POTATOES UNDER STRAW/LEAVES #5

Gators too.

hmmmmm i always did want a moat....

As promised, I've dumped all the tomato tubs, and, good thing I did! No bumper crop as unexpected, but I discovered several huge rotting Kennebecs.

My 3-1-1 pine bark mix is staying too wet! Which is not a bad thing to know, since this was my first time growing in it, and I had no clue as to what was going on below the surface. Based on my findings in 2 out of 4 containers, I should a) decrease my watering frequency to every 3-5 days only, or b) adjust the mix to either 411 or 511.

Two containers were topped off with some aged horse blend. Two containers weren't even half full of the 311 mix. These two were very dry and were trying to yield. I got these three Yukon Golds from one dry one, and all the original seed potatoes intact on the vines from the other. I could've put these back in to continue, but I'm ready to move on to beans!

The 3 YG spuds were still attached to the vine and I had to rip them off. Hope I cand harden them off without maggots getting in them.

I still love the ease of just dumping the pot on a tarp to harvest.

This message was edited Jun 4, 2011 12:07 PM

Well, bummer. I know you were really getting excited about your tater harvest. Sorry to hear that. Glad you got your Yukon Golds though. As for "harden them off" I think you mean cure them for storage, right? If you let them cure on a screen out of the sun/excessive heat they should be fine from any maggots, hopefully there are no bruises and cuts in them.

I think you should cut them up, make french fries, sit down with your favorite beverage and a bottle of ketchup, a shaker of salt, and enjoy the moment.

Shoe

Shoe,
We were on the same page until I bit into one 'a my home fries. It tasted awful! The potatoes were hard when I sliced them, and there were brown spots on the inside. I think they may all been getting rotten from too much water.

But, even though the spuds were inedible, I learned a lot about the 311 potting mix. Very valuable info for next growing season.

Linda

Aw darn, a double-bummer. Well, I know one year I had so much rain and water my spuds rotted. Smelled so terrible when I plowed them up I walked away. Ugh.

Better luck next time. I hope you find a good soil formula. I have grown them successfully in wooden boxes though with nothing but soil (ground soil) and straw. You might try that next time.

Shoe (Off to stare at his unhilled spuds, hoping for a good harvest)

So I see I'm not the only one who didn't hill their potatoes!

The over-watering was my fault. I'm still learning how to work with the pine bark fines mix. This batch held a lot of water. I need to add more pine bark to it. I had too much MG potting mix (peat) in the formula, and it held too much water.

Linda

I dug up some of my Rio Grande russets today, just to see how big they were. This is what I got from the one plant I dug. Not really big, just about the small size you get in a 5-lb bag of taters.

Nice Steph!

My soil was 10x as wet as your pic. I drowned my spuds.

I'm not real impressed with them because they're so tiny. I bet all together they don't weigh a pound! LOL

Here's my haul!

I started with 3 lbs Red Norland and 2 lbs Purple Viking taters. My total haul of those 2 is about 11.5 pounds.

Purple Viking after washing. I think they are so pretty!

Oh so jealous! LOL! Looking good there.

Steph,
Those purples are gorgeous!

Did you do anything different than our first growing season? Any tips to pass on?

Congratulations!

I got my taters earlier this year and then life got in the way and I planted them later than normal. We planted them in raised beds with lots of amendments, mainly compost from our compost pile. I only hilled once, watered occasionally. That's about it. I didn't use leaves this year, just compost.

The purples make awesome mashed potatoes, too!

I planted my potatoes this year in a spot that we recently tilled from grass and amended with compost. Probably should've planted them in the older part of the garden, as lots of rain came, as others have noted, and I worry about drainage. The plants don't seem to be as vigorous as last year, and some didn't come up at all. If my notes are correct, it's the purple majesty (about a quarter to a half of what was planted) that didn't come up.

I do see some that seem to be flowering earlier or at a smaller size. And flea beetles are eating them up. I assume that I can safely ignore the flea beetles?

stephanie, your purple vikings are so pretty!

bjwilson, I like your bean and potato container.

What do purple vikings taste like? I have such good luck with Pontiac Reds... are they similar?

I am about to harvest my yukon golds... can't wait!

Purple Vikings are totally wonderful! They have a creamy consistency similar to, but not as dense as, the Yukons.

And, they are a very pretty plant to grow "just because!"

Purple Vikings don't do well if chopped and fried. They get too mushy. They DO taste great as mashed potatoes!!

I grew potatoes in containers for the first time last summer. I grew four varieties; Peanut, Yukon Gold, All Blue, and Iditared. I grew them in four old, old, OLD half barrels, and had the best harvest I've ever had. Unfortunately, the barrels all started falling apart, so this year I started my spuds in large plastic tree pots, I don't know the sizes, but they are bigger than the half barrels.

I only started two varieties, because I kept seed potatoes from last years crop for the Iditared and the All Blue, (I ate all of the Peanut potatoes and the Yukon Gold) and I couldn't find the others at any local seed potato sources. They sold out fast this year! I put about 6 inches of soil in the bottom of each pot, placed my sprouting seed potatoes on top, and then added another 4 inches to bury them. I started them in early May, because we had a record snowfall last winter and a very late spring.

I have been hilling them by just adding more soil, and reached the top of the containers about a week ago. I am tempted to wrap them in plastic bird netting and add straw, but don't know if Alaska weather will give me a kind enough August to make it worth while, and I'm certain I am already getting a bumper crop of spuds. While everyone else has been having drought and heatwaves, we have had the coldest July on record. The cool temps have not seemed to bother the spuds, though. They are nearly 4 feet tall, and still have more than a month to grow.

Great report! Thanks for posting and keeping the thread alive!

Last year I got almost nothing with my La Ratte and Rose Finn fingerlings, grown in old half-barrels in soil and then topped up with leaves. There were some very small potatoes in each barrel, but that was it. So I decided not to bother trying any more. But interestingly, some of the fingerlings must have ended up in the compost, and they are sprouting in the leaves we put around the fig trees. So I'll be very curious to see what happens with those...

I didn't grow potatoes this year due to some health issues my husband was having. I did plant some herbs in one of the boxes I had planted potatoes in 3 YEARS ago late this spring. (You know where this is going, right??) A couple of weeks ago, I saw a potato growing in the herb box! My husband wants to dig it up, but I told him to let it be and we'll see what we get! It's in the upper left corner of the box in this photo.

Thank you all for your wonderful photos and expertise/experience. This is my first year for growing potatoes (though I live in potato farming area). I'm growing Le Ratte, French Fingerlings, and Sangres, all organic. Planted in barley hay. Layers for the Le Ratte: chicken wire for moles, old dried out leaves, barley hay broken up, and Happy Frog soil conditioner on top. I've been hilling with the barley straw and some dirt/compost mix. The Sangres I planted in a bed of sandy dirt, leaves, and Happy Frog Soil Conditioner, hilling with mostly dirt. The French Fingerlings are in a bed of more sandy dirt/leaves, hilling with dirt/straw.
The Le Ratte and Sangres are blooming now, but the FF not yet. All the plants look beautiful to me, not much insect damage at all. I'm new to growing potatoes, but hope this bedding experiment, of sorts, will teach me more.
Thanks, again, for sharing your experiences. Great encouragement and reading.
1. Sangres about to bloom
2. French Fingerlings (next to my first garlic in tires and some asters running amok)
3. Le Rattes were the first to bloom
I realize, despite the big plants, there might be nothing under them. I continue to hope, though. :)

Solace, I'll be interested in hearing how you do with these. I did something similar with La Ratte and French Fingerling, in different years, although I found that they were better planted in earth rather than in hay or leaves. The tubers never extended up into the mulch material, though, and as I said, they were very small. I think I did better with the French Fingerlings than with La Ratte and Rose Finn.

I checked to see, and for some reason the name of that potato is LA Ratte, even though ratte is masculine in French. Who knows why...

Hmmm, maybe La Ratte is originally a Spanish word? Thank you for that correction. Though, if it were, it would be the masculine, too? El Ratte. I'm stumped on that one. As for the crops, I'm just hoping for the best, and will try again next year, Lord willing, if nothing makes this year. Thank you for sharing your own experiences with those spuds.

Solace, I saw your "le" and went to check. Even on French pages it's La Ratte, and it's a traditional French variety dating back at least to 1872. Actually the word for "rat" is just "rat" in French, too.

I'll be curious to see how you do with those. I'm waiting to find out whether the potatoes that accidentally sowed themselves in my mulch do anything more than they did in the barrels.

arghhh...checked the Sangre bed this evening and noticed a plant turning yellow. I looked at the main stem and saw where some varmint had gnawed it like a beaver does a tree, right above the soil line. I hope whatever did that doesn't ruin or eat the potatoes. arghhh x 2 ;(

Could be sowbugs or cutworms. If it's one of those they won't eat the potatoes, but if the stem is severed it may not put forth any more.

Thank you, greenhouse_gal. I might just pull that one up, then. It's pretty dead anyway.