The Superstar Combo of Potato and Taro

As the gardening season quickly approaches it’s time to start thinking about one of the first things you can plant in the St. Louis garden, potatoes.  And when you think of potatoes I’m going to make the case that you should also think of taro, because if you grow both than you can be making homemade potato recipes all year round from your garden.

Potatoes are a unique crop in the vegetable garden because it is one of the few crops that can provide significant yields of high calorie foods that can truly be considered a staple food that can sustain you.  Other vegetables are of course vital and provide the essential minerals and nutrients your body needs, but aren’t the things truly filling bellies.  Unlike other staples like wheat, corn, rice, sorghum, and dried beans, potatoes can produce a good yield in a normal garden space and require no processing.  Potatoes are also incredibly adaptable and can be made into almost a limitless number of recipes.  Planted in mid-March and harvested in mid-July potatoes easily store until the end of year.

That is the one downside to potatoes compared to other staples like dried grains.  After their harvest in July they generally start going bad by the end of the year.  A very nice storage length, but what are you supposed to eat from January – July?  I’m glad you asked.  The last few years we are increasingly answering that question with one word; taro.  

Taro is a tropical crop from South and Southeast Asia and spread throughout the tropical areas of world.  Although its ornamental form, elephant ear, is very well known in St. Louis, the edible form, taro, is almost completely unknown.  This makes sense because for the most part tropical varieties of taro don’t do particularly well here or even if they do, are a bit tricky to store and propagate from year to year.  But we were able to get a hold of a variety of taro grown in Korea that loves it here and is easy to store over winter and grow more next year.   

The thing about taro that makes it such a great crop to grow if you also grow potatoes is that unlike potatoes, which are harvested in July, taro is a warm season crop harvested before the first frost in October.  It then stores until the following July, when your next harvest of potatoes is ready.  They are also a white starchy root similar in flavor, texture, and even nutrient profile to potatoes and works as a 1 to 1 replacement with potatoes in just about any recipe.

So if you plant potatoes this March and taro this May you will have potatoes from July – December and Taro from October – July and can enjoy your favorite potato recipes 365 days a year!

If you are interested in giving either or both of these a try, check out our planting instructions for potatoes and taro.  Also don’t miss our March sale where both will be available.