Growing potatoes in the Redlands can be tricky, as potatoes are a cool climate crop. This means they grow well in Australia’s the southern states, but don’t like our coastal humidity!

Potatoes starting to grow

In southern states potatoes are a summer crop because they are frost tender. If you want to grow potatoes in the Redlands, you need to plant them in autumn so that they grow through our winter. Any time from April to June is best as they take around 90 plus days to grow, multiply and produce a crop.

Which Variety?

First you have to decide which variety of potato that you want to grow. And this is where it starts to get interesting.

The great thing about growing your own potatoes is that you get to choose different varieties from those you buy in the supermarket. There are actually hundreds of different varieties of potatoes you can grow, providing you can get the seed potatoes!

I didn’t realise potatoes had suffered a similar fate to tomatoes. As you know, there is a huge difference in taste between the tomatoes you buy in the supermarket and the tomatoes you grow at home. Well the same thing can be said of potatoes and it kinda makes sense, if you think about it!

Potatoes we buy in the supermarket are chosen because they travel well, have thicker skin and can last a long time on the supermarket shelf while they are waiting to be bought! This can mean they are not the best from a flavour perspective, or even from a eating perspective.

While we get to choose between washed potatoes and brushed potatoes and maybe a few named varieties like Desiree or Kipfler, in the UK they have around 20 different named varieties available in their supermarkets!

And these varieties differ considerably in taste, colour and thickness of skin. They also suggest what recipes they enhance the most.

How do you want to use them?

You should choose your potato variety by what you want to do with them. For example if you want to make a great potato salad then you want a waxy potato like Bintje, Kipfler or Nicola. These potatoes hold their shape when they’re cooked, so they don’t crumble and become a watery mess!

If you want to make mashed spuds then you should choose a variety like Yukon gold, red rascal, Dutch cream or golden delight. These are “floury” and easily fall apart, making for a great mash. For a real difference why not try purple Congo, which gives you purple coloured mash. It’s great for an unusual coloured gnocchi.

Floury potatoes also make great baked spuds and potato chips, because they crisp up nicely on the outside but are soft and fluffy when you bite into them.

Seed potatoes

When you start learning about growing your own spuds, you will find a lot of advice about not using supermarket potatoes and how you need to use “seed” potatoes.

You can’t actually grow potatoes from a traditional seed, like carrots or beetroot and other root crops. Seed potatoes look just like little potatoes and that’s what they are! You can eat seed potatoes just like you eat normal potatoes. However, they are a bit more expensive at between $6 to $8 per kilo.

The big selling point for seed potatoes is they are guaranteed to be free of disease. Potatoes can suffer from a number of diseases which you don’t want to introduce into the soil in your garden. As I grow my potatoes in large buckets this is not a major concern. The only other benefit from using seed potatoes seems to be the different and more unusual varieties.

A big downside is that although we can buy more than 20 different varieties of potato to grow in our veggie patch, the potato growing industry is customized to the southern market. When I went online to find what potatoes I wanted to experiment with, all the seed companies say the seed potatoes aren’t available until the end of July!

There were some really interesting varieties, but planting them in August means you are looking at late November for harvesting and that’s really too late. If we get spring rains or a heat wave in August as happened in 2019 and 2020, there goes your crop!

Supermarket potatoes

You can also try growing potatoes from those that you buy in the supermarket or at the fruit and vegetable store.

When we get away from producers and supermarkets not wanting us to grow our own veggies, the main downside of using supermarket potatoes seems to be the potential disease.

Lots of websites claim that store-bought potatoes are sprayed with a chemical to deter sprouting. However I found very few references to this spraying happening in Australia, so I’m not sure how widespread this practice is. I’ve certainly had my share of potatoes sprout in the cupboard!

The general advice seems to be that if you can get it to sprout, then try growing it! The main problem to me is the lack of different varieties.

Buying seed potatoes

As I said, the seed potato business in geared toward the southern market and they don’t plant their potatoes until spring.

I was really looking forward to trying purple congo or royal blue or even Japanese sweet but these aren’t available until late July.

Growing Potatoes – the How?

The good news is that you don’t actually need a huge amount of space!

You can grow potatoes in pots, old garbage bins, plastic paint buckets with drainage holes added or specific grow-bags. I’m growing mine in some recycled paint buckets.

Paint bucket repurposed for growing potatoes

One thing that’s not recommended is to grow them in old tyres. This used to be quite trendy. However, research has shown heavy metals such as lead and zinc can leach out of the tyres into your potatoes.

The actual growing is quite easy although there is some preparation.

Chitting

It is recommended that you do a process called “chitting” for your spuds. All this means is to start the potato sprouting before you plant it. This makes sense to me as then you know that they are viable and going to grow!

To chit potatoes, place them in a warm, moist location for a couple of weeks and they should start to sprout. The sprouts grow from the “eyes” of the potato. You only need a few eyes on each potato to sprout, so remove the others and keep only the strong sprouts.

Chitted Golden Dream potatoes

Keep the potatoes separated while they are sprouting. An old egg container is great for this as you can use the lid to keep the potatoes warm and dark.

While your potatoes are Chitting, choose your container.

Also, at this point, choose your location. Potatoes like full sun in our winter.

Planting

When your potatoes have started to sprout (sprout formation can take 2 – 3 weeks). Grab your container or grow bag and put a several centimetres of compost in the bottom. If you don’t have home-made compost, you can use a premium potting mix. Want to know how to make your own compost? Check this link Compost Bins: Composting Tips for your garden

Place two to three of the sprouted potatoes on top of the compost. You need to take care when handling the potatoes, being careful not to damage the sprouts.

Place the potatoes so the sprout is pointing upward. If you have several sprouts that have grown either carefully remove the excess or else carefully cut the potato into pieces and plant each piece. Plant the cut side down and it should heal and not rot out.

Carefully cover the potato and sprout with around 10 centimetres of compost or potting mix.

As the potato shoots grow, you keep adding compost until the container is full. It’s this continual heaping up that encourages the plant to grow more potatoes. You should get around 10 potatoes for each sprouted potato you plant.

Make sure that you only use really well composted compost or potting mix. Potatoes hate coming into contact with green manures as this can encourage disease.

Water and fertilising potatoes

Potatoes require quite a lot of water to grow big, juicy spuds, so remember to water regularly. For the first week or so go a bit light in the watering, but as the plants grow they need a fair amount of water.

If you want to fertilise, use composted chook poo as this has all the nutrients your growing potatoes will need.

Pests

Potatoes can attract pests so keep an eye out for any leaf damage.

You need to check your potatoes for any of these pests regularly, as they can do significant damage almost overnight. This will seriously impact how many potatoes you get to harvest. The main pests to look out for are the black beetle, potato/peach aphid, potato tuber moth, cluster caterpillar and nematodes.

The best method of treatment is to remove any beetles or caterpillars you find and spray the plants with eco pest oil. Even better, encourage beneficial insects to do the work for you. Want to know more? Good Bugs for the Vegetable Garden

There is also a new pest called the tomato/potato psyllids. These are sap sucking insects and you need to control these using eco pest oil.

Harvesting potatoes

After about 3 months the leaves of your potato plant will go yellow and start to die back. At this point your potatoes are ready to harvest.

By growing them in a bucket or grow bag you can harvest them just by tipping the container on its side and dumping out the contents.

Store in a cool dark place. If potatoes are exposed to sunlight they will develop green patches under the skin. This is caused by a glycoalkaloid called Solanine which can make you sick in large doses.

Potatoes just harvested

Sweet potatoes

You can grow sweet potatoes, particularly the orange kumara using a similar technique, except you don’t need to heap up the compost. I would recommend confining them to a bucket or large bin though as they can become quite invasive.

The post The How-to of Growing Potatoes appeared first on Delectable Garden.

In Brisbane we grow a fabulous range of vegetables throughout winter. These include lettuce, bok choy, eggplants, tomatoes, kale and most leafy green vegetables.

I was planting up my vegetable garden the other day in time for winter and was planting some more red veined sorrel. It’s really attractive, and adds colour to the garden. As I was removing the seedling from its pot I noticed the label described red veined sorrel as a “Superfood”.

Now I must admit that I have been noticing quite a few vegetables labelled as Superfood in the nursery lately. So I decided to find out what exactly what this constituted a superfood.

You probably won’t be surprised to know that there are lots of conflicting opinions of what exactly constituted a superfood.

General consensus was that superfood is a marketing term to describe a food that is nutrient dense. This means that they contain lots of vitamins and minerals. They also contain lots of micronutrients such as anthocyanins and lycopenes. Researchers are discovering that many micronutrients are instrumental in helping to protect us from cancer. They also work at protecting us from many age-related illnesses.

Most green leafy vegetables are considered a superfood, as are many herbs and fruits.

In fact I would go as far as to say, if you can grow it and eat it, it is a superfood! Many processed foods have empty nutrient foods like sugar added to them. This dilutes the nutrient value of the food.

Processing, especially with lots of heat destroys nutrients. Also, removing layers such as peeling vegetables, removes a lot of nutirents which are then discarded. Food manufacturers add back many synthetic vitamins and minerals to replace those remove during processing. But what about the nutrients we have yet to discover are in the raw foods that may be good for our health?

I think it’s a sad indictment on our lifestyles and current way of life that we have to relabel foods fresh from nature as superfoods!

Let us know what you think in the comments area below.

The post Superfoods – Eating foods as nature intended? appeared first on Delectable Garden.

Visitors to my garden are often surprised to see my lettuce, mizuna and other veggies flowering and going to seed at the end of the season.

Why don’t you just rip them out they ask?

Lettuce in flower

Well, one of the reasons is that vegetables flower and provide a great food source for my native bees and other beneficial insects! They actually help to attract these beneficial insects into my garden!

Beneficial insects are great because they will attack and eat the bad bugs likely to be feasting on your veggies.

Besides, as a bonus, I get new seeds that are totally adapted to their environment. This means that they grow quicker, are more resistant to pests and diseases and taste better!

Lettuce seeds on the plant

Most importantly, I know that the vegetable seeds haven’t been coated in any fungicides or pesticides. This means they are organic and just as nature intended!

At the moment I am on my sixth generation of mignonette lettuces. The lettuces continue to happily self-seed in the vegetable garden and adjacent path. Therefore all I have to do is give them the occasional water, some organic fertiliser and then I get to pick the leaves as I need them!

Mignonette lettuce seedlings

The mignonette lettuces seem to be almost totally immune to any pests or diseases. And they taste so much better than anything you can buy in the shops!

So, why don’t you experiment on letting some of your vegetables flower and develop seeds for your garden?

You too can benefit from growing your own seeds and vegetables that have become conditioned to your natural environment!

Happy gardening

Rohanne, your Personal Garden Expert

The post Should I let vegetables flower and set seed? How to save seeds for next year’s garden appeared first on Delectable Garden.

I have recently pondered the question of whether people realise how important soil preparation is?

What raised this question is that I have been watching a new garden being established in the neighbourhood. And it made me realise that a lot of people don’t understand the need for good soil preparation before transplanting their plants.

The small amount of mulch!

The garden in question sits in full sun, and I have watched a number of rose bushes struggle and eventually die in the garden. So I was interested to see it cleared and weeded recently.

As part of the soil preparation, the soil was broken up and a fine layer of sugar cane mulch was added over the top. But this seemed to be only about a centimetre deep. I’m hoping that some fertiliser was added. No other organic matter seems to have been added to prepare the soil apart from the sugar cane mulch (see photo).

The garden was then planted with several tomatoes bushes. Chances are not great for the tomato plants to provide a bountiful crop!

The soil looks pretty dry and compacted. It will probably be lacking both oxygen and worms, not to mention water!

What you need to grow things successfully is healthy, friable (i.e. non-compacted) soil. Generally if your soil is healthy, your plants will be healthy too.

To get healthy soil, you need good soil preparation. This means plenty of organic matter in the soil. Organic matter is a nice way of saying you need dead and decaying plant materials, as these provide the necessary nutrients to the plants.

The more organic matter you can add to your soil the better! Without organic material, your soil won’t have worms or

Planted tomato seedlings

beneficial bacteria and it will be depleted of vital nutrients. Organic matter also helps your soil retain water to help your plants grow.

You can add good organic matter to your soil by adding some home-made or commercial compost, mushroom compost or even manure to your soil. This needs to be topped with organic mulches like sugar cane mulch.

You can also put layers of lawn clippings directly on your garden. However, you need to be careful where you put these grass clippings as they can create quite a lot of heat as they decompose and break down. And they can cook any plants that they may be too near.

You may wonder why I haven’t passed this information on to the neighbour in question? However previous attempts at conversation have not been successful. (I tried to offer some advice for the poor roses, which could have thrived in that position with a little TLC). Aren’t you happy that I don’t live too close!

Happy gardening 🙂

from Rohanne, your Personal Garden Expert

Related posts

Why is Soil pH important for plant growth?

Save

Save

The post Importance of soil preparation appeared first on Delectable Garden.

Save

Save

The post Planting the Veggie Garden appeared first on Delectable Garden.

I know I have!

It turns out that there is a really simple way of separating Herbs and Spices.

Basil is a Herb

Generally speaking a Herb is the green parts of the plant, and its mainly the leaves that are used.

A Spice is generally the berries, fruits, pods, bark and stems of the plant.

So Herbs are plants whose leaves we use such as basil, sage, thyme and even stevia. Meanwhile cinnamon, allspice and nutmeg are all spices.

Both herbs and spices can be dried, but most spices are used only when they are dried.

Herbs and Spices

Most herbs are better when used when they are as fresh as possible. Some of the essential oils that make them so valued in cooking can be lost during the drying process. They are often best added toward the end of the cooking process so that you don’t lose the essential oils and thus the flavour. There are exceptions to this rule, like with fresh rosemary which is added early on in the cooking process as it is fairly woody.

As a generalisation, spices are added at the start of the cooking process so the flavour can infuse through during cooking.

So, what is the difference between a herb and a vegetable?

A herb is used in small quantities to add flavour to a food, whereas a vegetable is used in larger quantities as part of the substance of the dish.

By this definition a vegetable can sometimes be a herb, or vice versa. For example, wild rocket used in a pesto is a herb, but used in a Rocket, Pear and Parmesan salad is a salad vegetable. Confused? I hope not!

Rocket

Below I have included one of my favourite recipes using the herb Rocket as a vegetable. I hope that you enjoy it!

Rocket, Pear and Parmesan salad

2 firm pears, cored and thinly sliced
Juice of 1 Lemon
125g baby rocket leaves, washed
2 tablespoons pine nuts, toasted
1/4 cup olive oil
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
Salt and pepper to taste
1/4 cup shaved parmesan

Method: Sprinkle the pears with a little lemon juice to prevent them browning. To make the dressing, combine the olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and cracked black pepper in a jar and shake well to combine. In a large bowl mix the rocket, sliced pear, pine nuts and dressing and gently toss to combine. Transfer to a serving bowl and top with shaved parmesan. Serve

Happy gardening 🙂

Rohanne, your Personal Gardening Expert

The post Herbs and Spices: The Difference appeared first on Delectable Garden.