Home Garden
# Home & Garden >> Plants, Flowers & Herbs >> Growing Vegetables

Growing Purple Viking Potatoes

Purple Viking potatoes are easily recognized by their deep purple skin, typically flecked with pink or red. Unlike some purple-skinned varieties that also have purple flesh, Purple Vikings are an all-purpose potato with creamy white flesh that makes flawless mashed potatoes. The plants have natural resistance to scab disease, which makes them an excellent choice for the home garden. Plant and care for them just as you would ordinary potato varieties, as they don't require special growing techniques.

  1. Organic

    • Buy organic Purple Viking seed potatoes if you want to avoid the fungicides and other storage chemicals routinely applied to nonorganic seed potatoes. Look for the organic certification symbol on the seed-potato label as verification. Purple Vikings have a long storage life, so save some of your own organic potatoes to plant next year’s crop.

    Plant Habit

    • Purple Viking potato plants are stout, with strong upright stems and extensive root systems. The size of the plants depends in part on soil fertility, but this variety is compact rather than spreading, so they take up less space in the home garden. The tubers develop and mature early in the season, about 70 to 90 days from planting.

    Planting

    • Prepare the soil for potatoes in the fall, if possible, so it's ready for planting the following spring. Till the soil 8 to 10 inches deep, mixing in compost if available. Potatoes prefer full sun, and they grow best in light soil with a high humus content. Plant Purple Vikings early in the spring, near the time of the last frost in your area. Set the seed potatoes about 6 inches deep and 12 inches apart in the rows, with the rows spaced between 18 and 24 inches apart. Cover the newly planted area with about 3 inches of straw or light organic mulch to control weeds and retain moisture.

    Culture

    • Avoid high-nitrogen fertilizers. Instead, apply bone meal or high-phosphorus organic fertilizer at planting time to increase the yield of Purple Vikings. Watering is critical, because potato plants do not develop tubers unless they have ample water. The entire plant becomes stressed if allowed to dry out. Check the color of the new leaves at the growing tips of the plants. If the new leaves have a bluish cast, the plant is too dry.

    Harvest and Storage

    • Dig Purple Viking potatoes when they are about 4 inches in diameter, the average size of this variety at maturity. Test-dig a few potatoes about 10 weeks after planting to check the size of the tubers. Simply dig gently under one side of a potato plant and check for potatoes. The longer you leave the potatoes in the ground before digging them, the larger they will grow, but dig them all before the vines turn brown and die. Immediately use any potatoes that were damaged during digging. Store the unblemished potatoes in a dark place that remains at room temperature or slightly cooler. Natural changes in the carbohydrates in Purple Vikings cause them to become sweeter during storage, so your stored winter potatoes may have better flavor than your summer harvest.

Previous:

Next:

Growing Vegetables
  1. How to Reduce pH for Growing Potatoes
  2. Growing Sweet Potatoes in California
  3. How Rocks Affect Growing Potatoes
  4. Growing Purple Broccoli
  5. Purple Potato Varieties
  6. Growing Ornamental Sweet Potatoes
  7. Growing Potatoes in a Cylinder
  8. Growing Potatoes Under Black Plastic
  9. Growing and Storing Potatoes in the Southwest
  10. Growing Sweet Potatoes Indoors in the Winter
  11. How to Grow Japanese Purple Sweet Potatoes
  12. Growing Stages of Purple Top Turnips

Home Garden © https://www.98905.com