I am dreaming of potatoes. It’s a winter thing. A shed full of spuds used to mean survival in the cold months. A kitchen filled with the scent of good potato soup sings of warmth and comfort.
This is also the time to plant spuds, if you are feeling dirt deprived and in need of garden therapy. As long as the ground doesn’t actually freeze around them, spuds planted in August will wait until it’s warm enough to begin their growth. This is often much earlier than you expect - a good gorgeous spread of early season vegie greenery. But if they need to wait till late October to grow, they will.
Five months or so later the tops will die back, and the spuds will, be ready to harvest, but you can bandicoot spuds from about four to six weeks on. This means if you get them in early, you can have home grown new potato salad for Christmas. You’ll need 60 - 80 plant to feed a family of four potato lovers; but more if you are going to eat more than one serve of spuds a day - and if you've got home grown spuds you probably will.
Potatoes were native to South America and have been cultivated for about 8000 years. There are thousands of species, both wild and domesticated - blue, red, orange, almost black, yellow, waxy, almost flat, quite round as well as a hairy potato that is said to be pest resistant.
Potatoes were possibly brought to Europe by a Spanish explorer in the 1500s, and introduced to Ireland by Sir John Hawkins, and then to England by either Sir Walter Raleigh or Sir Francis Drake. It is said that when whichever one it was - sources differ - presented one to Queen Elizabeth I she wasn't impressed. She ate it raw.
The rest of Britain wasn't impressed either - partly because of a rumour that eating spuds caused leprosy, partly because potatoes weren't mentioned in the Bible. Anything not in the Bible had to be sinful and if it was sinful is was sexy - so potatoes became popular as an aphrodisiac. ''Let the sky rain potatoes,'' cried Sir John Falstaff in Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor. Street vendors sold potatoes; if you wanted to warm your hands you bought a hot potato and ate it cupped in your fingers. If you wanted to warm your passion you ate a bowl full.
You get potatoes by planting another potato - a seed potato, guaranteed disease free, not one from the back of the cupboard - or a piece of potato with an ''eye'' and letting it grow into a potato bush. The potatoes grow underneath - lovely fat tubers on the roots. Don't plant seed potatoes that look rotten, or that have very long shoots that will either die when exposed to hot sunlight, or may be a symptom of virus disease. Whole potatoes give the plant a better start and probably give you a bigger crop.
Plant them at least 10 centimetres deep, or up to 30 centimetres if you are worried about the ground freezing. As they start to grow ''hill'' them so that the stem is covered by soil. You'll get a larger crop this way, as more roots will form from the stem - and the more root, the more potatoes. It also helps stop potato moth from burrowing down.
You can also mulch potatoes with compost, instead of soil, but make sure it is compost, that is to say you can’t see the original compost ingredients. Rotting bits of veg in the ''compost'' can spread rot to your spud crop, too. On top of that, give your spuds a good mulch with loosely packed lucerne, even covering the lower leaves. Compost alone is all that’s needed if you have enough of it to keep your spuds hilled. Otherwise scatter on old hen manure or other organic fertiliser at planting, and every fortnight while the spuds are growing well until they begin to bloom.
Potatoes are generous. They’ll give you some spuds even in a hot dry summer, but regular water and moist fertilised soil are classic growing conditions.
Potatoes in a pot
This is suitable for a doorstep or balcony. Put a couple of holes in an old bucket - or use an old fruit box. Throw in some potting mix then the seed potatoes, cover with mulch or more potting mix. Keep the potatoes covered as they grow in the way described above. When the top dies down up-end your bucket or box - it should be mostly full of potatoes. You can also buy ''potato bags'' to grow spuds in - a fun project for kids. The only problem is that in hot weather - especially if you forget to water them - you may get far fewer spuds with above ground methods.
Which variety to grow
My favourite spuds are Tasmanian pink eye and Purple Congo, but neither seem to be heavy croppers here. Pink Eyes really need cooler summers than we have. We usually grow at least two varieties, one like Coliban or Sebago, that give the heaviest crops here, and some purple or red variety and maybe King Edward’s for baking in their jackets for a truly floury hot spud.
Harvest potatoes when all the potato vegetation has died down, apart from a little bandicooting. Put them in hessian bags or wooden boxes covered in newspaper straight away. Potatoes turn green very fast when first dug and exposed to sunlight, and green potatoes are poisonous. Store potatoes in a dark, airy place where they won't sweat as damp potatoes rot. A vegetable rack is best and never store potatoes in plastic bags.
Sow another crop in late summer, to mature in late autumn and you have a year of spuds. A home grown spud is as different from a supermarket cheapie as a backyard tomato is to a commercial tomato, or a pink marshmallow for that matter. There is also something deeply satisfying about digging for your dinner and having those racks or sackfuls in the shed or larder. Suddenly bare dirt turns into bounty, just like a dirt-encrusted spud turns into dinner.
This week I am:
* Remembering I haven’t yet ordered any seed potatoes
* Rejoicing: the first echium spires of the season are blooming!
* Comforting the banana grove, or at least comforting myself by remembering that the bananas have survived minus nine so should sprout again even after last night’s minus 7.5. I hope.
* Explaining to the wombats that the frost is not my fault, nor that of any human, but try saying ''normal seasonal variation'' to a hungry wombat
* Still picking and eating oranges
* And filling vases with old fashioned and stubbornly hardy scented ''straw'' jonquils
