The only comprehensive resource for home gardeners and commercial potato growers, The Complete Book of Potatoes has everything a gardener or commercial potato grower needs to successfully grow the best, disease-resistant potatoes for North American gardens. Includes practical as well as technical information about the potato plant, its origin, conventional and organic production techniques, pest management, and storage practices. The plant profiles include still life photographs of the exterior and interior of the tuber, and a succinct description of each variety s physical and culinary qualities.

Hielke is a native of the Netherlands. He spent most of his career as a potato breeder at the Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada Potato Research Centre in Fredericton, New Brunswick. Hielke has traveled widely throughout the Americas and East Asia where he served as a volunteer consultant and lecturer on potato related issues. He is a Fellow of the Agricultural Institute of Canada, an Honorary Life Member of the Potato Association of America and an Honorary Professor of the Hunan Agricultural University in China. Hielke and his wife, Siegelinde, reside in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario where he enjoys gardening, biking and collecting potato stamps. They have three grown children of whom co-author Walter is one.

Hielke De Jong's profile page

Joe began his professional career as an extension agent in Steuben County in the southern tier of New York in 1964. He joined the staff of the Department of Vegetable Crops at Cornell University in 1968 where he had responsibility for the extension and applied research program for horticultural aspects of potato production. In 1980 he relocated to Riverhead, NY to assume the responsibility of Coordinator at Cornell's Long Island Horticultural Research Center. He has been an active member of the Potato Association of America, a professional society for the advancement of knowledge of all aspects of the potato. He has served this organization in many capacities, including as President and was elected Honorary Life Member. He has co-authored two editions of the Potato Association of America Handbook, Commercial Potato Production In North America.Joe and his wife, Mary Ann, have three grown children.

Joseph B. Sieczka's profile page

Walter grew up in Eastern Canada. Although surrounded by potatoes and potato people throughout his childhood, Walter only realized midway through graduate school because growing potatoes in his garden was so much fun! that he wanted to become a potato scientist like his father. Walter is an Associate Professor at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, where he oversees both an applied potato breeding program and a potato molecular genetics laboratory. He and his wife, Darlene, have two children.

Walter De Jong's profile page

"Clearly this is the leading resource for those interested in growing potatoes both for pleasure and for small business."

American Reference Books Annual

Of particular interest to North American home gardeners.

Reference and Research Book News

"This is a beautiful book with lots of useful photographs, including those of various potato diseases, which will occasionally trouble even the most easy-going home grower in a wet year."

Garden Rant