Sacramento Digs Gardening: Early potato harvest yields just-right salad

Just in time for Memorial Day picnicking, my garden yielded a bevy of baby Yukon Gold potatoes. I could have left them in their raised bed longer, but I needed the space to plant tomatoes.

Three potatoes and a quarter coin — The quarter for comparison shows the size of
the Yukon Gold potatoes.

So, baby potato salad, it is!

Most potato salad recipes use full-size potatoes and offer no directions for using pint-size spuds. My baby Yukon Golds were each about 2 inches in diameter, what’s referred to by marketers as “two-bite” size.

This recipe uses 1 pound of these little gems; that’s about 11 or 12 two-biters.

An advantage of using baby potatoes in a salad: No peeling necessary. And they boil very quickly; mine reached the fork-tender stage in less than 20 minutes.

That little bit of sugar helps to balance the sharper flavors of Dijon mustard, onion and pickles. It’s not much (and optional for those cooks who avoid any added sugar), but just enough to make this potato salad just right.

Baby potato salad

Makes 6 to 8 servings

Ingredients:

1 pound baby or “two-bite” Yukon Gold potatoes or similar

3 eggs, hard boiled and chopped

½ cup onion, chopped

½ cup celery, chopped

½ cup bread and butter pickles, chopped

¼ cup black olives, sliced

Dressing:

½ cup mayonnaise

2 tablespoons Dijon mustard

½ teaspoon celery seed

1 teaspoon Old Bay seasoning or similar seasoning salt

½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 teaspoon dried parsley or 1 tablespoon fresh parsley, finely chopped

½ teaspoon sugar (optional)

Paprika for garnish (optional)

Instructions:

Mixing potato salad — Fold the potatoes and the dressing together gently.

Prepare potatoes. Boil with skin on in salted water until just fork tender. Set aside to cool.

In a large bowl, lightly toss chopped hard-boiled eggs, onion, celery, pickles and olives.

Make the dressing. In a small bowl, combine mayonnaise, Dijon mustard, celery seed, Old Bay seasoning, black pepper, parsley and sugar, if desired.

Add dressing to egg mixture; toss to coat.

Cut potatoes into eighths. Gently toss potatoes with egg-dressing mixture. Adjust seasoning if needed.

Refrigerate covered until ready to serve.

Sprinkle servings with paprika, if desired.

RECIPE

A recipe for preparing delicious meals from the bounty of the garden.

Keywords:

recipe recipes cooking salad spring May potatoes picnic fare backyard produce produce management Sacramento gardening spring harvest

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Garden checklist for week of April 19

After this midweek storm, start getting serious about spring gardening. Flowers are blooming about three weeks ahead of schedule. That includes weeds!

* Get ready to swing into action in the vegetable garden – if you haven’t already. As nights warm up over 50 degrees, set out tomato, pepper and eggplant transplants.

* From seed, plant beans, beets, cantaloupes, carrots, corn, cucumbers, melons, radishes and squash; wait on pumpkins until May. Plant onion sets.

* In the flower garden, plant seeds for asters, cosmos, celosia, marigolds, salvia, sunflowers and zinnias. Transplant petunias, zinnias, geraniums and other summer bloomers.

* Plant perennials and dahlia tubers for summer bloom. Late April is about the last chance to plant summer bulbs, such as gladiolus and tuberous begonias.

* Transplant lettuce and cabbage seedlings.

* April is the last chance to plant citrus trees such as dwarf orange, lemon and kumquat. These trees also look good in landscaping and provide fresh fruit in winter.

* Smell orange blossoms? Give citrus trees a low dose of balanced fertilizer (such as 10-10-10) during bloom to help set fruit. Keep an eye out for ants. If leaves look yellow, your tree may need an iron boost -- apply some chelated iron fertilizer.

* Apply slow-release fertilizer to the lawn.

* Thoroughly clean debris from the bottom of outdoor ponds or fountains.

* Spring brings a flush of rapid growth, and that means your garden needs nutrition. Give shrubs and trees a slow-release fertilizer. Mulch with a 1-inch layer of compost, which helps the soil, but keep it a few inches away from trunks and stems.

* Azaleas and camellias looking a little yellow? If leaves are turning yellow between the veins, give them a boost with chelated iron.

* Trim dead flowers but not leaves from spring-flowering bulbs such as daffodils and tulips. Those leaves gather energy to create next year's flowers. Also, give the bulbs a fertilizer boost after bloom.

* Pinch chrysanthemums back to 12 inches for fall flowers. Cut old stems to the ground.

* Mulch around plants to conserve moisture and control weeds.

Send us a gardening question, a post suggestion or information about an upcoming event. sacdigsgardening@gmail.com

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