Don't keep the leaves totally covered, leave some green showing.
potatoes under straw
Thanks for your reply. I covered them this morning but I have left just a bit of green poking through.
Depsi ~ Hate to tell you, your DH is right. Do you have more containers you can seperate them in? If not, try on the ground and as they grow, cover with straw or leaves. I just read an article about someone using old bushel baskets with the bottom out of them and simply filling the baskets. Anything should work but I'd divide them before they get larger. They will wilt but come back. Hang in there!
No pictures (too busy with a new grandson) but I'd piled hay on my potatoes and they never flowered and then the plants died so I just dug the bed up in disgust and the soil was full of potatoes!! None in the hay (I can't get straw down here except at a craft store and goodness knows what they're laden with) but all down in the dirt. I had piled it pretty high but of course weather, etc., tamps it down. Not a bad haul for a 2 x 6' bed. Several dozen, many the size of a marble.
I planted my potatoes a month ago after sprouting them inside, but nothing ever came up. :-( I figured they had rotted from all the rain we've had and then the worms had eaten them, so today I dug around in there to pull out the rotten messes.
When I finally found one I started pulling it out but then saw it had little roots and the sprouts were just about to break the surface of the soil! I hastily shoved it back in the dirt and covered up the hole. Yeah!!! I'm growing potatoes for the first time! Well, I guess I don't actually know that yet, but at least I'm growing potato plants!
We have had lots of water too. 8 or 9 days in a row now. I've lost count. We had some sunshine this morning but the rain came back this evening and should be here for a while.
We had the rainiest April in 13 years. It's May and the rain keeps coming. I'm having trouble getting my garden in because the soil's too wet to work. Driving me crazy!
The potatoes are in, though. We'll see how they do.
We've had the rainiest year-to-date on record here! I couldn't have planted the potatoes at all if I weren't using the straw method. They would have just rotted.
I think I'm about 20 miles from you, LTilton. I managed to get my cold weather veggies planted during the dry spell about a month ago, and was sure the potatos had rotted, but they are proving me wrong! Sure wish the ground would dry out though, I have a whole lineup on my patio of shrubs, perennials and annuals in containers waiting to be planted!
I with ya, midwest. It's the first year I started seedlings on a large scale, and they're all lined up, waiting to go into the ground. They sure will be hardened off, no question about that! Good luck to you and everyone else who's waiting out this dang rain!
I've been rereading through the posts on this subject and haven't found an answer to this question: the straw stays wet from watering. does that hurt the crop?? I pulled all the extra plants out & just left the tallest of the sprouts, he's just to the top of the barrel and the ones I pulled I put in the compost pile & they're sprouting all over!....looking foward to an answer...Thank you, Deb
I find that it helps the crop, keeps it from drying out. Potatoes like water if it isn't standing water.
I agree, moisture is good as long as your container will drain the excess.
Please HELP!!! my potatoes have been growing wonderfully all the way over the top of the garbage can and blooming.....this morning they are wilted completely, blossoms are drooped and the plant looks like it is dying!!! I dug down to the soil with my hands and pulled up the straw against the soil...it is wet, smelly and rotting...what have I done wrong?????? can the plant be salvaged???? Please pass on your thoughts....thank you, Deb
Do you have drain holes in the bottom of your bucket? I just have mine in a wire square. They are spindly but they don't get a lot of sun. Wish I could be more help to you but I don't have any experience of growing them in a bucket.
Your's look wonderful....yes, the garbage can has plenty of drainage, it sits right out in the sun & it's been in the middle 90's here for a week if that helps determine a cause for this...Thank you, Deb
Potatoes do die back when they've finished for the season. If yours have already flowered, have you dug around to see if there are potatoes in there?
No, I haven't but they had just put out blossoms day before yesterday and more were coming on...
Then that is probably not it.
I'm just sick about this...this is our "maiden voyage" and was really excited about how great they were doing....NUTS!!!!! Thanks for the help....Deb
Check here and see if either of these two diseases match your plant
http://www.ag.ndsu.edu/pubs/plantsci/hortcrop/pp1084w.htm
I see similiarities in the article with my plant. Funny you picked that particular site, I was born & raised in North Dakota.....I think I'm going to dump the whole thing into the trash if it isn't looking better tomorrow...from the article it doesn't sound like it should go into the compost pile. Thank you for the link....Deb
Your description sounded a lot like the historical accounts of the Irish potato famine! They said that one day the potatoes were flourishing, the next they were rotten, smelly and black.
Irish Potato's and famine, OH MY!
Oh for Heavens Sake, this morning they are all perked up. I will never understand this stuff..maybe it just got too hot in the sun????? maybe we should move them where they get afternoon shade??? After all, I live in Idaho the home of the potato....Thank you for your responses....Deb
potatoes are more of a cooler weather plant aren't they.. I bet the 90 degree heat is what got them.. have your temps been a little cooler? Try a place where they get afternoon shade if you can.
Is a 5-gallon growbag deep enuf 2 grow a batch of New potatoes in?
That is exactly what we are doing...Thanks Tami....Deb
I just harvested 12 pounds of potatoes, some from two growbags and some from a raised bed. I'll harvest the rest (hopefully another 12 pounds!) soon. They're Yukon Golds and I planted them in January. Piled a lot of hay on top of them (can't get straw down here) and no potatoes grew in the hay, just in the soil. But they were quite easy to dig and I think I'll tuck some melons in where they were. Very happy camper here.
After crunching numbers all day at work, fighting on the drive home with the bank that's holding my Hurricane Ike payout to the roofer who completed the job six weeks ago, sitting in the driveway another 20 minutes longer arguing with yet another inept bank rep, and facing the thought of 93 year old Aunt Beatrice loosed in my kitchen to cook a cabbage (she can't hardly see how many directions her chopped cabbage flies) I tried to calm myself as best I could to walk into my house. It smelled wonderful. Aunt Beatrix looked up and smiled from the counter full of cabbage debris. And, as I immediately reached for a towel to begin the major cleanup job, all I had walked into the house with on my shoulders just melted away. For sitting off to the side of all the mess in a Ziploc baggie were FOUR Irish Potato slips that she had so lovingly thought to save -- just for me... Aint life grand?
Aunt Beatrice knows what's important in life.
Hi All, Don't think we posted on this thread but Ric enjoyed reading all the different ways you have been growing potatoes. He has 3 plastic barrels, each planted with a different type of potato. Potomac Reds, Yukon Gold, and the old standby Kennibeck. he has been adding a mix of straw and potting mix to the top and they all seem to be doing great. Of course it is much too early yet but if they do well I think we will be picking up a few more barrels for next year.
I have one question based on an observation. At the stalk, I guess the seed potato grew into a potato? Each plant had one of these, quite large and much darker and rougher than the "real" crop. Do you eat these?
I just bought Georgia Jet and Vardaman sweet potato slips from Wabash Feed Store on Washington Ave. They have a running will call list for orders. They have about 6 different varieties available. They're also giving out a Sweet Potato planting guide available upon request. I had 2 out mine in the fridge in s brown paper bag til planting time later tomorrow or Sunday afternoon. Linda
I am so envious of you people that can grow sweet potatoes. It's just too cool in the summer here on the Pacific NW coast to grow them. However, our Irish potatoes are growing gang busters, They haven't bloomed yet. Can't wait to see the blooms. I like to steal the tiny new potatoes for New Potatoes and Peas.
Beebonnet
Still haven't put those slips down, but I have them in a flat pan with a moist paper towel over the roots. In a window that gets good light. They actually look like they're lifting up offa the pan!
The bed in the pic is where I plant to plant them. I have to dig up the few easter lilies, two small Mexican heather puffballs, and my one japanese fern that're in the bed (it's an old pic of the bed). Then, I'll sift one-year-old homemade compost into the bed and mound it up into a hill all the way round the little bed. I'll put a 36" wire screen inside the bed to hold the leaves I'll be using to cover. Do I need to add anything else to the compost that I mound up? The instructions I got said to add two tablespoons of SOFT PHOSPHATE into the holes I'm gonna plant in. Where do I get soft phosphate, and is this really necessary? I only have 7 slips to plant.
SP's planted in April
Rtl850nomore,
Your pic is totally AWESOME! That's a strawbale, right? So how did you put the slips in there? Are you feeding them anything? What about mounding and covering the vines, though?
Nope, no strawbale...two tires stacked together. I ran out of tires so I circled the tires with chicken wire and am adding straw as they grow. I put the slips in the lower tire. I grew them myself in a jar. I have been adding soil until the second tire was full then switched to straw. They get fish emulsion with kelp from time to time. They grow real well here in our blast furnace summer.
Rtl850nomore,
How many slips did you plant, and what kind?