Today, we looked at our cut seed potatoes and they were ready to plant. You want the potato to be dry in the cut area, it will have a white appearance plus it will be hardened to the touch.
Next we pulled out our little tractor to make some hills for planting. Last year we made hills but I planted the potatoes in the valley of the hill then used the hill to cover them up. That was my first time planting that way and it caused more work at harvest time. The potatoes were deeper in the ground requiring more digging which is more time. This year I am planting the potatoes at the peak and only covering them half way with dirt.
This year I am also trying to plant some of our potatoes from the previous year. I tried this last year and only 20% came up and grew successfully. This year we are planting some again but we are cutting off all the long eyes and I am planting the whole potato. Last year I cut them leaving 2 eyes per cut and left the long eyes on the cut potatoes.
We planted just over 500 feet of potatoes between the 7 rows. This is what they look like before we cover them the hay.
Now it is time to cover the rows with hay. If we had harvested wheat straw this would be preferred but not plentiful in our part of the country. We covered the potatoes with 8-12 inches of loose hay. After a few rains this will compact down to 2 inches. If a frost is predicted after they start to grow we will simply add a few some inches of loose hay and this will protect the plants.
We cover our potatoes with hay for 2 reasons: control weeds and keep the moisture in the ground.
Thank you for reading, upvoting, and sharing your comments with everyone!
"This year I am planting the potatoes at the peak and only covering them half way with dirt."
Am I understanding correctly, between this and the picture, that part of the potato is left sticking out of the dirt? You don't have to worry about animals eating them? Or does the hay serve as a dirt substitute for covering them up? Do you build up more of a hill around them later on?
Sorry for the confusion, the hay will serve as the soil and keep the plants covered, no additional soil. One concern could be exposure to the sun on the new potatoes if the hay breaks down quickly which will produce green spots on the potatoes. If I see it breaking down I will simple add more hay when the plants are young and they will grow right through it. We normally do not have issues with rodents eating the potatoes.
Hi! I am a robot. I just upvoted you! I found similar content that readers might be interested in:
https://www.almanac.com/plant/potatoes
I'm seriously envious of having that much space to grow potatoes. They're far and away my number one favorite veg. Nothing is as versatile! Fingers crossed for a bumper crop!
I appreciate you flagging the 'spammy' comments. We love our potatoes also, this year we will be canning enough for 2 years which is why I am planting a few extra.
Two years! Wow, that's impressive. That's a whole lot of jars and a major process to put up that many.
@shalomacres
I was just about to look up information regarding potatoes.. thank you... we plan to plant some potatoes 🥔 as well. For 7 people, how many should we plant? That’s our biggest “unknown” is how many of each plant.
@jeejee
We have 7 in our family and I typically plant about 40 pounds which brings back a yield of 400 pounds typically. Our family eats on the white potatoes most of the summer into early fall then we harvest our sweet potatoes which gives us an additional large harvest to make it through the winter. We typically get 10 pounds return for every 1 pound we plant. Not sure what your return will be so you could use 10 pounds as a starting point then figure out how many pounds you need at harvest time. Then I would over plant by 10 or 20% to make sure you get the number. Hope this helps and happy planting!
Thank you, yes.. that helps!
@jeejee
I am currently not blessed with land so I had to think vertically! The last 2 years have grown potatoes in cinder blocks. If you are interested in seeing more I did a post on it 5 months ago. Here is the link....
https://steemit.com/gardening/@simms50/cinder-block-potatoes
Thanks for sending the link. I have heard of people being really successful using an approach similar to yours. Like you said maybe a little more water this year! This year maybe the year for a big harvest.
I pray that the Father does make that happen! Now after doing it a couple of years I have a sense of what works and does not work with cinder block potatoes! I'm sure I will make a post of these years crop later this year!
I hope you get a good harvest!
Thank you!
This would be more credible without the glaring typos and begging for followers.
No disrespected, but I'm not sure what you are referring to "begging for followers". I simply write statement at the end of the post trying to get comments plus typically ask for help/knowledge from others reading this post.
We are on our 5th year of homesteading and have achieved 80% food freedom by working hard and being open to learn. Is it wrong to share knowledge and gain knowledge at the same time. I have enjoyed our time on Steemit and want to continue with it. If I am doing something wrong which is offending people I definitely would appreciate any specific feedback so we can make some changes. @aunt-deb your tenure in Steemit is 2x's mine so I really would appreciate any additional feedback. Not only for us but other reading this post that may have less tenure in this wonderful community.
I am sorry about the typos, I am an engineer. I should slow down and make sure I am sending out good quality posts.
I was replying to steemit.edu -If my artcles are helpful then follow me. The layout design sometimes makes it hard to tell who's talking to who. Sorry for the mix-up.
That comment looked very spammy. It amounted to a full-blown advertisement for themselves and NO relevance to your post's topic.
EDIT TO ADD: You're doing just fine and my apologies for any upset. I'm fairly quick on the trigger with the flood of spam comments recently.