odd potatoes

[peteyfoozer]

I dug some potatoes tonite. Some were itty bitty, 2 were normal size and a few were enormous. How do I grow or harvest them to be more uniform? Also, I took the big ones, cut everything into small pieces to roast and the pieces from (i think) the big ones just flat did not cook. Why is that?

 

[897tgigvib]

Wow, I don't know. I'll try googling it up about that phenomenon.

 

[thistlebloom]

That sounds like a fairly normal harvest Petey, was it from one plant? I have potatoes that harvest like that sometimes.

Since I grew my potatoes in two different areas this year I could tell how much having good soil makes a difference in the total amount of harvest and also in the individual plants development of potatoes. My old established garden did so much better poundage wise as well as in the uniformity of the spuds. I got lots more marbles and odd sized spuds from the two year old bed that is rocky and still lacking in fertility.

The potato that didn't cook up is odd. How were you cooking it?

 

[peteyfoozer]

I roasted them in my convection oven...then i had to microwave them over and over to get the pieces done that didn't want to cook. It was really weird

 

[thistlebloom]

That's very strange. Were these the first potatoes you have used from your harvest? Just wondering if it was some kind of freak potato.

I found this Petey, maybe you can find something here that makes some sense to your situation?

http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/499947

 

[digitS']

Spacing and number of eyes on your cut seed is important.

Some folks don't think so and say that one eye can produce multiple plants anyway. But, it isn't what the agronomists advise for the spud farmers - limit what will grow in the square foot by limiting the number of eyes at planting.

Planting a whole seed potato is likely to result in many "small potatoes." Actually, it is a way for growers of fingerlings to limit the size and they may crowd them deliberately by not cutting the seed &/or close planting.

Steve

 

[catjac1975]

If that all came from one plant that is normal.

 

[Jared77]

If that all came from one plant that is normal.

That's been my experience too

 

[peteyfoozer]

Thanks for your answers. I had one eye on most of the cut pieces I had. The difference in size was just very surprising as the plant I pulled before that had more potatoes and they were pretty uniform. The weirdest thing is that the ginormous ones wouldn't cook. BTW, has anyone found that fresh potatoes DO take longer to cook?? Or is it just mine?

 

[897tgigvib]

I'm thinking Thistle's link is on to something.

Scroll down to just past halfway and look at "goshark"'s comment, the one about the starch. Back during the upper neolithic when I was a little younger I worked in a cafe doing kitchen help, everything back there, dishes, food prep, all the glam (not), stuff. One of the things I did was to peel and press the taters to make them for french fries. I then soaked them to let the starch out. I did not know why, but I did it as told. At the bottom of the tray after soaking was this pasty messy stuff. That was the starch.

Next question: Is that the same starch as the starch used on clothes?

Next other question: How did you find that page Thistle?