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The humbled tater goes technicolor in shades of yellow, red and blue BY JUDITH ADAM
Potatoes are a most obliging vegetable. Easy to grow, they provide comfort, nutrition, ornamental flowers and multicoloured tubers without making large space demands. Despite the mountains of bagged varieties available in supermarkets, only homegrown kinds retain the fragile, nutty flavours lost in commercial storage. And if your culinary interest ranges beyond the nameless, brown-skinned bakers and boilers, you can grow vivid blue, red and yellow tubers right in your flower beds.
My grandfather grew potatoes alongside his gravel driveway, and though it was only a short row of plants, we had fresh spuds all summer. These plain brown ones never had a name that I knew of, but we always saved enough seed potatoes (not really seeds, but small potatoes about the size of a hen's egg) for planting each spring.
GROWING THE BEST SPUDS
For a jump-start on the season, start seed potatoes indoors. Known as chitting, this is an easy way to get an early crop in the garden.
Three to four weeks before the weather is warm enough to plant outdoors, place the tubers in a wooden flat or in egg cartons with the broad basal end (which has the small remains of a root) down and the "rose" end (where most of the tiny bud sprouts are visible) up. No soil, water or covering is required. Keep them in a dark, dry place. When tiny shoots appear, move the tubers to a cool, bright location (8 to 10°C, but out of direct sun).
Plant when all danger of frost has passed; choose a site with six to eight hours of full sun each day. Sow early varieties when the soil is at least 6°C, usually in mid-April (at about the same time as dandelions begin to bloom), and mid- and late-season ones in May.
Although they will grow in all types of soil, potatoes prefer light, well-drained, slightly acidic sandy loam high in organic matter. Amend the soil in planting holes with coarse sand and/or peat moss, leaves or garden compost; avoid manure because it can harbour potential disease-causing organisms.
Plant seed potatoes in a trench roughly 15 to 20 centimetres deep, with the...