Potato Harvest and Planting Tips
Tips, Tricks
How deep? When should I plant? Is soil important? How many will I get? What about those potato towers? These are some of the questions I had a few years ago when I planted my first potato bed, now I have a few answers to share. For great growing guides and gardening info please check out MIGardener at - https://www.youtube.com/user/MIgardener Potatoes have easily become one of your favorite things to grow and also our most productive! They are easy to grow, easy to store, and give you a huge yield that can be used for so many things. If you haven't grow potatoes before, you should! When planting potatoes in the spring you have to remember to plant early. Figure out when your last average frost is in your area and plant about one or two weeks prior to that. Since the potatoes are protected underground for the first couple of weeks anyway the frost won't hurt them, plus if they do get a nip of frost they are pretty resilient anyway. When you buy your seed potatoes you can cut them into several pieces for planting to stretch them. Just ensure that each section you cut has at least one eye and preferably one that has started a tiny root bud. You can plant each potato piece about 8-10 inches deep in nice loose soil. The looser and lighter the better. I have done some videos on soil mixes and for the potato beds you might even want to adjust and add a bit more peat to it to make sure it stays fluffy. There is no need to fertilize anything as long as you amend with good compost and practice good crop rotation each year. Potatoes towers, yay! no! These internet sensations will claim that you can get huge piles of potatoes from starting a potato plant at the bottom of some barrel or box contraption and then layer soil higher and higher around the plant as it grows. The claim is that the plant will produce potatoes all along the stem on it's way up and you will end up with piles of potatoes from a single plant. This is just not true. The potato plant changes when it starts to grow out of the soil and does not produce tubers or potatoes any longer along any supporting roots that grow from the stem. So don't waste your time! I would however recommend growing potatoes in a raised bed that is at least 12 inches deep as this has proven to be a huge benefit for us. Easier harvest, less weeding, less watering, and less pests are just some of the reasons. If you plant early enough and you get your potatoes out of the ground by July you can plant a second harvest fairly easily even up here in Michigan. This will allow you to double your potatoes per square foot or growing space for any given year and provide pounds and pounds of potatoes for your family. We normally get between 30 and 50 pounds from our 3' by 6' raised beds. Some people will say you cannot grow potatoes from store bought potatoes, this is also not true. We have, on several occasions, tested this theory and had great results. The theory is that potatoes are sprayed with a root inhibitor so they last longer. This is mostly true and it does inhibit root growth and makes the potatoes store longer. But if you wait long enough the potatoes will start to sprout and you can plant them for a perfectly adequate harvest. Hopefully this has answered some questions and maybe even inspired you to get out and plant some potatoes! there is nothing like a homemade French fry! General Store - http://astore.amazon.com/simpsubulivi-20 Please check us out at www.simplesuburbanliving.com and follow us on.... http://www.pinterest.com/simplesuburban/ http://www.facebook.com/simplesuburbanliving http://www.twitter.com/simplesuburban5 http://www.instagram.com/simplesuburbanliving Daily Beetle by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1500025 Artist: http://incompetech.com/
Comments
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Great harvest! Hope you labeled the garden beds for the new owners so they know what not to grow there this year :) I guess they could just look up your videos if they were not sure :)
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Potato bags/pots/towers etc don't work! I've tried them and all they create is more work & expense for the gardener. A plant will only produce a predetermined amount of tubers based on growing conditions and genetics. I never had a harvest of main crop potatoes that exceeded a return of 12 to 1 (12 lbs spuds from 1 lb seed). I did grow fingerlings that resulted in 66 lbs harvested from 3 lbs seed potatoes. But fingerlings should produce an average of 15-20 from one pound seed.
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"What state you live in?
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I live in zone 6 when do I start to plant potatoes in a bag?
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As someone who has very little room for a garden I think the container potato work for maximizing my growing area on my patio
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I will rarely buy peat moss. Mainly because of the key word here "BUY". Peat moss is very expensive and there is a finite amount in the ground. Instead I use sawdust. Yes sawdust! The secret to using sawdust is never use fresh sawdust. It must be aged for at least 1 year. I age mine for 2 years. First year I order it and leave it outside for all of the snow and rain and sunshine to fall on it. Keep it moist like your compost pile but not wet. After the first year I turn it and add soil to it. Anywhere from 15 to 25% soil depending on how much soil I can scrounge. During the second year I also keep the pile moist but about 4 times a year I'll water with a dilute solution of fish fertilizer adding a bit more nitrogen to break down the sawdust. During the second year turn the pile at least once a month. I garden/farm about 5 acres every year so I'll order a minimum 5 truck loads of sawdust (15cu yd each) and gather 1 truckload of soil. I use the sawdust liberally on all plants and they reward me very well. For the potatoes I use a 3 inch layer of shredded leaves and another 2 inches of Sawdust. Potatoes love it.
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I had began to agree with the idea that layering doesn't create more potato layers since it never worked for me but then I found this video. Check it out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9s4feiZqLo
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I need to get my potatoes out of the ground, maybe the video will inspire me!
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You are correct, tires, towers all of that doesn't work. Good watering with loose soil. Last year we had a steady amount of rain and our potatoes went down 2ft down. We grow Kennebec and Pontiac Reds we had large potatoes and lots of them. Anything we won't eat we save for the next year's planting. Good job.
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You're getting some very good yields and your potatoes look big and healthy. Those looked like Yukon Golds. On the new homestead you'll have room for a potato field if you want. I used to grow potatoes in Oregon but haven't tried them here yet. I understand they can be grown all year at higher elevations but only in the winter near sea level where I am.
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ah they're potato seeds! you just answered a question for me :)
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Yeah i watched that movie lol. Time to harvest mine too, only the soil is really wet now with the rain we have been getting( not complaining) .
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What is the estimated time between planting seed potato and soonest harvest for the edge of summer?
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So you're saying that life is like a potato field, you never know what you're gonna get.
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I'd like to grow some potato plants next year I just don't want to have to use the same kind of soil additive as The Martian. :D. Nice looking harvest!
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Wow MI gardener and ssl family dad commenting on each others video 😂 ...I found these two channels two years ago because I was looking for beekeeping videos !!!
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Rocking good harvest! Any harvest is a good harvest in my eyes. I am so excited for our harvest since we grew a bunch of different varieties this year.
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