potatoes

A Verdant Spring

July 9, 2025

After a long, cold winter, Rural Studio Farm in the spring is always a revitalizing place to be. And nothing heralds the new cycle of growth like our fresh strawberries, which began to bear fruit in February.

Three students each hold a basket with ripe red strawberries freshly picked

Two students pose with baskets full of ripe strawberries

Since late May, we have been harvesting hundreds of pounds of blueberries and blackberries. It’s been such a treat to see how much the plants have produced this year compared to last.

Three baskets containing ripe blackberries that were just picked

Two rows of trellised blackberry vines covered in white blossoms

Flowers also signal the changing of seasons. We always grow a lot of flowers for cutting and for pollinators, and this year we are trying some new varieties: poppies, lion’s ear, mullein, flax, moonflower, hyacinth bean, violets, and butterfly pea, to name a few.

Along with flowers, we are trialing some new varieties of various crops that the kitchen team has requested, like golden acre cabbage and scarlet kale. The golden acre has a nice, sweet flavor and both have been beautiful and productive, even in the heat of the South.

A couple dozen seedling trays in the seed house, each brimming with seedlings of varying shapes and colors

A closeup of a full head of pale green broccoli romanesco with its swirls like fractals

To help reduce weed pressure, we are testing a new paper mulch that will also help hold water before finally degrading into new soil. Several months in and the mulch has been effective and surprisingly robust. We hope that, throughout the season, this will remain more effective than other mulches, like straw, while reducing the need for synthetic fabrics.

Five students kneel in the aisles between rows, cutting holes in the paper mulch and transplanting seedlings through

A fellow fits a support cage over a recently transplanted seedling through the layer of paper mulch

Finally, we celebrated the bounty of the Farm and new season of growth with our fourth Spring Dinner, a gathering of friends and neighbors, as well as new folks who work in small-scale, sustainable agriculture and local food. It began as a tour of Rural Studio Farm and culminated in a shared twilight meal in the Great Hall, prepared by our friends and Santa Fe residents Brad Hart and Johanna Gilligan. Johanna created Grow Dat Youth Farm in New Orleans and was instrumental in Rural Studio Farm’s reboot in 2019.

Guests and neighbors of the Studio gathered around a long outdoor table at twilight, conversing and eating farm-fresh food

The director addresses the gathered crowd of guests and neighbors of the Studio as they await dinner service

Guests and neighbors of the Studio gathered around a long outdoor table at twilight, conversing and eating farm-fresh food with the street-light-illuminated farm in the background

A lovely salad fresh from the farm with asparagus, greens, dill, goat cheese, and mandarins

Among our guests were architects and consultants Frank Harmon, Phil Szostak, Dan and Julie Wheeler, Mike Newman and Katrina Van Valkenburgh, and Mary Margaret Jones. Others included John Dorsey and Jennifer McMillan from Project Horseshoe Farm, Jovita Lewis from Hale County Extension, Nicole Dugat and Natalie Wulf from Schoolyard Roots, and Emma Chapman Busby from the Alabama Sustainable Agriculture Network.

Now summer is here, the most productive time of the year. We are excited because we are emphasizing tomatoes this year, growing 19 different varieties of heirlooms, cherries, and other specialty tomatoes. Oh, the dishes our kitchen will cook up and all of their nuanced flavors. More importantly, the lessons students are learning about the value of agricultural diversity, especially the role it plays in farming resilience and sustainability. Stay tuned!

Tags: blackberries, carrots, eatlocal, farm, farmhelpers, farmtotable, flowers, harvest, potatoes, rsfarm, ruralstudiofarm, strawberries

Maters and Taters

July 18, 2022

Few things signal Summer like fresh-dug potatoes and red, ripe tomatoes and both of these are favorite crops at Rural Studio Farm! After starting them in mid-Winter, we have been harvesting them in abundance.

An assistant farm manager smiles while a nearby volunteer clutches two ripe red tomatoes in her upraised hands

A student digs up potatoes and places them in a blue harvest tub

Tomatoes and peppers are both members of the solanum genus (along with eggplants), which is part of the bigger Solanaceae, or nightshade, family. Their close relatedness is one of the reasons you should practice good crop rotation and avoid planting one of these crops in the same location in successive years. Many of the same pests and diseases will afflict both tomatoes and potatoes, for example, so always planting in the same spot makes the pests’ jobs easier.

Several seedling trays rest in the seed house, notably some tall tomato plants that await transplanting

A tray of variously colored cherry tomatoes

Potatoes

Wild potatoes are quite small and originated in the Andes. True to their inclusion in the nightshade family, wild potatoes are also poisonous, containing an alkaloid called solanine. Domesticated potatoes can also express solanine when left in direct sunlight, which is evident by the skins turning green.

Potatoes are not typically grown from seed but rather from seed potatoes. These are quality potatoes saved from a previous harvest and replanted. The highest quality seed potatoes, which have been inspected and controlled for spoilage and disease, are available from seed catalogs, but these are often quite expensive—especially organic seed potatoes.

A student crouches next to several trays of pre-cut seed potatoes that await planting

A view of prepared seed potatoes filling a bed in a line, ready to be covered in soil

Buying them from a catalog also ensures that the potatoes are of a given variety. As an alternative, you can grow potatoes from those bought at a grocery. Even though the quality is less determinate, and you don’t always know exactly which cultivar you have, we have had great results growing supermarket potatoes at Rural Studio Farm. If you want to buy supermarket potatoes be sure to get organic ones, as the conventional potatoes are often sprayed with a chemical that inhibits sprouting. Big seed potatoes can be cut into smaller pieces and planted individually for bigger yields. Each piece should be no smaller than about three ounces, and each piece should have at least one eye on it, which is where the tubers sprout.

A student loads her tub with potatoes she has dug

A student holds up a potato plant she just pulled, revealing a cluster of tubers

For every pound of seed potatoes planted, you want to try and see a return of about 10 pounds, though under ideal conditions this can be much higher. Any return under six pounds probably means there were insect problems or the plants were not getting enough water. We started harvesting ours early for new potatoes, but we still got 8.8 pounds of potatoes back for every pound of seed potatoes we planted for a total harvest of 268 pounds.

Tomatoes

Tomatoes are actually berries, and cherry tomatoes are closer to wild tomatoes than the huge beefsteaks we often think of.

A student transplants a tomato seedling into the field as the sun rises against the pines

The Spanish were the first to encounter them and bring them back to Europe, but tomatoes had a rocky start before becoming so closely associated with Spanish and Italian food. In the 1700s, some aristocrats became sick and died after eating tomatoes, and the fruit even earned the nickname “poison apples.” But it was the pewter plates the tomato dishes were served on that caused illness: the acidic tomato juice leeched lead from the plates and poisoned those who ate from them.

Several clusters of cherry tomatoes, in various states of ripeness, hang from verdant tomato vines

The farm manager inspects several tomato plants thoughtfully

Tomatoes can be hard to grow in the South, especially in large numbers. The high heat means it can be difficult to keep them well watered, and the high humidity and heavy rain storms promote fungal and other soil-borne diseases. And then there is the huge amount of insect pressure and the need to support the sprawling vines. In general, we prefer to grow cherry tomatoes, which tend to be hardier and more productive. If a few cherry tomatoes get damaged then it’s no big deal, but if you lose several big tomatoes then the loss is more significant.

A student holds a glass filled with large, bright cherry tomatoes

A row of tomato seedlings with tomato cages placed around them

Over the years, we have been fine-tuning which support methods work best, and which varieties hold up best in the field. This season we are growing two kinds of indeterminate (vining), three kinds of determinate (bush), and six kinds of cherry tomatoes to compare how they perform and how they taste. It is especially important given our new CSA, since tomatoes are beloved by so many. And they are a Summer staple in our salad bar.

So whether its potato salad or a tomato sandwich, our solanum crops provide some of the best eating of the year.

A bird nest sits amongst the blackberry vines filled with four small eggs of light blue

Tags: cherry tomatoes, eatlocal, harvest, potatoes, rsfarm, tomatoes, transplanting

Potatoes, Potahtoes

March 28, 2020

A wide view of potato plants, collards, and cover crops

Most potatoes are not grown from seed, but rather by planting out “seed potatoes,” which are just high-quality whole potatoes, or pieces of potatoes, that were saved from a previous season. Here in Alabama, February is the best month to plant them, which is what Eric and the students did, despite all the rain. There are many ways to plant out potatoes, but at Rural Studio Farm the students set them out along shallow trenches in the newly built in-ground raised beds.

Students measure out and plant seed potatoes

Then, students covered the potatoes with several inches of hay (many growers hill up soil around the seed potatoes). The hay protects the potatoes, modulates temperatures, suppresses weeds, and helps to retain moisture.

Farm workers cover newly planted seed potatoes with hay

After a few weeks, the potatoes pushed their way through the hay and continued to grow.

A potato sprout pushes up through the layer of hay

Once the sprouts reached about 8 – 12 inches, Eric then hilled up even more hay around the plants until only the growing tips were left exposed. As the potatoes grow, the tubers will form in the hilled-up hay, increasing yields. This also eliminates the need to do any digging to harvest the potatoes—just open up the hay.

The potato plants before hay was hilled up around them — Before

Potato plants that recently had hay hilled up around them — Before

Tags: potatoes, rsfarm

Preparing for Spring

February 10, 2020

We began cultivating additional land for crop production last fall, which will add about 33% more growing area. Using the walking tractor, Eric and the students first shaped the new in-ground raised beds before adding soil amendments and compost. Since we are promoting soil health, it is best to have something growing in the beds at all times, so it is important to start growing as soon as possible.

Student spreading hay on planted potatoes

Students planted seed potatoes, which we covered in a layer of hay, and transplanted out collard greens. In some beds they also sowed a cover crop mix for early spring—hairy vetch, field peas, and oats—all to improve soil health and to keep the ground growing before crops are added later in the spring.

We are no-till, but we just tested out a new tool, the tilther. Run by a cordless drill, the tilther is like a baby rototiller, only working the soil to a depth of about two inches. This improves the tilth of the soil by fluffing and smoothing out the soil surface, making it ready to be transplanted into. It also mixes in any amendments, fertilizers, and minor crop residues.

In the greenhouse meanwhile, more seedlings are being started, and the early crop of tomatoes are being moved to larger quarters to allow their roots to expand and grow before they are transplanted to the greenhouse once March arrives.

Tags: potatoes, rsfarm, ruralstudiofarm, seedlings, soilhealth, tilther, transplanting