potato planiting

[rockriver]

2013 potatoes

we had not planned to plant potatoes this year... we got a late start on garden.
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we forgot about a box with old potatoes (from 2012) that we'd put in storage shed.
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just potatoes in a cardboard box.. no dirt. no water. no sunshine. but sprouting... about 4 to 5inch long sprouts.
the base potatoes had not been big ones, and they were shriveled, to nearly nothing. pitiful looking--

we planted them as they were. plants never looked good and strong. however, today we dug a couple of them up... gonna eat them tomorrow. the taters are small. a little bigger than marbles up to silver dollar sized, but the plants generally aren't dead.
bottom line.. these things are hardy... dead and pitiful will grow.... at least i thought they were dead!

[NewHampshireLady]

Okay.......I can grow the hell out of the plants but the bugs eat the flowers as fast as they pop out. I have tried sevin, diluted dish soap and a few other things to kill the buggers. I have even gone out every morning with a stick and kerosene to scoop the nasty things into. Any ideas?

[rockriver]

i couldn't pick out a potato plant!!

expecially this past weekend.. they were dead/dried and/or gone!

we'll plant more potattoes next year. i think they were safer and "better cared for" down in the ground than in my shed that stays the coolest.
some of them probably even grew bigger...?

[1Admin]

i was surprised. this is food that we haven't cared for that has grown and is ready to eat...

Yes, and was HIDDEN. ;)

In the Survival Gardening series we did on youtube, that was one of the biggest "pluses" I talked about with potatoes was that you could HIDE them.

Scattered amongst weeds, or the area allowed to go weedy, most suburbanites could not pick out a potato plant.

[rockriver]

update.
we've had small tomatoes coming in slowly...
finally decided to mow the garden this past weekend. 8-11
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after mowing (btw, i'd let the weeds get thick and high after we quit gathering beans and other stuff)
my wife reminded me that we hadn't gathered all the potatoes... we haven't dug or watered or weeded potatoes in ? 6 weeks?
we've had drought until about 10 days ago..
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we started digging the potatoes.. they looked great. no rot. no ants. laying there in sun baked dirt rows.
ready to cook or can or whatever..
i was surprised. this is food that we haven't cared for that has grown and is ready to eat...

[WiseOwl]

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 :)

WOW! I have always wanted to try this. You said you have a video out there on Guerrilla Taters?
About to move in a few weeks and will have good spot for a late summer garden. I have never grown potatoes before. Do you know how good they do up here with this clay or are they better in that sandy south "Idaho" soil?

[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 :)

[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.:)

[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.

[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.

[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]

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

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[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.

[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.

[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.