I was at one of our 'pre-Spring' gardening shows yesterday and one of the vendors suggested that NOW is the time to plant potatoes (they were selling seedlings...)
For me, the average last Frost Date is April 15.
Is the end of February a correct planting time? This seems awfully early to me, but I have never planted this veggie before.
thx,
jones
When to Plant Potatoes
The target date for Virginia is St. Patricks day. Thats for planting seed potatoes tho, not seedlings.
I'm in Raleigh and I always plant around March 1, no problems.
That is when I plant seed potatoes.
It might be ok for Va Beach, but waay early for Richmond. Guesstimating I'd say mid March and since FarmerDill is always spot on... ;-0
I'm in Texas in 8a and my grandparents and parents always planted potatoes on Valentine's Day.
I'm planting seed potatoes with my 2nd grade class next week. They have started to bud. Do I cut them up and let them sit for a day or two? Also, can the children start harvesting potatoes by June? One more thing, do they need rich soil and fertilizer? Thanks for any help on this.
Cut them and let them sit out to dry for a day, maybe leave them on paper towels in a window sill. As I understand it this will keep them from rotting or turning mushy later. There are very good reference threads around here somewhere about soil and how to get healthy ones...I'll hunt if one of the knowledgeable people doesn't chime in first...
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/954155/
2Teacher -check through this info, if you will. There are a bunch of very good potato-ers around and I believe if you read this and the 2 links in the thread you'll find what you're looking for...
thanks for the responses. I will shoot for mid March.
Henry Fields said they would ship seed ptatoes when ready to plant. Well, they arrived Wednesday. Since the seed potatoes were sizeable, I cut them in half and left on the ping-pong table (aka gardening center) to dry for a few days. Today, after the downpour ended, I laid out newspaper about 8 sheets thick, wet it down, and set the seed potatoes , eyes up, on the damp paper. Next I covered with about 10" of straw. And wait.
I plan to feed with a foliar spray of fish emulsion and liquid kelp.
Since I ran out of room in the raised bed, I'll plant the remainder the traditional way in a few days.