an early maturing variety which produces a high number of tubers. It has a high dry matter content and its cooking type is floury. (The Dakota Pearl was developed at North Dakota State University)
https://www.seedpotatoes.ca/product/eramosa/
Eramosa - Early
Description
Eramosa is our only early white variety this year and produces a reasonably high yield for an early season potato. Eramosa was originally selected right here in Canada at the Guelph Potato Program in 1970. Great for boiling baking.
https://www.seedpotatoes.ca/product/pink-fir-apple/
Pink Fir Apple - Fingerling
Description
Grown for over 100 years, this fingerling is quite unusual with long knobby pink- skinned tubers. These potatoes make excellent salads but are also boiled & baked.
https://www.seedpotatoes.ca/product/all-red/
All Red - late season
Description
Round tubers that are rated as medium to late maturity. This potato has a good yield with red skinned and distinctive red flesh tubers that maintain their color after cooking. It has an excellent flavor and a moist texture.
https://www.seedpotatoes.ca/product/ruby-gold-2/
Ruby Gold - mid season
Description
Smooth red skin on oblong to round sometimes netted tubers with medium deep eyes and light yellow flesh. Good storability. For best cooking results harvest tubers when mature, as late in the season as possible when the skins are well set.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rick and my favourite potato is the Purple Caribe. I grew those in 2016 and they were absolutely the BEST potato for taste and the biggest producer too. LOVED them. Baked was best...sweet, fluffy, incredibly tasty...savoury! More than just a potato!
Oct 5 2016
I never grew those this year but just today, I took this potato in the photo above from 2016 and planted it in a pot for inside the house. We'll see. I have the top of a pineapple plant growing inside, why not a potato?
The other ones we have had great success with are the fingerling ones. All sorts of colours from red to yellow, to the pink fir apple ones this year. LOVE them. They are a more waxy textured potato so make great ones for cold potato salad as they retain their texture and do not turn to mush too easily. They grow well here and produce surprising amounts of fingerlings per plant.
And always for boiled potatoes, the coloured ones are the most interesting.
You betcha and in South America where the potato originated, they always did grow multiple colours and shapes. We here have decided to revert to boring white ones like russets...heck, I love a purple skinned baked potato! We have red and yellow ones now but the baby potato market is where you get to see more colourful potatoes at the grocery stores with a blue potato often in their mixed varieties.
Next season, I hope to add a Purple Viking, Candy Cane, All Blue (like the Russian blue but solidly blue?), Blue Mac & German Butterball (yellow and buttery flavoured!)...and maybe others???
In their continent of origin, potatoes are a very precious commodity there and thankfully the people there know that! Grown 10,000 years ago...no visualize keeping those strains going along!
Frozen potatoes are called chuño in Peru and may be stored for years frozen without losing their value as food.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_potato
The dog girls will continue to fill in for a total of four years...this photo of Emmy makes her look so much older than she is.
Oct 16 - To me, does not even l00k like Emmy!
Can't grow yams or sweet potatoes here. I like candied ones for the traditional holiday meals. Rick & I like them enough, I have started to add them cubed in stews too. Not enough heat units (aka hot enough), we get frost &/or snow every month of the year. My MIL would say, never plant before June 1st and HA...two years back June 5th to 8th had a hard frost each and every day...wiped out my beans to what, five plants...we got enough beans for a few meals, that was it.
Those two crops won't tolerate our temperature extremes AND our short growing season.
NO worries, I boughtred PURPLE yams (just looked on my grocery receipt, $3.14 for purple yams) on the weekend that I want to try out. I also bought my favs, baby bok choy and yu choy...plus normal sized bok choy...those keep well in the fridge and I really enjoy them cooked lightly in Asian type meals. Bought a bunch of stuff to make Chinese food tonight but so dang tired...butt dragging today, so may postpone it. Tired...the weather is dumping cold rain and overcast...there it goes again, draining my light in life...so like being back in winter on the WEsT Coast...it needs to get cold (heare -11C for next week...hurray...about time!) and it needs a blanket of white for me to get rejuvenated and full of energy to cook, and such! I abhor this time of year; not summer/green, not winter/white...sucks! 
In my hunt for all those veg that Benny had in his oxtail soup that I have never cooked, hey at least I found a new version of yam!
Now I lost quite a few to bite marks...I think I know the culprits because I have found voles (not moles, moles don't prefer to eat plants like VOLES do) in the hay bales over the years. Fatter stubby tails, not mice but voles.
As this article says, too late as you harvest your taters, but I can get geared up for next year.
http://www.hobbyfarms.com/mice-and-voles-eating-your-potatoes/
And looking at Glenn Drown's sweetpotato page, here's more on voles...
http://www.sandhillpreservation.com/pages/sweetpotato_catalog.html
I could almost nap right now (NOOOOOOOOOO!!!)...lots of kids on the bus are dropping like flies, so likely coming down with some evil bus ill...good
Doggone & Chicken UP!
Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada
Four year anniversary here on BYC...strange? Seems like only yesterday I was being nagged to join up and here it is four years flow by. Must be having a fun life, eh?
Yikes DD...close to freezing...you better stay in and even if zombies were out and about, you're safer inside!
One day, some day...there will be zombie Flamingoes here...there will be!
I went looking for different veg. It IS vividly apparent why I have never used parsley root, fennel, kohlrabi or celery root. They are not easily available here!
That said, I'll get more serious and see if there is a veg market at one of the bigger centers/cities. I am thinking without the turn over of a larger population, you'd not see these special vegetables on offer.
I will like to taste these varieties too.
Have to wait another year for that though. I ate some when my son visited--just boiled them, but now the ones I photographed are all destined for seed for 2018. I put the seed potatoes in paper bags and into a cart for temporary storage in the garage. Will need to find a mouse proof but breathable container to store the paper bags in...I am quite frustrated with the amount of potatoes the voles harvested. And as with all varmits...lots of the bitten and eaten potatoes were the Russian Blues and the All Reds...GRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!
Both these are late season types, so never really truly large but to lose them to varmits like voles...Here's some info I have gathered on the varieties I grew for seed this year. Not for eating, to make more to plant in 2018...now that's planning...I buy seed potatoes, plant it, AND harvest it for seed for 2018! Be just a year in the works before I even plant them for eating. So two year game plan!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Potatoes
early – 60 days
mid season – 90 days
late – 120 days
measured from the time of planting until harvest
https://www.westcoastseeds.com/shop/seasonal/russian-blue-organic/
Late season. Russian Blue Organic seed potatoes are CERTIFIED ORGANIC. Dark purple skin on round to oblong tubers, plants are very heavy setting so give them more room in the row. It withstands dry conditions better than most. Russian Blue’s texture is much like a russet, so they are good to bake or mash, cook as French fry or even make into chips, but they also can be steamed or boiled. Roasting or grilling the halves will actually darken the colour and is most recommended, as the mild flavour needs help with herbs and seasonings.
Moderately resistant to late blight, hollow heart, second growth, shatter bruise, PVA, PVM, PVX, PVS. Susceptible to PVLR, PVY, common scab, bacterial ring rot, and black leg.
https://www.seedpotatoes.ca/product/russian-blue/
Russian Blue - late season
Description
This late maturing, dark blue skin and flesh variety has round to oblong tubers. A very heavy setting, large plant that should be spaced at 12 inches or more in an effort to get it to maturity by fall. The flavor is remarkably normal for such a distinctively visual variety.
https://www.seedpotatoes.ca/product/dakota-pearl/
Dakota Pearl - mid season
Description
One of the best uses for this potato is making chips. It has a pale yellow skin and white flesh. Dakota Pearl also has a good resistance to scab. Also a great storage potato.
http://www.parklandseedpotatoes.com/varieties/chipping/dakota-pearl-11#sthash.0Q9i0HZh.dpbs
The Dakota Pearl has a smooth, white skin and a white flesh. It has medium sized round tubers with shallow eyes. Although originally intended for potato chip processing because it has excellent chipping qualities, the Dakota Pearl has also become a very popular fresh variety in the "round white" market. It is an early maturing variety which produces a high number of tubers. It has a high dry matter content and its cooking type is floury. (The Dakota Pearl was developed at North Dakota State University)
https://www.seedpotatoes.ca/product/eramosa/
Eramosa - Early
Description
Eramosa is our only early white variety this year and produces a reasonably high yield for an early season potato. Eramosa was originally selected right here in Canada at the Guelph Potato Program in 1970. Great for boiling baking.
https://www.seedpotatoes.ca/product/pink-fir-apple/
Pink Fir Apple - Fingerling
Description
Grown for over 100 years, this fingerling is quite unusual with long knobby pink- skinned tubers. These potatoes make excellent salads but are also boiled & baked.
https://www.seedpotatoes.ca/product/all-red/
All Red - late season
Description
Round tubers that are rated as medium to late maturity. This potato has a good yield with red skinned and distinctive red flesh tubers that maintain their color after cooking. It has an excellent flavor and a moist texture.
https://www.seedpotatoes.ca/product/ruby-gold-2/
Ruby Gold - mid season
Description
Smooth red skin on oblong to round sometimes netted tubers with medium deep eyes and light yellow flesh. Good storability. For best cooking results harvest tubers when mature, as late in the season as possible when the skins are well set.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rick and my favourite potato is the Purple Caribe. I grew those in 2016 and they were absolutely the BEST potato for taste and the biggest producer too. LOVED them. Baked was best...sweet, fluffy, incredibly tasty...savoury! More than just a potato!
Oct 5 2016
I never grew those this year but just today, I took this potato in the photo above from 2016 and planted it in a pot for inside the house. We'll see. I have the top of a pineapple plant growing inside, why not a potato?
The other ones we have had great success with are the fingerling ones. All sorts of colours from red to yellow, to the pink fir apple ones this year. LOVE them. They are a more waxy textured potato so make great ones for cold potato salad as they retain their texture and do not turn to mush too easily. They grow well here and produce surprising amounts of fingerlings per plant.
And always for boiled potatoes, the coloured ones are the most interesting.
You betcha and in South America where the potato originated, they always did grow multiple colours and shapes. We here have decided to revert to boring white ones like russets...heck, I love a purple skinned baked potato! We have red and yellow ones now but the baby potato market is where you get to see more colourful potatoes at the grocery stores with a blue potato often in their mixed varieties.
Next season, I hope to add a Purple Viking, Candy Cane, All Blue (like the Russian blue but solidly blue?), Blue Mac & German Butterball (yellow and buttery flavoured!)...and maybe others???
In their continent of origin, potatoes are a very precious commodity there and thankfully the people there know that! Grown 10,000 years ago...no visualize keeping those strains going along!
Frozen potatoes are called chuño in Peru and may be stored for years frozen without losing their value as food.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_potato
The dog girls will continue to fill in for a total of four years...this photo of Emmy makes her look so much older than she is.
Oct 16 - To me, does not even l00k like Emmy!
Can't grow yams or sweet potatoes here.
I like candied ones for the traditional holiday meals. Rick & I like them enough, I have started to add them cubed in stews too. Not enough heat units (aka hot enough), we get frost &/or snow every month of the year. My MIL would say, never plant before June 1st and HA...two years back June 5th to 8th had a hard frost each and every day...wiped out my beans to what, five plants...we got enough beans for a few meals, that was it. Those two crops won't tolerate our temperature extremes AND our short growing season.
NO worries, I bought
In my hunt for all those veg that Benny had in his oxtail soup that I have never cooked, hey at least I found a new version of yam!
Now I lost quite a few to bite marks...I think I know the culprits because I have found voles (not moles, moles don't prefer to eat plants like VOLES do) in the hay bales over the years. Fatter stubby tails, not mice but voles.
As this article says, too late as you harvest your taters, but I can get geared up for next year.
http://www.hobbyfarms.com/mice-and-voles-eating-your-potatoes/
And looking at Glenn Drown's sweetpotato page, here's more on voles...
http://www.sandhillpreservation.com/pages/sweetpotato_catalog.html
I could almost nap right now (NOOOOOOOOOO!!!)...lots of kids on the bus are dropping like flies, so likely coming down with some evil bus ill...good
Doggone & Chicken UP!
Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada
Sweet "Potato " isn't a potato at all.....Well Tara, don't you like sweet potatoes???? The world wants to know
- Thread starter
- #2,747
Heel low:
View attachment 1169489
http://www.raisingmiro.com/2012/04/23/4000-types-of-potatoes-in-peru/[/QUOTE]
2011 Christmas Dinner (homegrown turk too!)
We love them boiled, mashed, drizzled with Canadian Maple Syrup and back in the oven...with turkey, ham dinners.
April 2012 Easter dinner
Rick's sister does them in chunks and it is a nice change to mashing them...bite in, has a candied outside and a yam or sweet potato flavour in the inside.
Absolutely stunning collection! And in Peru too...bonus!
View attachment 1169489
http://www.raisingmiro.com/2012/04/23/4000-types-of-potatoes-in-peru/[/QUOTE]
Well Tara, don't you like sweet potatoes???? The world wants to know
2011 Christmas Dinner (homegrown turk too!)
We love them boiled, mashed, drizzled with Canadian Maple Syrup and back in the oven...with turkey, ham dinners.
April 2012 Easter dinner
Rick's sister does them in chunks and it is a nice change to mashing them...bite in, has a candied outside and a yam or sweet potato flavour in the inside.
Absolutely stunning collection! And in Peru too...bonus!
- Thread starter
- #2,748
Quite right!
Only distantly related to the nightshade family...more morning glory related!
So to me, knowing sweet potatoes are a perennial vine type plant, helps make sense as to why it would not thrive here. I recall them growing wild as weeds in vacant lots in Vancouver, but never seen any morning glories growing here wild.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_potato
- Thread starter
- #2,749
Heel low:
DD...here are the varieties I grew in 2016...
Aug 29 2016
Sep 1 2016
I need to do this display on a plate with ones I grew this year.
I like seeing the skin and flesh, shape and such. The Ruby Gold is neat because it combines red and yeller!
Different colours, different shapes...all potatoes!
August 29, 2016...I had SOUP on the brains....
NOW That's chook potato SOUP...fit for royalty
<or Girl dogs too!>
Food should please more than just the sense of taste...sight, texture/touch, smells...
And indeed, 2016 I grew more potatoes...I invested more time in that fun endeavour.
Oct 6 2016
I not only had the 200 feet of my current tater patch, I also grew some in the same area I grew the oats in.
Sep 23 2016 - Emmy & the hand sown oats
Keep mindful, I did not have a summer of doing company books for year end to complete.
Doggone & Chicken UP!
Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada
DD...here are the varieties I grew in 2016...
Aug 29 2016
Sep 1 2016
I need to do this display on a plate with ones I grew this year.
I like seeing the skin and flesh, shape and such. The Ruby Gold is neat because it combines red and yeller!
Different colours, different shapes...all potatoes!
August 29, 2016...I had SOUP on the brains....
NOW That's chook potato SOUP...fit for royalty
<or Girl dogs too!
>Food should please more than just the sense of taste...sight, texture/touch, smells...
And indeed, 2016 I grew more potatoes...I invested more time in that fun endeavour.
Oct 6 2016
I not only had the 200 feet of my current tater patch, I also grew some in the same area I grew the oats in.
Sep 23 2016 - Emmy & the hand sown oats
Keep mindful, I did not have a summer of doing company books for year end to complete.
Doggone & Chicken UP!
Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada
Tara I imagine Gnocchi from this purple (Vitulet?) Potato......Heel low:
DD...here are the varieties I grew in 2016...
View attachment 1169521
Aug 29 2016
I need to do this display on a plate with ones I grew this year.
I like seeing the skin and flesh, shape and such. The Ruby Gold is neat because it combines red and yeller!
View attachment 1169507
Different colours, different shapes...all potatoes!
August 29, 2016...I had SOUP on the brains....
Food should please more than just the sense of taste...sight, texture/touch, smells...
And indeed, 2016 I grew more potatoes...I invested more time in that fun endeavour.
View attachment 1169509
Oct 6 2016
I not only had the 200 feet of my current tater patch, I also grew some in the same area I grew the oats in.
View attachment 1169527
Sep 23 2016 - Emmy & the hand sown oats
Keep mindful, I did not have a summer of doing company books for year end to complete.
Doggone & Chicken UP!
Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada
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