I put in 2 doz potato seeds and was wondering if there is/are any companion plants. This is the first time I try potatoes, very new to veggie growing.Thank you.
What can be interplanted with potatoes?
I had to look this one up, and found in "Great Garden Companions" by Susan Jean Cunningham. Inter plant beans and potatoes, also herbs recommended are savory, basil, parsley and coriander. As well as planting marigolds on the ends of the rows where the potatoes didn't sprout. The rational is that beans and potatoes planted together have tendency to confuse pests of both types of plants.
Oh thank you... I will surely do herbs and some beans too.. Thank you again.
A.
Gourd,
Bear in mind that potatoes should be "hilled", that is pull dirt up around the plants in a mound, as much as 12" high. Otherwise you won't get the full production out of your potatoes. So if you plant bush beans, they'll become nearly buried if/when you hill your potatoes. Hope I'm not discouraging you!
Red
Thank you Red, I didn't know that, I put the potatoes in a raised bed that is raised three feet, but, I'll probably have to mound that right? Maybe I can do some herbs then in the middle of the two rows.
Gourd,
Yes, the small potatoes will form on the vines as they grow up and not on the roots that grow down. That's why you have to keep pulling soil up around the growing plants. Here's a link to how I raise mine. Hope this helps.
http://davesgarden.com/community/blogs/t/Big_Red/2511/
This message was edited Jan 22, 2008 4:23 PM
Thank you, I'm glad you told me about this.
I tried your link but it says access denied.
I went in thru your diary, it is very impressive, I love the details you wrote. thank you.
A.
This message was edited Jan 22, 2008 9:02 AM
It's important to keep the potatoes covered as they grow - sunlight will make them turn green, and green potatoes are toxic.
Gourd,
Try the link now, I think I've got it right this time! ☺
Red
Great tutorial Red. Thanks for sharing that with us. I have two questions. Do you have them mulched in that last picture? It kinda looks like there's a hay mulch or something? If they aren't mulched, how do you keep the garden so weed free? I searched and searched and couldn't find one weed. :) I'm jealous.
Or you can grow your potatoes on the ground and cover them with oak leaves and or straw. See my article for the details..http://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/view/435/
doccat5, I tried to find your article and couldn't locate it, I posted on there a couple of times, but I guess I did not hit watch thread.. which forum is it on?
Big_Red, very nice presentation there. I was able to see the link thru your DG diary.
Hmm, having trouble with links this evening, for some reason...let me try again, if this doesn't work, look up the articles under my nick.
http://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/view/435/
JoanJ,
Nope, no mulch. I had just gone through them with my Troy Bilt and pulled the dirt up around the plants. The weeds come later! ☺
Red
doccat5, I really enjoyed your article. I've also read about a method that we are going to try this year. It sounds great for limited spaces. It's growing potatoes in old tires. Start out with one tire on the ground. lay your potatoe seed out and cover with soil. When the plants are up a few inches cover with more soil, etc. Keep stacking old tires and soil as potatoes grow. We figured to use 4 tires high and use straw instead of soil (clean potatoes). Do you think that will work? What about water? How often would they need to be watered/ fertilized?
Fertilize the ground first and then don't do it again. Use your hands, test the soil, if it feels to dry water throughly. Just make sure the ground your putting those on, is well drained. Potatoes don't like wet feet and will rot. I don't know if your going to get great production doing tires. I've heard of it done, just having a hard time visualizing how many laterals you're going to get in such an enclosed space. The trick with this is get the potato to grow up and then branch out, for every branch there's a new potato. Larger production, clean crop and no back ache. LOL
The magic word here is no back ache...lol. Thanks doccat5. I let you know how well it works. If it's enough to feed the 2 of us I'll be happy.
Seabreezy, I do much the same thing, using straw. It works well.
Have a seed potato question. I have some with long sprouts on them. Do I need to cut the sprouts shorter or plant as they are. They are a little wrinkly but thought they would be alright as they are not rotten. Thanks Deanna
I'm not an expert, but as far as I know it's fine to leave the sprouts and just plant them.
Karen
I have never tried to grow potatoes before, but I want to try this year. I will follow your excellent tutorial. I have a question about seed potato. It is very expensive, and I am wondering if it is possible to save potatoes from one season to create next season's seed potatoes or do you have to buy new seed potato every year? Thanks for all the information. Cathy
I think if you buy some potatoes from an Organic food store, they will also grow. I'm not too sure about that, but since they don't spray inhibitors or anything else, I don't see why not.. I bought some really small oblong potatoes at our local Organic food store and I'm going to try them also. Plus, I am trying the ones from the regular supermarket, and the seeds from Lowes. We'll see what happens... I've planted the seed potatoes from Lowes, and have planned to plant the others for this coming weekend.
I'm sure hoping they grow, because that's what I've got... no place here seems to have them, my on-line order seems to have fallen through, and I really do want to give this a shot for my D-potato fanatic-H!
villaluna, yes you can use some of the potatoes you harvest this year to plant next year. Re-read the article on this part. You do need an area to store them that is cool and dry. But you want to pick some of the best of your harvest for that. You can do this for several years. But after awhile they begin to lose there "punch". Potatoes are predisposed to viruses mainly and over time they become more and more susceptible. It's the nature of the plant. Thus eventually you'll need to buy new seed.
I know the seed potatoes are expensive and the organically grown one's even more so, but you get what you pay for. With the method, you get more potatoes from each "eye" than you would doing the traditional method. The last time we did this, I had 10 lbs of seed potatoes and we harvested over a 150 lbs. So be prepared, I wasn't kidding when I said you'd need a wheelbarrow.
Gourd is right, you can plant the organic ones and get good results. Gourd, please do me a favor and monitor your production off each and let me know. I haven't done a comparison in a long time. I may buy some from Lowe's and try that myself, just to see. They'll be room in the bed for a few. :)
Good thread:
I read doccat's article before and found it to be very informative.
Anyway, I really wanted to grow potatoes for market this year and increased my purchase of seed potatoes from 8 pounds to........(gulp) 60 pounds.! So I gotta find a place for all of them.
Here is the first bed. Well amended. Caribe is here under the straw.
My first question is can potatoes be interplanted with tomatoes?
Well, I'll sure keep track of these three types.. and report back.
Today, I planted dill, pole beans, and cilantro around the first batch of potatoes.
I also have 125 tomato seedlings, I don't know if they can go together because I think they are very closely related in some way (the bugs may really be the problem)... It will be interesting to find out, hopefully someone will come in here and tell us..
I also have mine in raised beds.
Thank you, doccat5; I was so excited the first time around, I missed that part! Ok, I will try some fresh seed potato, also some organic potatoes and I will try to save some seed potato for next time. We are so hot and humid here, I'm not sure how best to save the seed potato. I'll do more reading. Thanks for the advice. Cathy
No Bronx Boy it's not recommend you inter plant tomatoes and potatoes. The primary reason not to plant Tomatoes and Potatoes near each other is more due to Late Blight (Phytophthora infestans) as the same insect (Colorado Potato Beetle) that transmits the fungus disease will also attack Tomatoes. Tomatoes have enough problems with soil borne fungusdiseases such as Fusarium and Pythium but the Late Blightfungus can harbor in the soil longer. If the Tomatoes get even a whiff of Late Blight the fruit will begin rotting within a day and the plant will be a goner within 2 days
as Late Blight acts like a systemic on both plants but more so and faster on Tomatoes.
OK
to the original question- got me thinking, to try something quick and early like radishes, right over my potato row before the sprouts come up much, although radishes are the only thing I can think of right now.
and--every potato I buy from the grocery store sprouts just great in my house, I can hardly use them before I see buds
Well, I'm not sure how well the radishes will do in a layer of leaves/straw, but you could give it a shot.
sorry, I was picturing my OLD method where I had several inches of dirt on the planting., and a few weeks before any potato sprouts showed.........
Great thread - thanks for all of the terrific information!
We grow our potatoes in raised beds, so we use the trenching method rather than the hilling method. I make a trench in the bed, add a little food at the bottom, mix it in, place a piece of comfrey leaf, then plant the seed potato on top of the comfrey and cover with just enough soil to hold it in place, leaving a little showing. As the vines grow up, we fill in with soil, leaving just a few leaves showing. Eventually we will have filled the trench up to the same level as the rest of the bed. We tried hilling once, but that only made the soil flow out of the frame. Trenching seems to work better with raised beds, for us anyway.
What does the comfrey do, Garden_mermaid?
It's supposed to prevent verticilium wilt and provide nutrients. I didn't use it one year and lost a third of my potato plants to wilt.
http://www.squidoo.com/comfrey
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comfrey
http://www.webgardenguide.com/10_Organic_Gardening_Uses_For_Comfrey_5358_582_2.html
Interesting... thanks for the info!
Does anyone have experiance using these potatoe bags?
http://www.gardeners.com/Potato+Bag/VegetableGardening_PotsPlanters,36-629,default,cp.html
I haven't used them, but in my area the squirrels would probably chew holes in them.