Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Growing Potatoes




I recently found a great article on growing potatoes over at Seed Savers Exchange that I thought I would pass along. Potatoes are one crop we grow every year. 



Last year I grew my own seed potatoes from the year before. This year I will purchase seed potatoes because I like to purchase new ones every 2 to 3 years. I think if you keep them longer than that they are more prone to diseases. If weather and time permit I like to cut and pre-sprout my potatoes. If my weather is very unstable like this year I will not simply because I don't want to sprout them and then have the weather turn off wet and cold and I have all these potatoes that must go into that ground to rot. 


Last years sprouted potatoes waiting for the trip up the hill to the garden. 


Whether I am hilling my potatoes with soil or layering straw over I still bury them in a small trench.



I simply dig a furrow in the soil and lay my potatoes sprout side up in the soil furrow and then cover loosely. 


This particular year they were covered with dirt or hilled as they grew upwards. 


The looser the soil the easier this is.



The potatoes can also be hilled with straw rather than soil.




If hilled with soil you simply dig your potatoes up once the tops are brown with your trusty potato fork. 


With straw you simply uncover them  like buried treasure : ) This makes harvest really easy.

Need more info below is a link to that article over at SSE.

Tips for growing potatoes

I hope to plant my potatoes soon as it stops snowing every week.

Blessings from The Holler

The Canned Quilter

12 comments:

  1. Thanks so much for your planting tutorial;-) We are moving soon and will have our own back 40....at least city style (10,000 square feet backyard) and potatoes are something we will try next year.

    About your own seed potatoes. Are they started from the potatoes you normally eat, or 'special' potatoes? I read something somewhere years ago, that one must purchase seed potatoes.
    blessings, jill

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. If I have potatoes left over from the previous year they make good seed potatoes. If not then I buy them.

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  2. I love your garden photos.. So which do you prefer to grow your potatoes in.. the soil or the hay? I remember reading in Mother Earth News about 25 or 30 years ago that you could just lay your potatoes on the ground and cover them with hay & they'd grow. :) I gave it a try and I was surrounded by old gentlemen gardeners in my then neighborhood who told me it wouldnt work and that I was wasting good seed potatoes.. Well, as you well know.. it does work, it did work, and those old farts learned a new trick.. not that any of them ever tried it.. but they did stop ridiculing this young pup and all her newfangled tricks. ;)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I really prefer the straw because it makes the harvesting so much easier

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  3. I have never grown potatoes, but I would like to. I always wondered what 'seed potatoes' were. I can't wait to be able to grow a garden and not move in the middle of growing season!

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    Replies
    1. Seed potatoes are no more than 5 pound bags of small potatoes sold as seed

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  4. Nice photos and great info ! Thanks for sharing . Have a good day !

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  5. beautiful photos from your garden!!!!! thanks for the info.i will plant potatoes in a bucket,
    have a wonderful week,
    greetings from germany,
    regina

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  6. We have had good luck with both methods.

    Aren't they supposed to be in the ground by St Patrick's Day? I imagine you could not found the ground then.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. St, Patrick's Day my ground was under almost 18 inches of snow

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  7. Thanks for another great tutorial.

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  8. Nice information
    I have a garden in my home where I grow various vegetables but never grow potatoes because I think it is hard to grow.
    After reading this article I definitely try to grow potatoes in my garden

    ReplyDelete

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