The Potato Garden: A Growers Guide
by By Oster, Maggie and Ehlers, Lesley (ILT)
Category: Gardening , General

Here is the first and only book devoted exclusively to cultivating the world's most widely grown vegetable - the potato. For the home gardener, few pursuits can be more rewarding than growing this perenially popular plant: The potato proffers a prodigious harvest - one 20-foot-square plot can yield over 400 pounds of spuds! Besides providing tasty tubers, however, potato plants will also add beauty to any plot with their lush, dark green leaves and lovely white flowers. For both beginning and experienced gardeners it's the perfect addition to a vegetable garden.More than a growing manual, The Potato Garden is the ultimate guide to potato culture. Chapter One serves up the history of the potato and is heaped with tuber trivia, such as the spud's South American origins, its voyage to Europe, and subsequent success on supper tables around the world. Later chapters offer invaluable hands-on information on how to create a potato plot that will thrive from early summer through late autumn, and include step-by-step instructions on selecting and preparing a planting site; preparing seed potatoes and slips; planting, watering, and feeding; pest prevention and control; harvesting; and storage. Alternative planting methods, such as deep mulch, specialized potato binds, and even ornamental containers, complete the range of cultivation options. And, since all of the growing methods are organic, potato planters can avoid harmful pesticides and enjoy a healthy and delicious harvest.The centerpiece of The Potato Garden is the Potato Portfolio packed with complete portraits of over 200 potatoes - virtually every variety that will grow in an American garden! From pint-size Peruvians to bulky ldahos, from mellow to tangy to fruity-tasting tubers, each spud encompasses a spectacular spectrum. Here are 'Fenton Blue,' an heirloom variety from Maine with purple skin and appealing blue flesh; 'Cherries Jubilee,' a tasty new variety that is irresistibly rosy outside and delicately pale pink inside; 'Desiree,' a popular European variety with a sultry, fullbodied taste well-suited to baking and boiling; 'Anna Cheeka's Ozette' named for a Peruvian tribe; and 'Butte,' unusually high in both vitamin C and protein. Readers can choose the best keepers, broilers, bakers, mashers, fryers, steamers and roasters to cultivate.Finally, an extensive Sources section lists local and mail-order potato purveyors, vendors of potato paraphernalia and organic gardening supplies, potato councils, boards, associations and even a potato museum!Sure to appeal to both the potato gardener and the cook, The Potato Garden should be on every spud lover's shelf.