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: Thu May 08, 2008 8:34 pm Post subject: Re: Anyone planting potatoes? Or whatnot?
oxj wrote:
This weekend way up north we're planting Russian Fingerlings from Johnnyseeds.com and leftover potatoes which we grew last year- they made it all the way through our five months of snow.
Thanks for the recommendation. I tried a couple of online seed sites and they were out of stock. I have 5 pounds of Dark Red Norlands on the way now. I'll have to find some tires now.
Joined: Oct 11, 2005 Posts: 406 Location: Arizona, USA
Posted: Fri May 09, 2008 5:25 pm Post subject: Re: Anyone planting potatoes? Or whatnot?
I don't use Johnnyseeds.com anymore. They tend to deal in hybrid varieties, which are poor choices for seed saving. You sometimes end up with sterile seeds in the next generation or plants whose traits don't hold up well. I think it's better to try local, organic heirloom seeds.
Posted: Wed May 14, 2008 6:10 pm Post subject: Re: Anyone planting potatoes? Or whatnot?
Okay, I have my seed potatoes and tires but I cannot find any info on how to save and use my own seed potatoes? Anybody got the knowledge? I would like to plant my own next year instead of ordering it on the web.
Posted: Wed May 14, 2008 11:56 pm Post subject: Re: Anyone planting potatoes? Or whatnot?
When you dig your potatoes just store them well. I've got a big box of small potatoes left over from last summer's crop that are now sprouting like mad. If you can't keep them over the winter just replant some in the Fall, they'll sit in the ground all winter and start sprouting in the Spring. Once you've grown them in a spot for a while it's actually kind of hard to get rid of them. I planted mine about 3 weeks ago and there's just as many sprouts coming up in the walkways as in the beds because of all the small potatoes left in the ground from last year.
My experiment this year is a fall crop. Didn't get around to it last year, have been told that if I plant in early September and water well I can get a second crop around Thanksgiving.
Joined: Jan 03, 2005 Posts: 1125 Location: western Wisconsin
Posted: Thu May 15, 2008 9:20 am Post subject: Re: Anyone planting potatoes? Or whatnot?
For potatoes, saving the seed potatoes for the following year, remember that you want to save them from the hills that did the best. A small potato from a hill that did well would be better seed next year than a big potato from a hill with few potatoes. In other words, save seed from plants that produced the most, just like you would save your regular vegetable seed from a productive healthy plant, not pick out the nicest looking seed (such as from beans or other plants.)
Posted: Tue May 20, 2008 11:22 pm Post subject: Re: Anyone planting potatoes? Or whatnot?
A potato question(maybe a dumb one; I'm a newbie gardener): I just planted a few seed potatoes. Three days latter, there is an ant hill right above one of the potatoes. Are they down there eating the potato? Even if they are is that going to harm production? If so, what does one do?
Posted: Wed May 21, 2008 10:13 pm Post subject: Re: Anyone planting potatoes? Or whatnot?
ivanillich wrote:
A potato question(maybe a dumb one; I'm a newbie gardener): I just planted a few seed potatoes. Three days latter, there is an ant hill right above one of the potatoes. Are they down there eating the potato? Even if they are is that going to harm production? If so, what does one do?
I dont know, you could dig it up. If they are not eating it you could carefully replant the potato (with the sprout pointing up) . But if they are you could excavate the ants and plant a new potato seed. I dug up two one corn seeds (the seed I saved from last year) just to make sure they were sprouting. One was not sprouting at all and the other was sprouting around 1/2 inch. So now I feel really optimistic that we'll have corn to eat this summer!
Joined: May 20, 2008 Posts: 210 Location: Tennessee
Posted: Thu May 22, 2008 12:15 am Post subject: Re: Anyone planting potatoes? Or whatnot?
GoghGoner wrote:
I was looking at planting some potatoes in tires (shown in link below) but I went online and the site recommended to me is out of seed potatoes. I never have grown potatoes so I don't know how to get started. A local farmer told me today that I should not get organic potatoes for this since they get gassed, too. Am I too late this year to get started?
You can plant potatoes in about anything. Some of the web sites talk about using piled up straw/hay. Speaking of hay, if you have access to some cheap hay bales, you can take the bales, cut holes in the intact bale, fill with planting soil or good soil and plant things like tomatoes, etc. I also went on the website of "pick your own"
and found some pick your own farms. We (me and my kids) picked strawberries two weeks ago-I canned 40 pints of strawberry jam, froze 6 quarts and had alot left over to feed my kids a bunch of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I also can butter (buy bulk from the amish). With the economy worsening and the price of food going up, look at your local resources and farms/farmers market and definitely put your garden in this year.
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