Our Patriotic Potatoes

One thing I haven't personally grown yet (successfully) is potatoes.  I tried planting cut-up pieces when I was little, but the pill bugs (rollie pollies, of course!) ate them all. I haven't tried to plant them since then, as I was too busy planting their cousins (tomatoes) and other scrumptious plants.

That's all changing this year.  My best friend and I have decided to grow some potatoes.  It's especially fun since he's from Idaho, land of spuds. I have had some fresh from the ground there and it was pure heaven.

We're going to be growing them in potato condos.  I heard about them first from my friends the Shibaguyz and fell instantly in love with the name.  Over at Living Homegrown Fresh, Theresa has put up a wonderful post all about potato condos, including links on how to build them.

We pored over catalogs and websites, trying to figure out which varieties we wanted to grow.  Late varieties are reported to work best in potato condos, so that narrowed down the field.

In the end, we bought our seed potatoes from the Seed Savers Exchange. The three varieties we are going to grow are:

• All Blue - Dark blue skin and blue flesh.  Quite stunning.
• All Red - Same as the blue, but it's all red instead.  A bit unsure about this one - some say it's a mid variety, some late.  It will be an experiment.
• German Butterball - here's the white one.  It's said to be a good all-around potato.  Even won an award from Rodale!

I can't wait to see how our patriotic potatoes do in the potato condos.  Have you grown potatoes?  Have you built a potato condo?  Share how your harvest went!

Photo by Lawrence Farmers' Market via Flickr