It’s potato planting time in the garden, and I’m sowing a rainbow of possibilities. I’ve been experimenting with potato culture for a few years now, and I think I’m closing in on perfection. My requirements are high: I need flavorful varieties, multi-purpose eco-friendly techniques, and good yields. I grew and harvested every color of potato from last summer’s garden, and in the process I also revitalized three of my worst garden beds. The harvest encompassed four distinct varieties of fingerlings with colors ranging from red to yellow to violet. I chose them for their diversity, their stories, their flavors, and their reputation for disease resistance and good yields. I planted them in my worst, most compacted soils. The results were pleasantly surprising.

Growing potatoes is a great way to produce a substantial meal from your garden. Potatoes serve a multi-functional role in the garden rotation, smothering weeds as you hill them up, loosening compacted soil with their tenacious roots and tubers, and providing you with an opportunity to deeply amend your soil when you dig them at harvest time. Grocery store potatoes are limited in quality and variety, but if you grow your own potatoes you can choose from many different size, color, and flavor options. By producing more substantial meals from our own gardens, we can reduce our food miles, which reduces our carbon footprints and our oil consumption. Locally produced food helps to build stronger, more resilient communities when we share or trade the bounty with our friends and neighbors.

The Growing Method

My gardening style is heavily influenced by my general shortage of free time, and my strong desire to leave the land better than I found it. On the one hand, I have no time for fussy plants that need to be pruned regularly, kept weed-free, or heaven forbid, sprayed. I need plants that are scrappy. I will do my best to give my plants a decent start, but then I need nature to do most of the work from there. On the other hand, I look for the most sustainable growing methods possible. I want to build soil rather than break it. I want to live lightly on the land. I want to nurture vast civilizations of healthy microbes and complex ecosystems of bugs and birds and to support the great diversity of live that exists in this part of the world. And I want to feed my human community. It’s a tall order.

I play to my strengths by planting potatoes in March, before summer explodes and my workload grows too demanding. Potatoes are cold hardy and frost tolerant. It’s okay to plant them later in the spring, but planting early allows me to spread out my workload over many months. Come May, I’ll be busy planting tomatoes, peppers, squashes, and other heat-lovers, and I’ll be glad that my potatoes are already growing.

I get the most out of my work by stacking functions in all ways possible. Digging is a major effort, and it creates a potential for erosion. So if I’m digging, I want it to really matter. I want to get multiple benefits out of that digging, so that I can do it as infrequently as possible. It so happens that I have a dozen raised beds that were originally filled with local topsoil. That soil was cheap and available by the truckload when I started this garden in 2020. It performed well at first, but the clay soil didn’t stay fertile for long in the raised beds. Six years later, it’s hard as a brick and yields have plummeted and that soil desperately needs to be refreshed. One by one, I’m transforming these beds into hugelkultur gardens filled with logs, manure, compost, and just a two-inch layer of topsoil. Over time, these hugelkutur beds will break down into nearly 100% compost, sequestering carbon and transforming the victims of the Emerald Ash Borer into fertile new life. I’m repurposing the original topsoil filling to enrich and expand the in-ground garden beds, so nothing will be wasted. Since the potato harvest process necessitates digging up soil in the bed anyway, I decided to plant potatoes in the beds I most wanted to dig up and transform. Now keep in mind, these are my worst raised beds. That’s why I need to overhaul them. So I knew I wouldn’t be able to expect the highest possible yields from anything I planted in these beds. Still, I hoped I would get a decent harvest of potatoes, and still be able to stack functions by harvesting potatoes at the same time I’m digging up garden beds that I want to dig up anyway.

I planted potatoes in three of these topsoil-filled raised beds, amended with some compost, in March. After they sprouted and grew to 8″, I packed 6 inches of half-rotten straw densely around the plants. The straw is also multi-purpose, since I first use the bales to block wind around my bee hives during the winter months, before using the straw in the garden the following spring, and then eventually turning it into compost.

I experienced a few hiccups in my ideal plan, but such is life in the garden. First, my irrigation tubes got clogged and stopped watering the potatoes for quite a while before I noticed the problem. This likely reduced yield. I also missed my chance for a second hilling, due to my busy life. For planting stock, I re-planted potatoes that I saved from the previous year’s harvest. That’s not officially recommended by any garden-gurus, because it can carry diseases from year to year. To reduce the risk of building up disease pressure, I always inspect my plants judiciously for signs of trouble. I’ve never seen any serious diseases on my potato plants, nor have I noticed reduced yield over time from saving my own potato seed. If your plants suffer from any serious diseases (especially late blight), you should not re-plant potatoes from those plants. But since my potato plants have always been relatively healthy, I save my own seed potatoes and I really enjoy being in control of my own seed potato supply.

Potato Variety Comparison

Let’s compare stats for all four potato varieties. We’ll look at their yields, their harvest types, storage types, and more.

	Magic Molly	Zoe	Ozette Macah	French Fingerling
Type	Fingerling	Fingerling	Fingerling	Fingerling
Color	Blue-Purple all the way through	Red-Pink all the way through	Yellow	Red outside, yellow inside with some pink streaks
Season	Late	Early	Late	Late
Keeping	Long	Short	Long	Short
Seed Source	Urban Farmer	Saved from last year’s harvest, but originally from Irish Eyes	Saved from last year’s harvest, but originally from Irish Eyes	Saved from last year’s harvest, but originally from Irish Eyes
Garden Space	4’x4′ Square	4’x4′ Square	4’x4′ Square	4’x4′ Square
Pounds Planted	2	0.5	0.5	0.75
Pounds Harvested	2.5 (+ 0.5)	4.5 (+ 4)	3.2 (+ 2.7)	2.75 (+ 2)

Yield Analysis

My best yielding variety was Zoe, and the others all yielded decently. Keep in mind, I planted them in my worst beds with the worst soils. Potatoes are heavy feeders, and I think all these potatoes would have benefitted from receiving more compost than I gave them. This year, I’m working harder on bed preparation before planting my potatoes. Though I’m again using the worst of my remaining beds, I’m preparing them better by adding extra compost and loosening the soil with a broad fork before planting. I’ll be generous with additional organic fertilizer applications throughout the summer, and vigilant about my irrigation system, and I think this will increase yields dramatically. Given the circumstances, I’m happy with the yields I got from last year’s garden, and plan to grow all these varieties again.

My worst yielding potato was Magic Molly, but I think I know why. Firstly, this potato was planted later than the others. While I planted Zoe, Ozette Macah, and French Fingerling in March from seed potatoes I saved from the previous year’s garden, Magic Molly was a new variety that I ordered from Urban Farmer. The seed potatoes arrived almost a month later than my preferred planting date, so they missed out on some of the spring rains that helped the other varieties get off to a strong start. I also planted them whole, though they were quite a bit larger than my other seed potatoes. I thought that by planting a larger piece, I’d get more vigorous plants. It didn’t work that way. Next time, I’ll cut larger potatoes into smaller pieces and spread them around a larger area. I think that will make a big difference in yield. Though I planted a greater weight of Magic Molly potatoes compared to the other varieties, all four varieties grew in the same size space (4’x4′ for each variety).

Potato Variety Taste Test

There are a lot of good reasons to grow a garden. One of mine is that I love good food. I want to eat food that is grown for enjoyment and flavor and health and vitality, not for industry. So let’s explore the flavor profiles of all these different potatoes.

Cooking Method

All potatoes were scrubbed clean, skins left on, sliced into quarters lengthwise, rubbed with avocado oil and sprinkled with sea salt. They were roasted in the oven at 375 degrees until soft in the middle and crispy on the outside. The cooking time varied based on the size of the potato piece, so I lifted the baking sheet out of the oven a few times to remove the smaller ones and then returned the sheet to the oven to allow the bigger pieces to finish roasting.

Magic Molly Potato

Magic Molly is a beautiful deep blue-violet color through and through. The flavor is rich and bold and very earthy. It tastes like a potato first and foremost, but there’s a hint of something extra, something like a beet or chard flavor. They were excellent roasted, with soft fluffy insides. The texture is between floury and waxy. There’s something extremely satisfying about this potato. It feels like a whole hearty meal in itself. This was my first time growing Magic Molly. I’ll definitely grow these again because of the strikingly beautiful color and the unique flavor, and I bet the yield will improve under better growing conditions. In future experiments, I’d like to explore how these would taste stewed, steamed, and boiled.

French Fingerling Potato

This was my second year growing French Fingerlings. This is a resilient, strong variety that survived extreme neglect in the summer I got tendinitis, and yielded pretty well even in the sub-par experimental conditions of last summer. Of all the varieties I have grown, this is the most delicious roasting potato. It has a complex savory flavor with a hint of sweetness, and the texture is decadent and creamy, even without any butter. It has an exquisite “roasted potato” fragrance that absolutely fills the house with appetizing aroma. I can’t imagine my garden without this potato. Best spuds for life! I’ll pamper this one with plenty of compost and water and straw next time, in hopes of bolstering yields. This variety is worth some extra effort for it’s unbeatable flavor and texture.

Zoe Potato

Zoe is a stunningly beautiful potato variety, with a bright pink-red color all the way through. When roasted, its texture floats somewhere between waxy and floury, but it’s more creamy than Magic Molly. The flavor is complex and interesting. I can’t think of anything to compare it to. It’s a flavor all unique to this beautiful potato. Zoe has been the best yielding potato in my garden two years in a row. It’s no longer being carried by any of my usual suppliers. This was my second generation of Zoe, originally sourced from Irish Eyes Garden Seeds. I’ll try to carry it forward as long as possible. If anything ever happens to my saved seed potatoes, I will definitely be sad to lose this one. I hope the garden catalogs bring it back.

Ozette Macah Potato

Ozette Macah has a long and storied past. Stewarded for centuries by the indigenous Macah Tribe near Neah Bay, Washington, this shapely yellow fingerling was inducted into the Ark of Taste project in 2005. These are the potatoes I wrote about in my article, “The Fairy Spuds”¹. They were extremely tiny that year, but they are on the small side in the best of times. That can be a really good thing for certain uses, though, and the yield by weight was second best in the bunch. This potato has great flavor and a very rich and interesting history. It’s a tough, tenacious plant that has proven it can persist through challenging times. This was my second generation of Ozette Macah. The flavor is complex and rich, with just a touch of sweetness. The texture is waxy and lovely. I think it would make an amazing potato salad or potato soup. I will definitely grow this one again.

The Control : Grocery Store Yellow Potatoes

To anchor me back into the modern world of mass-produced industrial food, I also roasted up some “yellow” potatoes from the grocery store. They were Yukon Gold or a similar cultivar; the bag didn’t specify which variety. They were labeled organic. These are my regular go-to potatoes, my favorite ones available from the store. Normally I really enjoy them, but in this case I tasted them last, after I had just tasted all my home grown varieties. What struck me the most was how simple and sweet the flavor was. There was little complexity, and not much structure. The water content was very high, leaving them feeling thin on my tongue after the more substantial textures of the home grown varieties. This tasting experience made me want to build a root cellar PRONTO so I can eat my home grown potatoes year-round and never go back to this grocery store potato, which is usually my favorite potato. Warning to new gardeners: gardening totally spoils you for regular modern food.

Deepening The Practice

I have several more tired, compacted raised beds to renovate, and I’ll plant potatoes in some of those remaining beds this spring. But I think it’s worth investing more effort into preparing those beds before planting the potatoes, to hopefully increase the bounty of the harvest. One of the things I’m changing this year is that I’m broad forking the beds before planting. A broad fork is a manual garden tool that you operate by leveraging your body weight. You step on a long horizontal bar that then drives multiple vertical tines several inches deep into the soil. It does not disrupt the soil layers, like a tiller does, and unlike a tiller, it preserves most of the mycorrhizal fungal networks inside the soil. It does a great job of aerating the soil and creating pathways for water, nutrients, and roots to travel into the deeper layers, while minimizing the potential for erosion compared to other methods of soil disturbance.

I’m also increasing the amount of compost I’m adding to the beds at planting time. I’m adding three bags of mushroom compost per 8×4 bed. I also plan to side dress with some vegan-organic nutrient boosters this year, such as kelp meal and alfalfa meal. And of course, I’ll keep a sharp eye on that irrigation system and be generous with the straw mulch.

One last thing I’m adding to my potato garden this year is a larger baking potato. I’ve been growing fingerling potatoes exclusively, because I can’t buy them at the store and I love their gourmet flavors, but I’m interested in growing more staple foods in the garden this year. My hope is that the addition of Kennebec potatoes will help me produce more pounds of nutritious home-grown potatoes to fill more of my daily potato requirements.

All things considered, I count last year’s potato garden as a big success, and I hope for an even bigger bounty this summer. I find potatoes to be a pretty forgiving crop, reliably producing at least some yield even in the worst of circumstances. However, if you’re interested in growing an even more reliably abundant tuber with even less work, and you have a large space where a native perennial can roam free, consider Sunchokes (aka Jerusalem Artichokes). You can read more about them in my article, “The Winner Among The Weeds”².

Connections

If you enjoyed this article, it would mean the world to me if you left a comment below saying so. I also invite you to use the comments to ask potato-related questions, share relevant stories from your life, or suggest your favorite potato varieties. I invite you to connect in community with like-minded gardeners by posting in the comments section below.

For Further Reading

1. The Fairy Spuds ↩︎
2. The Winner Among The Weeds ↩︎

The Fairy Spuds
The Potato Box
Growing In Place : How To Spot Bad Garden Advice Before It Spoils Your Harvest
Native Plant Foods in Indiana Culture