This is a great new forum.
When growing up in Finland I never realized how interesting potatoes and growing them could be. Potatoes were something we ate almost every day and had to go to plant and harvest every year. We lived in a city, but we were totally self sufficient with potatoes. My mom and dad grew them on dad's parents' small farm. My grandpa would allow only one type of potato to be grown, a yellow flesh fingerling, which in a good season grew over 6" long and plump tubers. He did not like a tractor to be used on his field and all preparing, planting and harvesting had to be done by hand. My other grandparents lived about 1 km from them and would have let my dad use the tractor, but my dad's dad did not allow that.
My parents kept growing those same type potatoes for years even after my grandpa had passed. My dad did finally use a tractor for tilling the field, but we still planted and harvested the potatoes by hand. When we kids grew up and moved away mom and dad stopped growing the whole field of potatoes and they have lost my grandpa's potato variety. It is quite sad, because those were the tastiest potatoes I have eaten, even I did not appreciate them so much at that time.
Every year I plant some taters in our own garden mainly to be eaten when they are still small and the skin can be just washed away. This year I am growing seven different kinds, but have not yet found the best tasting variety, which would grow well in SE Wisconsin.
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