The weather is still cold, but the frost is no longer so severe that seeding potatoes cannot be shipped. Thus, they were shipped and arrived today.
Funny thing about potatoes – I have grown potatoes for over thirty years, and only this year I learned that they are divided not only by vegetation length from early to late, but also into determinate and indeterminate types. Determinate types start growing, set the tubers in one layer once, and then bloom and die irrespective of whether they are hilled up or not. They are mostly the very early and early varieties. Indeterminate potatoes keep growing and setting bulbs along the stem in multiple layers if they are being hilled up. They are mostly the late varieties.
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This year, I bought four varieties:
- Dali – an early to intermediate potato variety, with yellow-skinned tubers. You might remember that I grew it before, and I bought 10 kg of seed potatoes this year because it is tried and tested for my region, and they can be dehydrated without discoloring. The other three varieties are new (for my garden). I will probably plant these in soil and hill them up. I would like to maximize my harvest, and I could not find out if they are determinate or not.
- Camel – early variety, red-skinned tubers. Again, I could not find whether they are determinate or not, probably yes. They will be planted on top of the grass. I bought 5 kg to test it out.
- Agria – medium to late, yellow-skinned variety. From what I could find, it should be indeterminate, so it will definitely go into the soil, and I will hill it up as much as possible. It is also allegedly more starchy than the varieties I grew so far, and it should therefore be more suitable for French fries and chips (I tried to make chips last year, it was a disaster). I bought 10 kg because I got hyped up by the description on the webshop – allegedly, it has high yields and big tubers. We shall see if it beats Dali, who holds in my garden a record of growing 100 kg from 10 kg of seed, with tubers up to 900 g.
- Bellarosa – very early, determinate variety, red-skinned. It should also be drought-resistant, and thus supremely suited to planting on top of the soil with the Ruth-Stout method. I bought 5 kg to test it out.
So those are my potato planting plans for 2026. I hope to grow at least 300 kg of potatoes, if the weather is favorable.
I’ve made potato chips on occasion for years without much of a problem. The only detail that always throw me is that I usually get 30-40 chips out of one potato. Considering that one of of the small, lunch-sized, bags of potato chips contain about 20 chips, it makes me realize how much of a profit the potato chip manufacturers are really making. They probably spend more on the bag than the chips inside.
A couple years ago I finally figured out how to make good french fries, at least to my taste. Using mealy potatoes (also called floury) cut to french fry size, cook them first in oil at around 150C (310F). Avoid crowding the kettle and don’t worry that they don’t brown. They take several minutes to cook, maybe 4-6 minutes. Take them out of the kettle, let them drain and cool a bit. Then take the oil to 190C (370F), and cook them a second time. The second cooking will be shorter, 1-2 minutes, and they will develop the golden color I look for. Salt them as you take them out of the oil, and let them drain and cool.
I save the vegetable oil to use over and over again, passing it through a fine sieve to get the burnt, crunchy, bits out before storing it.
I’d tried a number of different techniques before settling on this one, including pan-frying, baking, and single-pass deep frying. I don’t make them all that often as I’m not a fan of the smell of hot oil which lingers for a couple days, but they are very tasty.
Of course, your mileage may vary.