Hoarding is exactly what the government is doing right now by filling the SPR, and frankly it's the best thing that could happen. It drives prices up. High prices encourage demand destruction. They also finance new well development. The hoarded oil gives us a buffer to fall back on once shortages become more prevalent. High prices are what we need in order to adapt to what's coming, and the sooner they happen, the better.
Posted: Mon Apr 21, 2008 11:33 am Post subject: Re: Anyone planting potatoes? Or whatnot?
WisJim wrote:
SpringCreekFarm wrote:
What's the earliest you folks plant your spuds in around zone 5?
I could be planting them now ( april 21 ) but is that too early?
We are in zone 4, straight east of Minneapolis/St Paul. We often plant at least some potatoes on Good Friday, but not this year, as Easter was very early. We are planting ours this week, now that the snow is gone. It all depends on the weather. Potatoes can take a little frost, so we always plant them much earlier than tomatoes, for example. If you are a zone warmer than us, I would think they could be in the ground for a month by now. So, get them planted.
Thanks Jim. Yes we are a zone warmer but as you know that doesn't mean much really. The ground is just getting dry enough to work here so I'll try to get them in this week. Thanks again.
Joined: Apr 17, 2005 Posts: 2624 Location: Vancouver Island
Posted: Mon Apr 21, 2008 3:55 pm Post subject: Re: Anyone planting potatoes? Or whatnot?
Last frost date was April 16th for us. I planted potatoes the weekend before that. Of course it snowed this last weekend so I was out covering everything fragile that was up with hoop houses. _________________ shame on us, doomed from the start
god have mercy on our dirty little hearts
Joined: Dec 18, 2004 Posts: 3816 Location: One Mile From the Columbia River
Posted: Mon Apr 21, 2008 4:26 pm Post subject: Re: Anyone planting potatoes? Or whatnot?
This is our 'learning' year with our beloved potato's. We have a small patch dedicated to them and we want to do much more, but what happens next year depends on how this test patch goes.
I understand they should be rotated.
I worked on a potato farm for about a month in the mid-80's and it was great! _________________ Everything is Impermanent. Shakyamuni Buddha
Posted: Tue Apr 22, 2008 6:21 am Post subject: Re: Anyone planting potatoes? Or whatnot?
Our frost free date is April 21-today, here in south Indiana, but that varies with the vagaries of the jet stream and has been earlier the past few years.
We planted 30 lbs. of Kennebeck white potatoes on the 18th, 3 rows x 80 ft. long, and had one row of saved seed in the week before. Conventional wisdom here is to plant early potatoes on Good Friday. Hope to come up with a root cellar this year, since the basement is too warm and dry. If we don't get one built, I'll bury some barrels in the hillside, I guess, and cover them with straw bales. _________________ Local fix-it guy..
Posted: Tue Apr 22, 2008 10:04 am Post subject: Re: Anyone planting potatoes? Or whatnot?
Five potatoes have been planted in buckets in greenhouse so far, for a very early start, but have not yet emerged. Will be lifted out when regular night frosts are over.
Main planting will be done next weekend, which is two weeks earlier than usual, but the ground never froze this year (never happened before). We just have to hope for no frost after they emerge, probably in the latter half of May. Those potatoes now have light treatment to get green buds. They are ready.
Let me add to that list: the humble turnip. A major dietary staple of Europeans during the Middle Ages. The discovery of the turnip (along with the moldboard plow) allowed an additional crop rotation and was largely responsible for a huge population explosion near the end of the Middle Ages.
You can get really delicious and nutritious greens from them most of the year, and a hardy root crop that keeps well. Anyone know some good recipes? I have just finished off last fall's planting, but have more in the ground I hope get going before the heat really gets bad. _________________ OK, I give up. If they want to sell us real stuff for our Monopoly money, who am I to argue?
Posted: Wed Apr 23, 2008 5:17 pm Post subject: Re: Anyone planting potatoes? Or whatnot?
When I lived in Missouri a lot of the real old-timers would always plant their whole garden in turnips last thing in the season after everything else was harvested. It was fast enough to provide a good crop late in the Fall and kept in the ground, even with freezing. Kind of an insurance crop to ensure some food for the winter.
Joined: Dec 27, 2004 Posts: 11215 Location: Village of Idiots
Posted: Wed Apr 23, 2008 5:27 pm Post subject: Re: Anyone planting potatoes? Or whatnot?
I wholeheartedly agree with turnips!
I listed those others mainly because they don't need replanting every year. _________________ "...powerdown so soft and fluffy you'll think you're living in a pillow..." - jboogy
Posted: Thu Apr 24, 2008 8:02 pm Post subject: Re: Anyone planting potatoes? Or whatnot?
whereswaldo wrote:
I had potatoes left over from last year's crop in the basement, and by a month ago they had 6 inch shoots coming off of them. Finally a couple of weeks ago I could not stand it and I planted ~ 40 of them. The plants are just coming up now! I planted them about 10 inches deep, will mound them up through the season, looking forward to about 600-800 potatoes in a couple of months or so.
So I was just wondering... If you had the chance again would you plant them 10 inches down? I have a friend from Russia who insists you need to plant them 1 foot down but frankly I have neither the time nor the energy for this. I planted 14 (75 foot) rows of potatoes (at most) 6 inches deep. This took almost 4 hours and I was really tired...
So, if you could do it over again would you have planted more potatoes but at less depth? We ate all our big potatoes over the winter and by March were left with 75 lbs of the 2-4 inch potatoes. I planted the 2 inch potatoes 2 inches below the ground, and 4 inch potatoes 4 inches below the ground. You might want to be careful about your estimates (remember the tale of the golden goose). 600-800 potatoes would be nice in ideal soil. But just imagine if you had one lousy rock sitting to the north of your potato that cuts your harvest down by 1/4 for that one individual plant.
This year I'm planting lots of zucchini & saving the seeds. I'll be dehydrating the zucchini & grinding it into flour and my wife hopefully will be able to make zucchini bread. So I wont be putting all my eggs in one basket with the potatoes. Please keep this thread in mind and post at the end of summer when you harvest your pototoes. Likely then by the end of summer the oil & gas prices will be much higher. We need to take it year by year now and do our best since (harvest wise) since we dont know what oil and gas price might bring (depression??). i.e. possible 15% reduction in gas coiuld bring on gas lines. Anyways, thats all I had to say, I'm just so glad people are being so proactive out there!!! Good luck and keep it coming! Keep on planting!
Posted: Fri Apr 25, 2008 10:53 am Post subject: Re: Anyone planting potatoes? Or whatnot?
You can either plant them deep, or plant them shallow and pull soil or mulch over them as they grow to make them "deeper".
The problem is that the new potatoes are only created above the original start. If the start is planted too shallow you'll end up with your new potatoes sticking out of the ground, which will cause them to green up and not be edible.
I split the difference. I till the ground, plant the starts about 6" deep, then gradually take the soil from between the rows and pull it up over the top of the rows. In June I'll put a thick layer of rotted straw over the soil to keep it cool and moist and keep the sun off any new potatoes that are exposed.
Joined: Dec 25, 2005 Posts: 517 Location: Hillsboro, West Virginia
Posted: Fri Apr 25, 2008 10:04 pm Post subject: Re: Anyone planting potatoes? Or whatnot?
cestlavie wrote:
Hey all, Anyone planting potatoes? Let me know your experiences.
Is somebody going around imitating new folks?
I planted potatoes in my former flower garden in 2005, and I never seem to get them all when I dig for them. Every year after, I've had more potatoes come up volunteer.
I'm working on a tater alternative. I'm sprouting arrowhead in pots now. It has a tuber somewhat like a potato. Arrowhead is semi-aquatic, so I'll be trying to plant it as a stealth garden by a stream somewhere. Only I will know where.
Posted: Fri Apr 25, 2008 10:50 pm Post subject: Re: Anyone planting potatoes? Or whatnot?
Jenab6 wrote:
cestlavie wrote:
Hey all, Anyone planting potatoes? Let me know your experiences.
Is somebody going around imitating new folks?
I planted potatoes in my former flower garden in 2005, and I never seem to get them all when I dig for them. Every year after, I've had more potatoes come up volunteer.
I'm working on a tater alternative. I'm sprouting arrowhead in pots now. It has a tuber somewhat like a potato. Arrowhead is semi-aquatic, so I'll be trying to plant it as a stealth garden by a stream somewhere. Only I will know where.
Wow, just dont let me around, I know what they look like <grin!> Just joking... I have a whole bag of arrowhead seeds but tried and failed once to sprout them. Why type of soil do you use? Or whats your secret? I was thinking about buying some vermiculite, then making it damp (but not so damp that water would come out when you squeezed it), then mixed seeds in it and put it in a plastic bag in the fridge to break dormancy. I guess some might even sprout in the fridge. But I havent done it yet so its all theory. We have a lot of marsh around here so if I could grow wapato (aka indian potato) it would be like heaven, peak oil stress factor would go down considerably... My heart is into stealth gardening. I've got allium moly and camassia quamash coming up again this year as we speak. Our stealth flower garden has Campanula rapunculus (very aggressive, invasive, I hope it takes over the whole garden) and English sorrel which looks like a weed but makes for delicious sorrel soup. I'm also growing (or letting grow, heh) day lily another root source for carbohydrates...
Posted: Fri Apr 25, 2008 11:33 pm Post subject: Re: Anyone planting potatoes? Or whatnot?
Jenab6 wrote:
cestlavie wrote:
Hey all, Anyone planting potatoes? Let me know your experiences.
Is somebody going around imitating new folks?
Nope I'm my own person, I have no relation to the other posters. I share the same utter frustration and that comes out in my posts. I have all the graphs and they all point to the same thing. However psychological fears impede peoples understanding. They are too afraid to look at my graphs and reason it out and instead look emotionally at what they want to see...
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