POTATOES UNDER STRAW/LEAVES #4

Good luck with the '98 Marquis! That sounds like a great deal!

Thanks, Gal!

Linda I do the same when it comes to cars, I buy cheap and that way I own them free and clear, I really don't need a flashy car as long as it takes me from one place to the next. I have a plymouth that my DH and I purchased about 5 years ago used for 5 K but unfortunately I have had air conditioning problems with it quite often, plus the oil leaks all over the place, the repair guy told us that it was best just to buy something diff, we have been thinking about it but have not done it just yet. Good Luck, let us know how it goes.

Linda, so sorry to hear about your car but very glad to hear you're OK, good luck with the car replacement shopping, hope it works out for you!

Don't know why I should get dinged for being hungry and so severely tempted that I devoured the potatoes before I could take a picture of them!! But I'll try to make it up by posting some pics I just took when I went to harvest some more.

Here are the potato babies in their straw nest around their mom. I put my glove in there for size comparison. These are Red Gold midseason taters, the seed potatoes came from Ronnigers.

I harvested the six largest ones very carefully, leaving the five smaller ones that were visible to grow some more. If it's like last year, there are likely 2 or 3 more deeper down.

Here are the six potatoes all scrubbed up and ready for cooking and devouring!!

Wow! Good job.

My pleasure to introduce you: Here's "Ronnie!"

Sweet ride! Did you get a good deal on her?

Nice Linda it is very cute, love that you named your car, LOL.

Way to go girl - sweet ride!

Nice taters tyro!

Greetings all, This has not been a great summer for my garden. My pole beans have not had a flower on them but the cucumbers are going crazy. I am trying only burpless ones this year - and they don't seem inclined to go "up" the poles I am using. My potatoes are starting to drop over. Some are ready to be checked while others are still green and straight standing. After the last two years of failures, I am excited to stick my hand in the straw. BUT, I am waiting until someone else is here in case snakes decided they like potato mulch too. ( 20 bales of straw for the 12 x 12 in ground garden) I have a ton of green tomatoes and some are starting to ripen. I had a late garden because of a death in my family so I guess that is why things are running late. Last year I tried to find potatoes for the fall garden and couldn't find any. Ya'll order from a company I have not heard of before and I am going to try that one. I do not understand what happened to my pole beans - I usually have a ton of them. I did not use the bacteria powder this year but the plants grew beautifully. The bottoms coming out of the ground look almost dead but the tops (6' or so) are wonderful - except no flowers. I am finally getting some Rocdor wax beans - they should be ready to pick by Thursday. We have had over 5" of rain in the last two weeks so I know lack of water isn't the problem. The boxes are well drained, so I don't think things are water logged. My squash isn't doing well at all either but the eggplant is! We had terrible heat (no, not like the `112 degrees mentioned earlier) through June - could that have hurt some of the plants?

Gymgirl - you will love the Grand Marquis. My husband was an Oldsmobile man but after he died in 2000, I suddenly had to buy a car and picked a Grand Marquis. I love it and have had very little problems with it - it has less than 40K miles on it and the main scratches are over the back right tire when I scooted over in the driveway to avoid hitting one of my lazy cats and hit the house instead. Glad my husband wasn't here! I try to believe that something good comes out of everything that happens and you proved it. Thanks. Marilyn

Wow Marilyn sorry to hear about your pole beans, not sure why they would look terrible in the bottom but the top be intact, have they been nibled at all at the bottom or is it just brown leaves?.

I will tell you about my potatoes though. Back in spring when I grew my yucon gold potatoes, the potatoe seed I started with were from a suppermarket we have here that is mainly organic called Fresh market, I purchased about 4 potatoes and they sprouted fine for me and I was able to grow potatoes out of them, the only drawback from buying from a market is you might not have as much variety but still to me is cheaper and the variety I was dying to try they did have.

Linda you know now that I think about it I think that consummer reports did have really good reviews on the Grand Marquis, boy I am wondering now whether or not I should get me one, the only reason why I am even keeping mine is because it is a Van and I can haul more people around ( Children car seats just take a lot of room). I am sorry to say this for all of you that have one too but please pretty please never buy a plymouth vogager they really can end up giving you lots of problems in the long run.

Guys,
Thanks for the encouragement. My best friends calls my car a "land yacht!" I told her I have to have big cars to haul around the big people I know!

I can't see stuffing them all into a little Mini Cooper (which is what I secretly wanted, but it's not practical for my lifestyle -- too many bags of potting mix, gardening supplies, and EB/eBucket paraphernalia to haul around).

As it is, I might have to resort to renting that little $19.95 U-Haul truck on garden shopping days!

"Ronnie" is short for Veronica Cabot Lodge!

It's sinful, but I actually stopped to put on makeup this morning, before I got in the car....Somebody slap me back to reality, quick, 'cause I am NOT a material girl!!!

Nice new wheels Gymgirl! Is Ronnie having an unexpected influence on you? :-)

Skywatch, don't know what could be wrong with your beans either. Hope you have lots of taters and no snakes, and that you end up with a bountiful tomato crop. What kind of squash do you have? I gave up growing it because it took up too much space, but it seemed fairly "bulletproof", at least around here.

midwest, try a climbing one. I personally like the Tromboncino Squash, you can eat it either as a summer squash or let it mature and use it as a winter squash.

carminator, thanks for the suggestion, I'll check it out!

Um, I just remembered I still have one SmPt of Purple Viking spuds that I've never dug up...between the rain and the heat, I dunno....

Maybe this Saturday morning, EARLY...I'll let ya'll see what's down there. It's the bag on the right in the pic...

Saturday will make 153 days from planting out the seed potatoes on 2/14/10!

OMG Linda that is too funny!
Let us know what you find.

C,
I just had a thought. You think if I just left the spuds down there, they'd start to sprout again?

My GOODNESS!

Just imagine the vines I'd get! And, then, the spuds I'd get!!!

Gosh! I thought you named her Ronnie after Roninger's Potatoes!! LOL LOL

Check out this website for instructions on growing spuds in garbage bags. I do love discovering more compact and portable gardening ideas. Will certainly be incorporating this into my temporary location.

If I could just figure out what to do with the Rottweiler....

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/676503/diy_grow_your_own_potatoes_in_small.html?cat=32

I scrabbled down into the leaves under one plant that was long dead (some of the others are still green and healthy-looking) and found two little French fingerlings. I quickly put them back, figuring I'd wait and do the whole thing at once. I may also wait until my granddaughter is around; she helped me plant them so it would be nice for her to see the results.

That is definitely an inspirational article you've linked us to there, Linda!

Thanks!

Here's my 153 day harvest! Although a small one, it was a very TASTY harvest!

I am wondering have any of you tried growing potatoes in tires? I just found this really good video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbNTuHrTOcg

C,
From what I've heard about using the tires, I believe our growbags/garbage bags are easier...

I would also be concerned about chemicals from the tires and from absorbed car exhaust leaching into the soil and affecting the potatoes.

Thanks Linda, yes I probably should find the growbag system that you were talking about. The garbage bags is also a great idea but I am wondering how well it will drain. The one thing that I thought was good about the tires was that since they don't have a bottom that the drainage is good, almost as good as a raise bed system.
I was also concerned about the chemicals but there is a lot of controversy online some say that as long as you wash the inside of the tire with soapy water that oil and polutants do not make it to the soil.

I just purchased some potatoes from Walmart, organic they already had some eyes on them, I am going to try to grow them and see, my yucon golds that I had saved did not do too well, maybe they were just too small, some of them were already rotting.

We finally got into the potato plot yesterday (12 x 12') and dug up the King Henry potatoes. I got around 9 1/2 pounds! I was so excited since the last two years I have had no potatoes produced. This year we put them in the ground and then covered with straw. They did not seem to grow in the straw but those in the dirt (5" ditch) did wonderfully. Today we dug up the red gold and the yukon - and we dug them to early. My excitement over yesterday over ruled my common sense. The fingerlings are staying right where they are for a few more weeks. They are still straight and green. Sorry I don't have a picture, but I do not know how to do that and I have already given a lot of them away.

The pole beans have have some blooms on them! My neighbor was just telling me that he has had deer tracks in his garden so they have been part of my problem. My wine casks are surrounded by the wild violets - most of which now have crew cuts. Evidently, they prefer the violets to the other things. My squash has a "moldy" look to it. I planted straightneck and zucchini as well as some of the eight ball. No eight ball, no zucchini, and only about 4 squash. Think I will stop growing those next year. They do take up a lot of space.

I am planning to do a winter garden this year. If I plant spinach or something like that in my potato patch this winter, can I plant potatoes again next spring? I am kicking myself for rushing the other potatoes but I am learning quickly what to do and not to do. (Mostly NOT to do) I am also thinking of doing more potatoes this winter but in my wine casks. Depends if I can get them. (potatoes) I did ask for a catalog from Ronniger's but have not received it yet. I started doing this to stay busy after my hubby died and am really hooked! Thank s to all of you for your help! Marilyn PS Tomatoes are doing great, beans (filet and wax) are not doing much but are producing some, and there were NO snakes but plenty of big juicy worms. Wish I were near a fishing pond.

Potato success - more than 4 months later!

About 2.5 lbs of seed potato planted in 48 square feet of dirt. Mulched with straw. Blossom fingerling, Maris Piper, Carola, and one Nicola. Harvest was 38 lbs.

Definitely happy with what I got. Although, I have to admit that the harvest includes several potatoes that were munched on by critters - mice, voles? I'm going to sort the rest of them in the morning, see if I can salvage some of the ones with nibbles in them. The total harvest will be less than 38 lbs when I toss more, but I think it's still a decent harvest. Actually, it's more than 38 lbs because we took several and made french fries. Ha, I'm a lousy record keeper.

My brother thinks that the mice got to the potatoes because of the straw, and that it wouldn't have happened if I'd hilled them the traditional way, with dirt. Thoughts on that?

I will say that the thick layer of straw kept them really moist, good or bad. Nothing was rotten, and I didn't find a lot of slugs like I thought I would.

This message was edited Aug 7, 2010 11:37 PM

Sweet harvest dividedsky! I've not used straw so no help from me there, but if they were munched underground my guess would be moles or voles...

Sky, that's HUGE! Congratulations! I know it musta been hard leaving them in past that 90 day point, but aren't you glad you did?

Tell me. In your 48 sq ft, how deep did you cover them in the soil before you started mulching with the straw?

Linda

Gymgirl

I didn't cover mine with dirt..............





Tubby

Tubby,
What'd you do, and what'd you get?

Gymgirl
I don't know how much we got..
All I did was to cover them with straw..
About 6inch of it..
I should of used more but I didn't...




Tubby

Thanks! I'm glad that I left them in as long as I did but glad that I didn't leave them in any longer because they were getting eaten.

I'm fairly certain that I put them in a trench about 3" deep, as HoosierGreen originally instructed, and just put the soil back in so that it was level. I'd say that I didn't put much more than an inch of soil over the top of the seed potato. We had a freeze or two after I planted and they were fine.

All of the potatoes that I harvested were at the soil line or below. And the same was true with the potatoes grown by a local gardening group that I volunteered with today. Theirs were chewed on, although not as bad as mine. We did disturb a mouse when we pulled up the straw. And one of the gardeners commented that she thinks that at least some of the nibbling was done by roly poly bugs. I think she's probably right about that.

So, I'd like to be able to decide which is better - hilling with straw vs. hilling with dirt. I suspect that the critter problems would've happened regardless. If they want to get into something, they will. The mulch kept my potatoes in the ground moist. I don't think I felt like I ever needed to water them. But at the same time, they didn't rot, either. I'd say that I still prefer the straw method.

What a great harvest of taters dividedsky!! A yield of 15 times what your planted!! Too bad about the critters sampling them, but sounds like the losses were relatively small.

Yeah, I can't complain. I have plenty of potatoes now. And my little nephew got to help dig some up and learn where potatoes come from and where french fries come from. It was fun! I think I've hooked a few other people into maybe growing potatoes next year.

It is so wonderful to spread the word and to get the next generation involved in growing things and seeing where food comes from. I had my granddaughter help me set up the wine barrel with potatoes, and she will also be there to harvest them. Even if she doesn't become a gardener, at least she'll have some appreciation of what it all means.