It’s easy to overlook the humble potato. Its more popular cousins, tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant, often steal the show with their bold colors and flavors. What a beautiful Brandywine! What hot habaneros!

What a lot of nonsense! These high-maintenance beauties are high-stress all growing season long. Critters, drought, disease — Every year, there’s a new nemesis determined to thwart my summer salads and salsas.

Fie upon you, blossom end rot!

Truth be told, taters are hardiest veggie in my garden. Hardworking and low-maintenance, they just need a deep hole, decent garden soil and some sun. There’s no guessing games about ripeness. When the plant starts to yellow, grab a shovel and dig up dozen of the tastiest taters you’ve ever put on your plate… (Well, as long as the Colorado potato beetles stay in someone else’s garden.)

You can find a limited selection of seed potatoes at your favorite local nursery. If you’re a fan of fingerlings or heirlooms, you’ll have better luck online. I have a few extras, so if you’d like to try a spud or two, send an email to greengirls@startribune.com.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 23rd, 2008 at 11:17 am and is filed under Potatoes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.