Counting off by chanting "one potato, two potato, three potato, four" is a favorite way for children to choose team members for their games. It's also symbolic of how I choose veggies to plant in my garden once the weather warms up. I have my favorites, but it's a crapshoot selecting ones that will actually perform. Veggies must first come up rather than rot in the damp soil of an Oregon Spring. And after they emerge, they must somehow avoid becoming a tasty meal for the many local deer that stop off at my garden as part of their favorite lunchtime break.
This year, I'd like to grow potatoes. I love to eat them - baked, mashed, fried, roasted, in salads. In fact, I'll eat a potato almost any way except raw. But I've never succeeded growing the little buggers!
An email popped up in my inbox last week recommending I buy potato starts now for springtime planting. Springtime? Do I try again? Will an early start help? I will try again and report on my success or lack of success over the summer.
This lowly but lovely veggie has quite a history. What follows are some obscure facts about potatoes you may not know. *
- In the 15th century, potatoes were banned by the then current Pope, who called these starchy appendages "apples of love" and the "root of man's licentious and depraved moral behavior."
- A century later, potatoes were thought to cause leprosy and burned by "order of the crown" to protect citizens from "their base addiction and craving."
- Native to America, potatoes were eaten by the Incas as early as 3000 BC.
- The potato is a member - though a distant relative - of the deadly nightshade family.
- The potato we eat is neither a fruit nor a root of the potato plant; rather it's a portion of the underground stem.
- Potatoes are not fattening by themselves. It's what we add - butter, cream, mayonnaise - that packs on the pounds.
* Credit for this information goes to my favorite high calorie cookbook writer, Bert Greene, who wrote on potatoes in Greene on Greens. -Pat
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Buy a few bags of play yard sand at the local building supply store and mix it in with the soil you plant your potatoes in. They do well with Good Draining soil which we do not always have here. In fact, I have grown them virtually on top of the soil and they can do well if kept covered with lots of hay. Have to keep them out of the sunlight or they turn green. So add some sand and layer on the hay and perhaps you will be giving some away!!
ReplyDeleteHappy potatoes! Morgine