Russian Banana fingerling potatoes from just one plant!I'm bad. Has it really been over a month since I last updated my blog?! I won't launch into a bunch of excuses...they all apply!
Today, besides picking blueberries and blackberries, I dug a few more potatoes. This year I planted 5 varieties: French Fingerling, Russian Banana (also a fingerling), Red Gold, Shepody, and Yukon Gold. They were all from seed potatoes which I saved from last year.
In recent years I've been planting my potatoes a little later than most people do because I've found that I don't have the problem with Colorado potato beetles that I do when they're planted early. For some odd reason, probably over-exuberance, I planted my potatoes all on April 23rd this year, about a month earlier than I have been. And of course my plants were covered with CPBs. I was a bit dismayed to find that my new chickens don't seem to find CPBs as tasty as I was expecting them to. They rather acted like a child being force-fed chopped liver.
At any rate, the potatoes all survived and the earlier varieties are now in the process of dying back, indicating that they're ready to be dug. Several days ago I dug a few Yukon Gold and all the Red Gold. Harvest was pretty decent, but never quite what I expect, or rather, hope.
Today I noticed one of my Russian Banana potatoes had died back, so dug that one. Russian Bananas have tan skin and a yellow, waxy flesh, and like most fingerlings, are considered a "gourmet" treat. I was pleasantly surprised when I dug into that "nest" of fingerlings; I've never seen so many from one plant! I planted one average-size Russian Banana and ended up with 48 (not counting the very tiny ones) fingerlings. Quite a haul!
Now, if I could just figure out how to get the rest of my potatoes to produce on that scale! Can you imagine digging up 48 of ANY kind of potatoes from one plant?
