| 90 to 100 days. For rich, full flavor and a big crop in a wide range of soil conditions, this red-skinned potato can't be beat! Red Pontiac is an improved sport of Pontiac with deeper red skin color, higher yields, and better adaptability to clay soil. A mid-season variety, it offers sweet, solid white flesh with a flavor you just have to try to believe! The large, round tubers hold their shape and color during cooking, making them a great all-around choice for boiling, baking, frying, and mashing. If you just can't wait until harvest time for a potato fix, pluck these new red potatoes earlier for a simple, tasty treat - boiled, lightly seasoned, and straight to your plate! These plants grow up to 3 feet tall but spread 2 to 3 feet wide, and each 2-pound bag will sow 20 to 25 feet of row and yield 25 pounds of potatoes or more. Like all Potatoes, Red Pontiac fares best in sandy, enriched soil, but if you have heavy or clay soil, just used a raised bed or plant the tubers more shallowly, mulching them well with straw. Here's how to grow them: If your soil is normal to sandy, work in some gypsum and Epsom salts before planting, then set the tubers 3 or 4 inches deep and about a foot apart. (If your soil is heavier, plant more shallowly and rely on mulch rather than soil for coverage.) Potato tubers should be planted in early spring, at the same time as you sow your green peas. If a late frost threatens, just toss a few inches of straw or other mulch over the young plants, and chances are they'll be fine. You can also sow potatoes in fall for an earlier harvest. When the shoots emerge, you may want to sow some bush beans alongside the young plants -- they'll keep the bugs down! Basil and Summer Savory are also fine companions that keep insects at bay -- I usually just wait to see which Potatoes didn't sprout, and fill in the gaps with these helpful herbs! (Of course, Marigold, friend to all vegetables for its ability to destroy more nematodes than commercial repellents, is always a beautiful choice too!) Potatoes grow their fruit right under the soil, and over time the tubers may stick out above the soil line. This can cause greening, which ruins the flavor (and adds toxins to the Potato), so watch your plants and mound up more soil, straw, or peat moss as necessary to keep the taters under wraps! The plants may also bloom, and small, hard green fruits will appear when the flowers pass. Don't be tempted to harvest them -- they're toxic! When it's time to harvest, begin at the outer edges of each plant and work your way in. You want to gently turn over the soil using a garden fork or blunt-edged spade, to avoid cutting into the potatoes. Store the spuds, unwashed and not touching one another, in a totally dark, cool place, where they'll last for several weeks. (You can eat them after they've sprouted; just cut away the inedible sprout and its eye.) Once you've harvested the crop from end to end, begin in a new spot and work your way through it from a different direction. You'll be amazed at how many spuds you missed the first time! 2½-pound bag of tubers for sowing 20 to 25 feet of row. |
