potato planiting

[rockriver]

i just read most of the tomato thread... i loved it.
trying to learn in a hurry.
did some gardening (at parents instruction) as a kid and didn't enjoy it.
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i saw one post about a potato tower. in the tomato thread.
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i'm behind on my reading...
but...
we planted potatoes yesterday.
so i'll let you guys critique the aar..
we churned up the soil with a tiller.
then dug a trench roughly 4 inches deep and 4-6 inches wide.
put some 10-10-10 fert along the bottom. lightly..
covered the fert about 1 inch deep.
placed pieces of potato (each had an "eye") with the eye facing up
in one row they are about 12" apart. in the next they are about 8" apart..
we had more potato pieces than we had row length!
then covered the pieces by filling in the trench with dirt.
dirt was 2 to 4 inches above the taters.
wet the soil with a sprinkler.
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comments?
instructions?
besides above info i can't tell you too much!!
at a prior home we tried potatoes. did pretty good but just a very small plot.
so this is our first real effort.

i sure hope we can get several threads going on different veggies...
and fruits!

[1Admin]

Probably shouldn't have put the fertilizer in there with the taters.

Potatoes like sulfur. Their is a "wettable dusting sulphur" at the feedstore. If you plant any more, get a small bag and dust the cutting with it. Sulphur will also make the soil more acidic which the potatoes prefer.

I think one of the last videos in the Survival Gardening series I did covered potatoes.

Planted them a little shallow IMO, but you can rack more dirt up over the plants as they come up.

Wait to dig till the vines are died back COMPLETELY. I don't care if someone sold you "60 day" potatoes- if the vines are NOT died back, don't bother digging them yet.

Leave a couple in the ground if you so desire when you harvest. They will be there for you next year- great propagation method for survival gardening.

Lots of folks like the hay over top method, it works. We always get better results planting them in a trench at least a shovel deep.

The other big plus about potatoes is that while the wild bunnies will nibble on your pea plants, cabbage and brocolli, in general nothing will mess with the potato vines.

They do NOT have to be dug 30 seconds after the vines die back either, helpful for those of us with regular jobs- or three.

Good crop to plant out in the woods also, most people won't recognize potato vines, but would a tomato plant or corn stalk. Guerrilla gardening at it's finest.

Good luck
Robert

[EX121]

I would only add to the comment about adding dirt up to the first leaf on the vine when the get growing well. You cvan keep doing this as they grow.

[PA_Prep]

Wait to dig till the vines are died back COMPLETELY. I don't care if someone sold you "60 day" potatoes- if the vines are NOT died back, don't bother digging them yet.

If you wanted "New Potatoes" you would dig earlier.

[overbore]

Potatoes:
SOIL: Should be well drained, pH prefer 6-6.8, expect scab at higher. Amend soil with AGED COMPOST or composed manure. Full sun is preferred.
Objective: you want your tubers to end up 8-12" deep in the ground with soft soil over it, because the potatoes develop above the seed potato. Hilli up at planting 2". When plants are 6" high, hill up again. Third time is optional. Finish hilling up before flowers appear.
My preference is compost and mulch type materials for hilling especially if you have just tilled up a portion of the yard.

Laus Deo
overbore

[Climber]

Seems a bit much on the triple 10. I use triple 8 myself.

I save a bucket of ashes from fireplace. As I'm cutting eyes, they go in a 5 gal bucket and ever couple of inches they get coated in the ashes. Two things, tater get some potash that they like and it coats the fresh cut part as a "healing agent".

I rarely get 25:1 but 20+:1 all the time.

Have fun.

Jimmy

[Triple-sod]

Always a good idea to earth potatoes up at least once, if you’re going to get any frost all the greenery wants to be underground otherwise it’ll get damaged. You get more spuds too and cut down on the number poking out through the soil and going bad. They also say ‘a hoeing’s as good as a shower of rain’, because you’re breaking the soil up so it’s more water retentive.

[trkarl]

In my latest blog post I planted some Colorado Rose red potatoes. This is my first real attempt at growing them. I grew a few last year from some that sprouted from the grocery store. I grew them in large pots and did pretty good. It's recorded in a couple of last year's posts.

[trkarl]

My potatoes were planted on the 5th of March and yesterday I noticed two places had shoots poking up through the ground. Looks like they are starting to grow.

[rockriver]

when do you start adding extra dirt/compost??
potatoes are mostly above ground about 2 inches average now.

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[Sunny buns]

Evil ants

Fire ants enjoyed our potatoes before we did, nasty little baggets! Not sure what I did wrong. Gonna scour the Internet for any anti-evil fire ant news I can get.

[rockriver]

slowly digging potatoes now. some of the plants appear to be dying. trying to leave them in ground for them to get bigger. we hope.
for the effort we put in to plant, it appears there will be very big return.
thanks for all the comments.

[Lowdown3]

You can wait till all the vines are dead.

Try leaving a few in the ground here and there. You'll pretty much always have some potatoes there if you do. Contrary to popular belief, we have done this for years as sort of an in ground seed preservation method and it works.

[Benn Gleck]

We always did like you with the 10-10-10 and usually hilled them up twice. Like LD3 said leave some as seed, we don't do it on purpose but we always seem to miss some.:)

[1Admin]

A five gallon bucket of medium sized potatoes equates out to 13 quart jars of cubed potatoes plus a good stock of potatoes for dinner that night.

These little calculations like this help you plan ya know :)