Our organic potato seed is grown by Rocky Farms in Colorado at high altitude. The altitude is important because our friends, the aphids, do not thrive above 5,000 feet. Aphids carry viruses which can deplete the yield of this delicious crop. We buy fresh potato seed every year and do not save our own seed.
On Monday Jose and I sorted through the seed bags. We saved one or two bags of each variety for planting in September. This will be an experiment to mimic the crop that Tom Willey sold us just a few weeks ago that we all enjoyed in our harvest share box. More on that later. We put a few bags of the early harvesting varieties in the back of the pick up truck and planted them on Monday afternoon. We saved most of the seed to plant in a few weeks. With cold rain forecast we decided to save most of our seed until the soil warms. Our seed in natural and does not come coated in fungicide. A fungicide would protect the seed from soil diseases, our organic, unprotected, seed would be vulnerable in the cold soil.
We have many varieties to enjoy this year. A fresh dug potato is an absolute delight. Make a date for the Summer Solstice sleepover where we always dig potatoes to take home on Sunday morning.