Our main business is growing and selling flowers but we've grown fingerlings for the past few years to boost our sales. We have had good success with Swedish Peanut and Rose Finn. Purple Peruvians are a novelty item but some say the taste is poor and consider it a something of a weed. Taste is pretty subjective and I won't attempt to rate them. Some are best for baking others boiling, etc. Now we mostly market them by mixing varieties all up in a deep bin and letting customers pick the ones they like. We also pack them in net bags.

Near San Francisco you should be able to get both summer and fall crops but the problem with fall [August] planting is that many varieties will not break dormancy. We have not located a seed potato seller who sells turgid tubers for August planting--they seem to just have shriveled ones left over from winter and spring sales. Our efforts to get spring planted potatoes, harvested in early summer, to break dormancy for August planting with ethylene gas [putting potatoes in a closed area with rotting apples and bananas] have not been successful. They lay in the ground often not sprouting until late September then get hit with frost before they have put on enough size. We are experimenting with replanting right at harvest time for the first crop with big pieces or whole potatoes and let them come up as they will for a fall crop or to lay in the ground until spring. The theory is that if they get their tops knocked off by frost, there will still be enough energy in the tuber to push up new shoots later on.

Good luck to you.

John Warner

Here is a link that might be useful: Whole Systems Agriculture