Potato gardening questions...

[RegGuheert]

Next year will be our fourth year with the potato garden. The first three years have gone pretty well, but we make small adjustments each year to try to improve our yield and/or reduce the amount of space needed.

 

For reference, this year we planted 50 lbs. of seed potatoes in five 66-foot-long rows spaced 44 inches apart. We put 100 seeds in each row (up from 66 last year). We planted buckwheat all through the bed as soon as some of the potato plants started to die in order to break up the soil, shade the soil and prevent the growth of grasses and weeds. The jury is still out on seed spacing and we had a low number of plants come up, although that was almost certainly due to weather (flooding). We're pretty happy with the buckwheat although I wonder if it consumed more water than it preserved. Probably better than weeds, though...

 

So here are a four things we are considering trying next year:

 

1) We have noticed that our potatoes yield better if they are watered. Specifically, the row next to the onions gets some extra water through July due to use of the soaker hose in the onions and it always yields the most and the largest potatoes. Does anyone out there water their potatoes? If so, how do you decide how much to water and during what periods of growth do you water or not water?

 

2) I would like to be able to use the tractor in the potato garden at any time, but it is a little large for this, having a tire spacing of 54 inches center-to-center. I cannot bring myself to put single rows that far apart since we like 44-inch spacing and it would take too much space. So here is my idea for next year: put TWO rows 10 (or 12) inches apart and put each PAIR of rows on 54-inch centers. If we did this, we would certainly move the seeds back to 12-inch spacing and stagger the seeds between the adjacent rows. With this arrangement, I can see planting three pairs of rows with 66 seeds each for a total of ~400 plants in an area of 891 square feet versus ~330 plants in 1210 square feet (assuming 12-inch spacing for the seeds in each case). (Thinking about this, the potatoes rows would then look similar to MomsintheGarden's raised beds which are four feet wide with two-foot-wide paths in between.)

 

I have four main concerns with this approach:

- There may not be enough soil between each pair of rows to sufficiently hill both rows. This has already been an annual struggle even with single rows and the 44-inch spacing, which is wider than most gardens we know about. This year we approached this problem by putting the seeds in trenches that were a little deeper (but still covering them with only 4" of soil). This was a little risky since it is more susceptible to flooding, but we simply don't expect flooding like we had this year very often. Also, perhaps it takes less dirt to hill a pair of rows than to hill a single row.

- The plants may be crowding each other. Perhaps, but potatoes seem to have the ability to spread out in order to get plenty of sunlight. Also, I'm hopeful that 3) below might help compensate for this.

- The potato plow is designed for a single row of potatoes. I don't want to damage the potatoes in the adjacent row when I plow the other one out. We'll just have to see. Perhaps there are potato plows for pairs of rows? I'm pretty sure the tractor can pull it since it is four-wheel drive.

- It may be harder to find and pick the bugs off the plants. It is not easy as it is.

 

3) Combining the two ideas above, I think it makes sense to put a soaker hose between each pair of rows and raise it up each time we hill. This would allow us to water the hills without flooding the valleys.

 

4) We plan to plant winter rye after the harvest this winter to try to improve the soil. This is highly recommended by my old schoolteachers who consistently win the blue ribbon for potatoes at the county fair. :glare: (MomsintheGarden believes them, but given that they *really* didn't like me, it may be a trick! ;))

 

Anyway, if you've read this far do you have any experience or thoughts about these adjustments? It sure would be nice to reduce the area while at the same time increasing our yield!

 

TIA!

[OrganicAnn]

Most home gardeners I know don't grow potatoes. We grow them and love homegrown potatoes (I always claim it is my Irish blood). There so easy compared to some plants.

 

I would definitely water them if you get a dry spell. They benefit like everything else with regular water.

 

We've never grown a cover crop in with the potatoes. We've never growns as many as you have.

 

Good luck figuring it out.

 

Mmmmm potatoes I wonder if there are any left-overs potatoes in the frig.

[RegGuheert]

Thanks, Ann!

 

Watering, it is! We'll plan on doing some type of watering next year, as there are nearly always dry periods where we live. This part of the county has two contradictory nicknames: Little Arabia and Longmarsh. Somehow it manages to live up to both of them!

[Blueridge]

Hey Reg. Your garden sounds amazing. I have a tip or two...You should listen to those old school teachers about the cover crop, but here is a bit more. Winter rye and hairy vetch are very good to combine for a cover crop. (Buckwheat is also a good, fast grower, as are flax and clover.) You should plant those near October, and cut them for the compost pile before they go to seed. In the spring you might want to test your soil. Since potatoes are fairly heavy feeders, you might need to add some manure for phosphorus. I know a master gardener in the Bedford area who has the most fabulous garden ever. He buys bales of straw, sets them aside, and lets them sit and partially rot for a year to kill any remaining seeds inside, and then uses that material to heavily mulch his potato beds. Never a weed, and he is watering less frequently. Have fun with your garden.

Edited August 31, 2011 by Blueridge

[laughing lioness]

Have you checked out John Jeavens org: Ecology Action. Lots of great stuff there. If I remember he says that they do a light spray mist over everything daily and their yeild is significantly higher. Double check, though. My books from there are gone since our fire.

 

We are yielding a very small potato harvest this year, but the gal at the garden center told me that most farmers in our area are finding thier potatoes rotting in the ground due to saturation levels.

[jenangelcat]

Here's what we do. We plant a 4x 150 row with potatoes, spaced 12-18" apart. I plant using a bulb planter, hilling with the removed soil. This year we have crappy clay soil and didn't hill until a month ago. We just used old hay. The potatoes shade the ground themselves and we never have to weed. I don't water. Potatoes always do well for us.

[livingnlearning]

I don't grow them in our garden because we know many potato farmers locally and it's cheaper and easier for us to buy them from the farmer.

 

That said, we're surrounded by potato farmers:

 

1) they irrigate them all summer long. I would definitely water them but temper it, if they grow too fast they will have hollow centers.

 

2) potatoes really deplete the soil; the farmers here don't usually do a cover crop but I think in a smaller plot I would. It will break up the ground to allow them to grow bigger and give back to the dirt if you choose the right plant.

[RegGuheert]

Wow! Thanks to everyone for your responses! I didn't expect to get so much feedback. It's great!

Hey Reg. Your garden sounds amazing. I have a tip or two...You should listen to those old school teachers...

Why start now? :D

...about the cover crop, but here is a bit more.Winter rye and hairy vetch are very good to combine for a cover crop. (Buckwheat is also a good, fast grower, as are flax and clover.) You should plant those near October, and cut them for the compost pile before they go to seed.

Thanks for the detailed explanation! That's helpful!

In the spring you might want to test your soil. Since potatoes are fairly heavy feeders, you might need to add some manure for phosphorus.

We put as much manure on our gardens as we can get, which currently equates to about twelve trailer loads each year (the trailer is a little smaller than a pickup truck). We'll do that again this fall. Unfortunately, it is horse manure and therefore includes plenty of weeds, the worst being pigweed!

I know a master gardener in the Bedford area who has the most fabulous garden ever. He buys bales of straw, sets them aside, and lets them sit and partially rot for a year to kill any remaining seeds inside, and then uses that material to heavily mulch his potato beds. Never a weed, and he is watering less frequently. Have fun with your garden.

Our neighbor cuts our fields for hay and MomsintheGarden does just this. However, we have not done it with the potatoes, yet. Perhaps we should consider that after the second hilling!

Have you checked out John Jeavens org: Ecology Action. Lots of great stuff there. If I remember he says that they do a light spray mist over everything daily and their yeild is significantly higher. Double check, though. My books from there are gone since our fire.

We will definitely check that out! I'm sorry about your books. Losing books to a fire would absolutely devastate MomsintheGarden!

We are yielding a very small potato harvest this year, but the gal at the garden center told me that most farmers in our area are finding thier potatoes rotting in the ground due to saturation levels.

Yes, we had many seeds that rotted in the ground. However, we still had a lot of plants, so we're still hopeful that we will have them to last the year.

Here's what we do. We plant a 4x 150 row with potatoes, spaced 12-18" apart. I plant using a bulb planter, hilling with the removed soil. This year we have crappy clay soil and didn't hill until a month ago.

Yeah, we have crappy clay soil, as well! We tried to plant potatoes using a bulb planter a couple of years ago, but we couldn't get it to work for us. Can you provide a link to the planter you are using?

We just used old hay. The potatoes shade the ground themselves and we never have to weed.

That sounds nice! As mentioned, we get a lot of weeds from the horse manure we use. It's great to have access to manure for free, but the weeds come free also!

I don't water. Potatoes always do well for us.

Yes, we've never watered either and they have been fine. But we can see the yield would probably improve if we did. We are blessed with an outstanding well, so I'm comfortable watering if needed. Someday we may want to greatly reduce the size of the garden, which a good yield would help.

I don't grow them in our garden because we know many potato farmers locally and it's cheaper and easier for us to buy them from the farmer.

 

That said, we're surrounded by potato farmers:

 

1) they irrigate them all summer long. I would definitely water them but temper it, if they grow too fast they will have hollow centers.

I saw something like this just yesterday! One potato plant was in a location where it got an excess amount of water from a soaker hose. When I dug it up, there was an absolutely HUGE potato below. Unfortunately, it had rotted starting from the center outwards. Yuck!

2) potatoes really deplete the soil; the farmers here don't usually do a cover crop but I think in a smaller plot I would. It will break up the ground to allow them to grow bigger and give back to the dirt if you choose the right plant.

Whatever we can do to improve the soil will help! We started with mostly heavy red clay and it is getting a little better as we mix things in, but this summer when it got dry much of our soil started to feel like concrete! We've used a cover of buckwheat late in the last two summers and it looks like we will try to do something like BlueRidge suggests for this winter.

 

 

Thanks again to everyone for the excellent advice! Please post more if you have it!