On a sunny day last week, I went looking for Betsey Wittick, our local potato farmer, to get some insight into the best potatoes to mash for the upcoming Thanksgiving feast. I found Betsey, Dana and Anna sitting in the back of Betsey’s pickup truck. They were enjoying the rare day of November sunshine while sorting and cleaning onions —it was picture perfect.
 

 

Betsey grows at least 26 varieties of potatoes with names like All Blue, Mountain Rose, and Russian Banana. This year was great for growing potatoes, and she harvested more than four tons of the tasty tubers including a colorful array of fingerlings, blues, reds, yellows and whites. All of them are hand-harvested, a term that takes on new meaning when you realize it means digging for them on your hands and knees. These potatoes have love written all over them.

 

So how does a nice girl from Newark, New Jersey end up loving life as a potato farmer on Bainbridge Island? First, picture a child planting vegetables in the backyard, not for eating but just for the sheer joy of growing them and giving them away. Now add an undergraduate degree in Plant Science from Rutgers, a graduate degree in Horticulture from Cornell and you begin to get some idea of Betsey’s botanical passion. Among her many activities at Cornell, she planted a salsa garden on research land and worked in a community garden. One of her professors inspired her to enjoy cooking the vegetables she was growing. She learned to can and preserve the abundance she was producing. And then there was the bicycle ride across the country.
 

 

When the bicycle trip ended on Bainbridge, a whole new chapter opened. Seeing this area from the viewpoint of a horticulturist, Betsey’s first thought was “This is utopia!” She worked with Junkoh Harui at Bainbridge Gardens for 4 or 5 years. Then she met Gerard and Joanne Bentryn and started pruning grape vines for Bainbridge Vineyards. They helped her buy 2 ½ acres of land where her passion for growing and experimenting has flourished and helped feed hundreds of delighted Islanders.
 

 

As one of those appreciative consumers, I relished this opportunity to learn more about these wholesome tubers, and especially about the best choices for classic mashed potatoes. Betsey and her lively crew named their top four picks: Caribe, Snowflake, Butte and Yukon Gold. Of these, the Snowflake has the most local history because it’s an heirloom variety cultivated for many years by the Island’s legendary Gale Smith. The Snowflake has a creamy white skin and makes a light, fluffy mashed potato. Dana described the texture as like “picking up a handful of snowflakes and pressing them to the roof of your mouth.”
 

 

The Caribe has a lavender skin and is a nice combination of creamy and fluffy. For creamy mashed potatoes with golden tones, use the Yukon Gold. And finally, the Butte is a high protein russet that makes good basic mashed potatoes. Any of these wonderful potatoes will add that extra element of love and local to your Thanksgiving feast. And if that’s not enough, Betsey also has two kinds of sweet potatoes, zesty onions and pungent garlic. You’ll also be happy to know that all these vegetables are grown using organic methods; no pesticides or other toxic chemicals harm people, plants or land at Betsey’s bountiful Laughing Crow Farm.

 

You can find this fresh, fabulous produce at the Bainbridge Winter Farmers’ Market. Take some home, and when you gather with your friends and family around the Thanksgiving table, give a little extra thanks to the hard-working farmers, like Betsey, who work their magic with sun, soil and seeds.