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Once you try it, you'll be addicted! Sweet and sticky "Nagaimo" produced by the land of Yubari
Long potatoes in Yubari?
Many of you may be wondering, "Yubari City makes long potatoes? You may be surprised to know that Yubari City produces long potatoes.
In fact, Yubari's specialty, the Yubari melon, is also grown by farmers in Yubari City, and many of them also grow long potatoes!
Yubari City's long potatoes are the original long potatoes produced in Hokkaido. Once you try them, you will be addicted to their delicious taste, yet they are a rare product with little distribution in the market.
In this present campaign, a collaboration project between Yubari City and Domingo, we are giving away long potatoes that have been produced in Yubari City for many years with a particular "taste"!
In this article, we will introduce the production of long potatoes in Yubari City.
The person we will talk to this time is Mr. Kengo Ota, a farmer who grows Yubari melons and long potatoes, who also appeared in our article on Yubari melons.
■ We also recommend this article!
Sweet, soft, and juicy summer del icacies! How Yubari melons, the fruit of handiwork, are produced
Characteristics of Yubari Long Products
The characteristic of Yubari-grown long products is their sweetness and stickiness.
According to Mr. Ota, it is the quality of Yubari's "soil" that produces this sweetness and stickiness.
Most of the farmland in Yubari is covered with Tarumae volcanic ash soil. The soft and fluffy volcanic ash soil is ideal for growing long taro underground.
The most distinctive feature of the soil in Yubari City is the layer of clayey soil beneath the volcanic ash soil. This hard and sticky clay soil makes it possible to produce long potatoes that are firm and reasonably hard.
The shape of the long potato itself may be bumpy on the surface because it grows in hard soil, but it tries to stay in the hard soil so that its flesh becomes tighter and its sweetness and stickiness stronger. Our priority is not so much the shape as the taste.
The Domingo editorial staff also got the first Yubari long potatoes and tried them for the first time. They were very tasty and powerful, with a strong stickiness when raw, a crunchy texture when cooked, and a sweetness no matter how you eat them.
Very delicate work! Sneaking into the long bean harvesting process!
Do you know how the long potatoes you usually see in the supermarket are harvested?
The harvest of long potatoes ends in mid-November, so if you want to come and see the harvest, now is the time! I heard this from Mr. Takahashi of JA Yubari, so I rushed to Yubari City to observe the harvesting process.
First, the soil was dug up with heavy machinery. The earth is dug up with delicate and brilliant movements so as not to damage the long potatoes in the soil.
From the soil dug up by the heavy equipment, the long potatoes are found and harvested by hand, one by one, so as not to damage them. One might think that the use of heavy machinery would make this a daring task, but in fact, it is a very delicate one.
The operation of the heavy equipment, harvesting, and sorting and placing into containers are all done with great coordination.
The long potatoes harvested in this way are very rare. The long potatoes harvested in this way are very rare and are only sold at A-Cops in Yubari City or as gifts.
In order to keep the long potatoes for gifts fresh, they are wrapped individually in paper with soil still attached, and then packaged with fir husk, which maintains moderate humidity and temperature, before being stored and shipped.
JA Yubari City Net Shop
*Receipt of 2021 harvest long potatoes has been closed.
How are long potatoes made?
So, what do "nagaimo" look like growing and harvesting in the fields?
Mr. Ota says, "Compared to growing melons, it's like playing with them," but there are many steps involved in growing nagaimo, which is all about taste...
Let's take a look at the steps!
Late March - Seed cutting and drying
Cutting the "seed potatoes," which are the seeds of the long potatoes, to a certain size. This is a busy time of the year, as the melon work has also begun.
Late April to mid-May - Sprouting and acclimatization
Sprouting is the process of germinating seed potatoes. It takes 20 days.
After that, the seedlings are acclimatized by gradually lowering their temperature to that of the field. Plants, just like humans, are easily sickened by sudden changes in temperature.
Mid-May to Late May - Planting
The sprouted seed potatoes are finally planted in the field. In order to grow large and tasty long potatoes, the field needs to be cleared to at least 1 meter in height.
Mid-June - Putting up support poles
In order to ensure that the long potatoes receive an even amount of sunlight, they are put up on poles, one for each of the four plants. Mr. Ota grows about 24,000 long bean plants, so he has to put up about 6,000 poles.
Mr. Ota says he is impressed by the sight of the long vines crawling up the poles and growing upward.
The yams are great," he says. If you put up a pole, it will wrap itself around the pole. As a farmer, I've always been impressed by their vitality, knowing that they can grow more than if they crawled on the ground.
Mid-July and mid-August - Hand weeding
Weeding is done twice a year by hand to remove weeds growing near the long plants. At this time, the underground long shoots are about 10 cm in diameter.
From this point, the long shoots begin to grow rapidly, reaching 60 cm to 70 cm in one month from mid-August to mid-September. In the following month, it grows another 10 cm, enhancing its thickness and taste.
Mid-October - Cutting the vines and removing the support poles
Around mid-October, when the long shoots are fully grown, the vines with yellow leaves are cut and the posts are pulled out in preparation for harvesting.
Early November - Harvesting
After the vines are cut and the longs have completely stopped growing, they are left to mature in the field for about 10 days before finally being harvested! 100% of Yubari's long potatoes are harvested in the fall.
The cultivation of long potatoes is done in between the work on the Yubari melons. It is difficult to combine the two operations. It seems like a lot of work just to grow melons or long potatoes, but I have nothing but respect for the farmers who manage to do both.
Mr. Ota, a long bean farmer, recommends this way of eating long bean!
Mr. Ota, who produces long potatoes with a particular "flavor," recommends eating them with yam!
His favorite way to eat long potatoes is yam! I think it is the most well-known way, but because it is so simple, there is no way to add anything to it, so it is the way to feel the sweetness and stickiness that is characteristic of Yubari nagamono the most. Of course, they are also delicious deep-fried or grilled.
This summer, there was little rain and high temperatures all over the province, but they are still delicious this year! We hope you will try our Yubari long potatoes!"
Some images courtesy of JA Yubari
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