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April 27, 2006 New NDSU Publication Offers Potato Growing Advice If you love potatoes and have space in your garden, you might want to consider growing some of Americans’ favorite vegetable. The North Dakota State University Extension Service has a new publication to help gardeners get started. “Potatoes from Garden to Table” discusses various potato cultivars, including their characteristics, the best uses for each one and when gardeners can expect to start harvesting their crop. For example, most early cultivars often will produce potatoes by the Fourth of July. Those with a later maturity require 100 or more days from the time the plants start to emerge from the ground to produce a potato crop with an acceptable yield. The publication also includes information on:
Potatoes are good for you and easy to prepare, according to Julie Garden-Robinson, an NDSU Extension food and nutrition specialist who helped develop the publication. A 5 1/2-ounce potato, which is about the size of a computer mouse, has 100 calories, no fat, 26 grams of carbohydrate and 3 grams of fiber. It also has 21 percent of the daily recommendation for potassium and 45 percent of vitamin C, plus other nutrients. You can bake, boil, fry, microwave, grill or steam potatoes. Home gardeners and large-scale producers have a variety of cultivars to choose from, thanks to researchers at NDSU, says Susie Thompson, an NDSU potato breeder and co-author of the publication. The NDSU potato-breeding program, which celebrated its 75th anniversary in 2005, has released 23 cultivars and collaborated with breeding programs throughout the U.S. and Canada to release other cultivars. “Potatoes from Garden to Table” is available from your county Extension Service office or online at www.ext.nodak.edu/extpubs/yf/foods/fn630w.htm. ### Source:
Julie Garden-Robinson, (701) 231-7187, jgardenr@ndsuext.nodak.edu |
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