Caribe
Potatoes are a cool season crop and they're challenging to grow in the Kihei climate. I've planted them in the late fall, winter and spring. So far, my best results were from the December plantings.
Last fall I purchased 5 varieties of organic seed potatoes from Potato Garden - Caribe, Purple Viking, All Blue, Yukon Gold and Yellow Finn.
All Blue - Just Planted
I planted them in 15 gallon Smart Pots during the last week of December. Potato Garden provides instructions on how to cut and plant the potato pieces. You can also find planting advice and photos on the Love Apple Farm website. http://www.growbetterveggies.com/growbetterveggies/potatoes/
All Blue at 40 Days
The plants need full sun in order to grow well and produce edible size potatoes. Cutting back the stalks that grow from the seed potato pieces reduces the number of potatoes and increases the size. If you want to grow medium size potatoes remove all but 2 stalks.
Caribe and Yukon Gold
30 days
Around 35 days, the Caribe started to flower- it's the only variety I've grown so far that produces flowers. After 60 days, all the plants began collapsing at the same time as the temps were back in to the 90's. I stopped watering the pots and harvested the potatoes this week at 70 days. All together my potato harvest was over 15 lbs from 5 lbs of seed potatoes.
Purple Viking, Yellow Finn, All Blue,
Caribe, Yukon Gold
The Caribe, Purple Viking and Yukon Gold are early varieties - they produce a medium size potato in about 60 days. The All Blue and Yellow Fin are mid-season and need closer to 80 days to grow to a medium size. At 60 days, the All Blue grew into a beautiful small potato but the Yellow Finn grew to only "new potato" size.
I haven't been successful with any of the late season varieties like the Fingerlings as they need a longer period of cooler weather than we have in Kihei
Seed potato suppliers that will ship to Hawaii:
This is a lovely salad and unfortunately. there are no photos online with the recipe. I'll add a photo the next time I make it. It's faster to make the salad with 4 ring molds but ring molds retail for at least $10 each and aren't an everyday item in most kitchens. The salads can be made individually with just one 3 or 4 in. ring mold.
That must be one challenging crop in your area. But you can grow spinach so you I'm not surprised you can find some potatoes that can grow there too.
ReplyDeleteHi Daphne! I think it's because I don't give up that easily - potatoes are really temperamental that's for sure!
ReplyDeleteThose blue potatoes look beautiful.
ReplyDeleteYou inspire me to grow potatoes in Smart Pot.
I have been wanting to grow some potatoes, but I don't want to dig trenches and "hill up" as they grow. A cloth pot seems to be the answer, can you reuse the pots again?
Hi Mac! The Smart Pots are really sturdy and I use them again and again. They're great for growing potatoes as you can fold the edge over and then roll it up as you add more soil. The Smart Pots were recommended by Gardener's Supply for growing potatoes - there are photos and other information about using them on their website. The All Blue were the most uniform in shape and size of all the potatoes I grew this winter.
ReplyDeleteThat's a great picture of the All Blues. Thanks for posting it to our Facebook page. Ronniger Potato Farm.
ReplyDeleteHi Craig! I'm so glad you liked the photo of your All Blue potatoes! They are really tasty too!
ReplyDelete