Episode # 1 TX – 3rd May 20
Presenter: Trevor Cochrane and Blake Proud
Story Title: Planting Potatoes

Blake joins Trevor in the Garden learning about a special blue potato and how to grow your own.

• Potatoes come in many different form’s red, blue skinned and sweet potato, but there is a special type of potato on the market which has blue flesh.
• Some coloured potato varieties like the red are the result of cross breeding over many decades but the blue flesh is a very special potato.
• This blue flesh variety has actually been around at least 10,000 years,  it's a natural adaption to high altitudes, the blue pigment which is a beneficial plant flavonoid that's a cancer fighting agent similar to the one found in blue berries and the potato developed its pigment to protect the tuber from sunlight.
• Potatoes should always be stored in a dark cool place.. or they turn green and that's not good.
• Potatos all have a toxin in them, and in the original species they were totally toxic to humans, its called solanine, and when potatoes go green it’s because they are producing large amounts of chlorophyll and solanine; which means they are not edible.
• When planting the potatoes, just cut them in half and space them in the trench approximately 20 centimetres apart.
• Once they start to grow, Trevor recommends throwing some old straw over the top of them, if you have old straw from a Chook pen, perfect.
• In about 4 months’ time, you will have a bounty of potatoes to harvest.
• The best thing is to always plant a new crop as you harvest, to continue an all year-round crop.