Jest Another Day in Pear-A-Dice - Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm in Alberta

[drumstick diva]

Never knew potatoes came in so many colors

 

[getaclue]

Tara, you don't have nearly the number of potatoes as last year, but you still got a decent crop of them. I don't see any sweet potatoes. Are they harder to grow, or do you just not like them? Your babies are growing fast, but still so adorable.

 

[drumstick diva]

Well Tara, don't you like sweet potatoes???? The world wants to know I love them with marshmallows and brown sugar.

 

[Akrnaf2]

Never knew potatoes came in so many colors

@drumstick diva this is for you!

Read this
http://www.raisingmiro.com/2012/04/23/4000-types-of-potatoes-in-peru/

 

[CanuckBock]

Heel low:

Four year anniversary here on BYC...strange? Seems like only yesterday I was being nagged to join up and here it is four years flow by. Must be having a fun life, eh?

Haven't seen any zombie Flamingoes out my way. But, it's only 40's F outside , I don't think even zombies would enjoy that.

Yikes DD...close to freezing...you better stay in and even if zombies were out and about, you're safer inside!


One day, some day...there will be zombie Flamingoes here...there will be!

Tara
This for you
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fennel
View attachment 1168498
The parsley root is the root of the parsley plant Petroselinum crispum
View attachment 1168496
It look like a parsnip, but it isn't.
Kohlrabi
View attachment 1168502
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kohlrabi
And if I can find it, I use Celery root too!
View attachment 1168503

I went looking for different veg. It IS vividly apparent why I have never used parsley root, fennel, kohlrabi or celery root. They are not easily available here!

That said, I'll get more serious and see if there is a veg market at one of the bigger centers/cities. I am thinking without the turn over of a larger population, you'd not see these special vegetables on offer.

I would love to taste this wonderful varieties!
What is the preferred culinary usage for each variety?

I will like to taste these varieties too. Have to wait another year for that though. I ate some when my son visited--just boiled them, but now the ones I photographed are all destined for seed for 2018.


I put the seed potatoes in paper bags and into a cart for temporary storage in the garage. Will need to find a mouse proof but breathable container to store the paper bags in...I am quite frustrated with the amount of potatoes the voles harvested. And as with all varmits...lots of the bitten and eaten potatoes were the Russian Blues and the All Reds...GRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!! Both these are late season types, so never really truly large but to lose them to varmits like voles...

Here's some info I have gathered on the varieties I grew for seed this year. Not for eating, to make more to plant in 2018...now that's planning...I buy seed potatoes, plant it, AND harvest it for seed for 2018! Be just a year in the works before I even plant them for eating. So two year game plan!


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Potatoes
early – 60 days
mid season – 90 days
late – 120 days
measured from the time of planting until harvest

https://www.westcoastseeds.com/shop/seasonal/russian-blue-organic/
Late season. Russian Blue Organic seed potatoes are CERTIFIED ORGANIC. Dark purple skin on round to oblong tubers, plants are very heavy setting so give them more room in the row. It withstands dry conditions better than most. Russian Blue’s texture is much like a russet, so they are good to bake or mash, cook as French fry or even make into chips, but they also can be steamed or boiled. Roasting or grilling the halves will actually darken the colour and is most recommended, as the mild flavour needs help with herbs and seasonings.

Moderately resistant to late blight, hollow heart, second growth, shatter bruise, PVA, PVM, PVX, PVS. Susceptible to PVLR, PVY, common scab, bacterial ring rot, and black leg.


https://www.seedpotatoes.ca/product/russian-blue/
Russian Blue - late season
Description
This late maturing, dark blue skin and flesh variety has round to oblong tubers. A very heavy setting, large plant that should be spaced at 12 inches or more in an effort to get it to maturity by fall. The flavor is remarkably normal for such a distinctively visual variety.



https://www.seedpotatoes.ca/product/dakota-pearl/
Dakota Pearl - mid season
Description
One of the best uses for this potato is making chips. It has a pale yellow skin and white flesh. Dakota Pearl also has a good resistance to scab. Also a great storage potato.

http://www.parklandseedpotatoes.com/varieties/chipping/dakota-pearl-11#sthash.0Q9i0HZh.dpbs
The Dakota Pearl has a smooth, white skin and a white flesh. It has medium sized round tubers with shallow eyes. Although originally intended for potato chip processing because it has excellent chipping qualities, the Dakota Pearl has also become a very popular fresh variety in the "round white" market. It is an early maturing variety which produces a high number of tubers. It has a high dry matter content and its cooking type is floury. (The Dakota Pearl was developed at North Dakota State University)


https://www.seedpotatoes.ca/product/eramosa/
Eramosa - Early
Description
Eramosa is our only early white variety this year and produces a reasonably high yield for an early season potato. Eramosa was originally selected right here in Canada at the Guelph Potato Program in 1970. Great for boiling baking.



https://www.seedpotatoes.ca/product/pink-fir-apple/
Pink Fir Apple - Fingerling
Description
Grown for over 100 years, this fingerling is quite unusual with long knobby pink- skinned tubers. These potatoes make excellent salads but are also boiled & baked.


https://www.seedpotatoes.ca/product/all-red/
All Red - late season
Description
Round tubers that are rated as medium to late maturity. This potato has a good yield with red skinned and distinctive red flesh tubers that maintain their color after cooking. It has an excellent flavor and a moist texture.


https://www.seedpotatoes.ca/product/ruby-gold-2/
Ruby Gold - mid season
Description
Smooth red skin on oblong to round sometimes netted tubers with medium deep eyes and light yellow flesh. Good storability. For best cooking results harvest tubers when mature, as late in the season as possible when the skins are well set.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Rick and my favourite potato is the Purple Caribe. I grew those in 2016 and they were absolutely the BEST potato for taste and the biggest producer too. LOVED them. Baked was best...sweet, fluffy, incredibly tasty...savoury! More than just a potato!

Oct 5 2016​

I never grew those this year but just today, I took this potato in the photo above from 2016 and planted it in a pot for inside the house. We'll see. I have the top of a pineapple plant growing inside, why not a potato?


The other ones we have had great success with are the fingerling ones. All sorts of colours from red to yellow, to the pink fir apple ones this year. LOVE them. They are a more waxy textured potato so make great ones for cold potato salad as they retain their texture and do not turn to mush too easily. They grow well here and produce surprising amounts of fingerlings per plant.

And always for boiled potatoes, the coloured ones are the most interesting.

Never knew potatoes came in so many colors

You betcha and in South America where the potato originated, they always did grow multiple colours and shapes. We here have decided to revert to boring white ones like russets...heck, I love a purple skinned baked potato! We have red and yellow ones now but the baby potato market is where you get to see more colourful potatoes at the grocery stores with a blue potato often in their mixed varieties.

Next season, I hope to add a Purple Viking, Candy Cane, All Blue (like the Russian blue but solidly blue?), Blue Mac & German Butterball (yellow and buttery flavoured!)...and maybe others???

In their continent of origin, potatoes are a very precious commodity there and thankfully the people there know that! Grown 10,000 years ago...no visualize keeping those strains going along!

Frozen potatoes are called chuño in Peru and may be stored for years frozen without losing their value as food.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_potato

Potatoes are Canada's most important vegetable crop; they are grown commercially in all its provinces, led by Prince Edward Island.

Tara, you don't have nearly the number of potatoes as last year, but you still got a decent crop of them. I don't see any sweet potatoes. Are they harder to grow, or do you just not like them? Your babies are growing fast, but still so adorable.

The dog girls will continue to fill in for a total of four years...this photo of Emmy makes her look so much older than she is.

Oct 16 - To me, does not even l00k like Emmy!​

Can't grow yams or sweet potatoes here. I like candied ones for the traditional holiday meals. Rick & I like them enough, I have started to add them cubed in stews too. Not enough heat units (aka hot enough), we get frost &/or snow every month of the year. My MIL would say, never plant before June 1st and HA...two years back June 5th to 8th had a hard frost each and every day...wiped out my beans to what, five plants...we got enough beans for a few meals, that was it.

Those two crops won't tolerate our temperature extremes AND our short growing season.

NO worries, I bought red PURPLE yams (just looked on my grocery receipt, $3.14 for purple yams) on the weekend that I want to try out. I also bought my favs, baby bok choy and yu choy...plus normal sized bok choy...those keep well in the fridge and I really enjoy them cooked lightly in Asian type meals. Bought a bunch of stuff to make Chinese food tonight but so dang tired...butt dragging today, so may postpone it. Tired...the weather is dumping cold rain and overcast...there it goes again, draining my light in life...so like being back in winter on the WEsT Coast...it needs to get cold (heare -11C for next week...hurray...about time!) and it needs a blanket of white for me to get rejuvenated and full of energy to cook, and such! I abhor this time of year; not summer/green, not winter/white...sucks!

In my hunt for all those veg that Benny had in his oxtail soup that I have never cooked, hey at least I found a new version of yam!

​

Now I lost quite a few to bite marks...I think I know the culprits because I have found voles (not moles, moles don't prefer to eat plants like VOLES do) in the hay bales over the years. Fatter stubby tails, not mice but voles.

As this article says, too late as you harvest your taters, but I can get geared up for next year.

http://www.hobbyfarms.com/mice-and-voles-eating-your-potatoes/

Signs Of Mice & Vole Potato Damage
If you discover bite marks that look like two short, side-by-side lines carved into the flesh of your potato tubers, voles or mice are probably to blame. Even on potatoes with half the tuber missing, it’s easy to identify one of these two critters as the culprit because the side-by-side scrape marks will be visible on the exterior of the damaged portion of the tuber.

Why Timing Is Important To Strategy
If you discover mice and voles eating your potatoes when you dig the vegetables up at harvest time, there’s not much you can do because the growing season has ended. Yet you should arm yourself for next year. Vole colonies can live for many years, and once a population of mice has found a good home, it stays nearby from year to year.

If you find evidence of voles or mice earlier in the season, it’s time to take immediate action. Such evidence includes quarter-sized holes in the ground with no loose soil piled around them; track or trail patterns on the surface of the soil where the animals entered and exited the potato patch; and small, young potatoes at the surface of the soil with bite marks on them.

While crop rotation does help, it certainly isn’t a complete control method, especially if your garden is smaller. Voles and mice will travel a good distance to find their favorite foods. Your best bet is to trap these critters with mice or rat traps.

Trapping Mice & Voles In The Garden
Mouse or rat traps should be baited with peanut butter and set in the potato patch at dusk. To prevent pets from accessing the traps, put the traps inside of an empty soup can with both of its ends cut off. Pets might be able to get to the trap, but by the time they knock it out of the soup can, the trap will be tripped and the pet can’t be harmed.

Continue to set the traps every evening until you go four or five nights in a row without catching a vole or mouse.

And looking at Glenn Drown's sweetpotato page, here's more on voles...

http://www.sandhillpreservation.com/pages/sweetpotato_catalog.html

Voles - These are a short tailed plump mouse-like rodent and are currently our number one enemy and hardest to control. They move in early from the grassy areas near the gardens and live under the black plastic mulch and feed as fast as the roots form. We have learned they are hardest on the plants nearest the garden edges where they come out of their natural grassy areas into the garden. They are famous for eating the roots from the top down leaving the outer shell in the soil where they have feasted. They tend to lay low until the season is nearing an end then move rapidly in the rows. Frequently you will find well built grassy nests and mothers with up to 6 to 8 young nursing on her as she moves down the row eating the roots. Our dogs smell them and dig and get some, our barn cats venture out and are our best control. Care must be used when encountering them as though they appear harmless, they do and will bite and fight aggressively when disturbed.

I could almost nap right now (NOOOOOOOOOO!!!)...lots of kids on the bus are dropping like flies, so likely coming down with some evil bus ill...good

Doggone & Chicken UP!

Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada

 

[Akrnaf2]

Well Tara, don't you like sweet potatoes???? The world wants to know I love them with marshmallows and brown sugar.

Sweet "Potato " isn't a potato at all.....

 

[CanuckBock]

Heel low:


View attachment 1169489
http://www.raisingmiro.com/2012/04/23/4000-types-of-potatoes-in-peru/[/QUOTE]

Well Tara, don't you like sweet potatoes???? The world wants to know I love them with marshmallows and brown sugar.

2011 Christmas Dinner (homegrown turk too!)​

We love them boiled, mashed, drizzled with Canadian Maple Syrup and back in the oven...with turkey, ham dinners.

April 2012 Easter dinner​

Rick's sister does them in chunks and it is a nice change to mashing them...bite in, has a candied outside and a yam or sweet potato flavour in the inside.

@drumstick diva this is for you!
View attachment 1169489
http://www.raisingmiro.com/2012/04/23/4000-types-of-potatoes-in-peru/

Absolutely stunning collection! And in Peru too...bonus!

 

[CanuckBock]

Sweet "Potato " isn't a potato at all.....

Quite right!

Only distantly related to the nightshade family...more morning glory related!

So to me, knowing sweet potatoes are a perennial vine type plant, helps make sense as to why it would not thrive here. I recall them growing wild as weeds in vacant lots in Vancouver, but never seen any morning glories growing here wild.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_potato

The sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) is a dicotyledonous plant that belongs to the bindweed or morning glory family, Convolvulaceae. Its large, starchy, sweet-tasting, tuberous roots are a root vegetable. The young leaves and shoots are sometimes eaten as greens. The sweet potato is only distantly related to the potato (Solanum tuberosum) and does not belong to the nightshade family, Solanaceae, but both families belong to the same taxonomic order, the Solanales.

 

[CanuckBock]

Heel low:

DD...here are the varieties I grew in 2016...

Aug 29 2016​

Sep 1 2016
​

I need to do this display on a plate with ones I grew this year.

I like seeing the skin and flesh, shape and such. The Ruby Gold is neat because it combines red and yeller!

Different colours, different shapes...all potatoes!​

August 29, 2016...I had SOUP on the brains....

NOW That's chook potato SOUP...fit for royalty
<or Girl dogs too! >​

Food should please more than just the sense of taste...sight, texture/touch, smells...


And indeed, 2016 I grew more potatoes...I invested more time in that fun endeavour.

Oct 6 2016​

I not only had the 200 feet of my current tater patch, I also grew some in the same area I grew the oats in.

Sep 23 2016 - Emmy & the hand sown oats​

Keep mindful, I did not have a summer of doing company books for year end to complete.

Doggone & Chicken UP!

Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada

 

[Akrnaf2]

Heel low:

DD...here are the varieties I grew in 2016...

View attachment 1169521
Aug 29 2016​

View attachment 1169512
Sep 1 2016
​

I need to do this display on a plate with ones I grew this year.

I like seeing the skin and flesh, shape and such. The Ruby Gold is neat because it combines red and yeller!

View attachment 1169507
Different colours, different shapes...all potatoes!​

August 29, 2016...I had SOUP on the brains....

View attachment 1169508
NOW That's chook potato SOUP...fit for royalty
<or Girl dogs too! >​

Food should please more than just the sense of taste...sight, texture/touch, smells...


And indeed, 2016 I grew more potatoes...I invested more time in that fun endeavour.

View attachment 1169509
Oct 6 2016​

I not only had the 200 feet of my current tater patch, I also grew some in the same area I grew the oats in.

View attachment 1169527
Sep 23 2016 - Emmy & the hand sown oats​

Keep mindful, I did not have a summer of doing company books for year end to complete.

Doggone & Chicken UP!

Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada

Tara I imagine Gnocchi from this purple (Vitulet?) Potato......