Melinda, over at One Green Generation was kind enough to explain the chitting potato process the other day. I bought two types of potato seeds this year, Yukon Gold and All Blue. They are organic and from a farm called Irish Eyes, just over in Eastern Washington. So, I consider them to be both local and organic.I was hoping to plant them this weekend (as per traditional St. Patty's Day potato action), but it's been so darn cold and freezing that I think I'm going to wait a week or two, not just to give them a better chance of not freezing to death, but also to give me a better chance of not freezing to death while planting them.
This will be the third year I've grown potatoes. Okay, actually last year, I didn't plant any new potatoes, I just left what was in there from the previous year and they still grew a few. But, this year, I'm going to do it right again and plant and hill them in my plastique bins and hope for a bumper crop. The first year we had more potatoes than we could eat. But, the take home lesson with potatoes is that they are dirt easy to grow.
How about you? Have you grown taters before and will you do so this year?
17 comments:
We grew potatoes last year, both in containers and on a teeny tiny patch of ground. They were mostly fingerling types and damn, they were good. My mum actually gave them to my husband as a birthday present at the beginning of spring so that they would be ready or nearly by his birthday in August. This year, we might, but we are definitely planning on giving sweet potatoes another crack.
Wow, I'm jealous you could even consider planting potatoes in March. It will be another two months for us up here. I grew them for the first time last year, and had a great harvest even though my seed potatoes had gone a bit squishy (I had bought them too early and left them in too much warmth and light). Even just the ordinary potatoes I cut up and used from the grocery store grew and produced like crazy. I love growing potatoes!
I was thinking the same thing as Theresa - planting potatoes in March would be a dream. I tried them for the first time a couple of years ago and had pretty good success for the small # that was planted. Last year I planted a lot more but we had one of the wettest summers ever and at least 1/3 of them were mush. This year I'd like to plant more again and try a potato condo. My dream is to harvest enough to get us through to at least spring.
I don't think I'm going to try potatoes. I do plan to try sweet potatoes. I did try potatoes 2 years back and got out less than I put in! The mixture I planted them in was apparently too nitrogen rich and the spot I had them was just too hot.
I was talking recently with a friend who has gardened here in the Kansas City area for years and she said we just don't have a good climate for potatoes. They are not a commercially viable crop here. You can get local ones sometimes at the farmers market, but overall they just don't do very well because of the summer heat.
I was advised to try sweet potatoes instead. Coming from Scotland, I grew up on potatoes, but I don't eat that many these days. My kids prefer pasta and rice. I'm going to try and acquire a taste for sweet potatoes so that we can enjoy them when I've figured out how to grow them.
I put ours in last weekend, but now I'm worried about them because we're being flooded with rain! I hope they come through okay. I may put some more in after the rain stops, just to hedge my bets.
Planning on it this year. Last year I grew them in old tires, stacking the tires higher and adding more soil as the potatoes grew.
This year I want to experiment between some in ties and some in mounds on the ground to see if there is a difference in yield. I think I have five varieties to grow again this year!
Potatoes are so easy. Even up here in the foothills of W.WA.
We did them in the ground last year and had about 10 taters per plant x 20 plants. We had enough for our family of 4 and the neighbor.
This year we are going to do containters too.
We have some peices of 12inch tall x 24in wide plastic pipe?
They fit together and you can stack them as many tall as you need. We figure that this would work just like tires, only not as Pretty!
you'll have to share some pointers with us! I realy want to grow my own potatoes but don't know anything about gardening and completely failed at trying to get the little thingies to grow onw pre-excitings potatoes so I could grow them that way :/ Good luck with yours :)
I just constructed my first potato condo a la shiba guyz I am waiting to put my chits in the ground.
Nice pair of chits btw!
And now the moment y'all have been witing for: Does a bear chit in the woods? Only if he has yukon golds!
I've never grown taters before. I do, however, have some taters from Ed's uncle that are sprouting. My plan is to plant them, but I'm not sure about when to plant around here. I need to do more research.
This is going to be my experimentation year, I think.
Rob, you're on fire. Between the Pi R Square comment on my blog and the chit in the woods...
I am going to plant potatoes again this year. I grew them last year, but didn't do a very good job, and they all turned out tiny... I am going to plant them as seed this year, and make some changes. Not this weekend, though... we still have 2 feet of snow on the ground here in Alaska.
Last year they did well for us and came in all at once. We ate them all winter and still have some to plant. I'm planting a few each week this year, to see if I like doing it that way better.
We grew potatoes when I was a kid, but this will be the first year doing it on my own.
My favorite method is to take the potato, set it on the ground, and put a bale of hay on top. Works remarkably well.
I actually put them out quite awhile ago, and the bales have done a mighty fine job of keeping them protected, despite the spiteful snow.
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I posted about chitting potatoes and referenced you on my blog....great site thanks for all the useful info.
Cheers
Think we can grow sunchokes the same way? I hate having to hunt them down the two weeks they're at the market.
I grew potatoes in my first veggie garden (in 1976).. We planted seed potatoes in a big old pile of decomposed oak leaeves . It was so long ago, I don't remember how successful we were. Last year a good friend of mine, who lives in a typical suburban neighborhood, grew posh e=heirloom potatoes in a big woven plastic bag on her deck. Her little boy was intrigued by the blue and fingerling taters from our CSA and wanted more...so they grew them. It was a huge success and they're doing it again this year.
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