Good potatoes for the South?

I got the Wood Prairie Farms potato catalog, and they all sound scrumptious. I can only give one bed (4' x 4') to potatoes, so I want to make the most of the space, and grow a variety that's really delicious and different. (But not too different - I don't think blue potatoes will go over well with the kids.)

Oh, and something that will grow well in the South? Where spring can sometimes last about 36 hours before summer sets in :) Any suggestions for me?

everyone around here grows red potatoes. they do well and mature before the real summertime boiling point sets in. this yr i am growing them and i have to try the blue too. :)

I also grow the reds. they do much better than any of the others. I usually plant a 50lb bag of eyes that gives me around 200 plants and harvest aabout 2 hundred pounds out of them.

Vols,

On Bud's suggestion, I grew the Kennebec variety this year. Although we didn't weigh our harvest, it was a very big wheelbarrow full, and lasted us a very long time.

It's a white potato with a very good taste (almost sweet and juicy) and is appropriate for baking and basic cooking. An excellent potato all around, that performed beautifully for us. I highly recommend it!

According to my journal, I was harvesting baseball sized potatoes on June 20th. The complete journal entry is here: http://davesgarden.com/journal/viewentry/5456/index.html

Dave

Well, phooey. I jumped the gun and placed my order before I saw Dave's post. But I went with Rose Gold, a red-skinned yellow flesh potato, which sounds yummy.

They say 2.5 lbs. can produce up to 50 lbs. of potatoes, although I doubt we'll get that many pounds, since we'll probably start harvesting them as they get big enough to eat. (My family LOVES small new potatoes :)

go_vols... I have to second Dave's suggestion. My step-father was a truck farmer, and always grew Kennebecks, in western NC. Later in years, they'd go to Fla for the winter, and make a pile of the potatoes in the garage, just covering with fiberglas insulation. Every spring, they would come home to a pile of good potatoes. I remember that they were yummy, as well as good keepers.

I have bought them here by the bushel, and they keep well for me just in my cool basement. Don't have the space to grow potatoes here, though.

Hmmm. Well, next year, we may give the Kennebecks a shot given the accolades from you and Dave. To be honest, I'm not trying to grow enough potatoes to keep us fed for a year; in fact, my reasons for growing them are two-fold:

1. My kids think potatoes grow at the store (well, not really but almost that bad. The oldest don't remember me planting them eons ago, and DD has never seen this process); and

2. I wanted to try a variety we can't buy at the store. But not anything too weird - I figure we have a ways to go before my family is ready for blue potatoes, LOL!

Yummmm..Kennebecs! Yummm...Red Pontiacs! And my most favorite...Yummm(!)Beltsville Whites!!! Mercy me, tastes so good they'll turn your hair red!

I grow all three of the above every yr! Red Ponts for excellent "new" potatoes as well as mid-term storage. Kennebecs for a later harvest and long-term storage (and fresh french fries...let me digress...DD and I love to dig 'em up, carry 'em to the shoffice, wash em and then I cut them up and fry them. Ain't nuthing better for ya than to sit down with a plate of fresh-dug fries and ketchup with your child at your side! No one says a word till all the food is gone! Entirely too busy eating and enjoying it all!)
Anyway, the Beltsvilles are a white tater, I haven't gotten them to get as big as baking taters but the flavor is really great! I hide them from even my friends! I don't share them at all! (Yep, call me selfish. And call me when the Beltsvilles are ready to dig!)