Anyone planting potatoes? Or whatnot?

Windmills

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.

GoghGoner · Intermediate Crude Joined: Apr 10, 2008 Posts: 516

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.

bobaloo · Heavy Crude Joined: Oct 14, 2004 Posts: 485

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.

WisJim

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.)

ivanillich · Tar Sands Joined: May 27, 2007 Posts: 34

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?

cestlavie · Tar Sands Joined: Feb 12, 2007 Posts: 79

mystiek

GoghGoner · Intermediate Crude Joined: Apr 10, 2008 Posts: 516

Well, I built up with three stacks and each was three tires high. The only potatoes that grew were in the bottom stack. I had a very small yield per stack (say 2 pounds at best).

I live in the Midwest and should have planted the potatoes a couple of weeks before the LFD instead of four weeks after. I think that six weeks may make a difference; however, I still don't think the yields on tire stacks are going to be as great as the rumor mill lead me to believe. I guess I am going to starve to death, after all.

RedStateGreen

I just dug up one set that I planted from seed potatoes. I used the cage and straw method.

I would have done better just eating the seed potatoes. Sad

_________________
Conservation is conservative

It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change. -- Charles Darwin

Ludi

I have never had success with Irish potatoes, they just don't like this climate. It might be a latitude thing, I'm not sure. Sweet potatoes do well here.
_________________
"...powerdown so soft and fluffy you'll think you're living in a pillow." - jboogy

JJ · Heavy Crude Joined: Aug 07, 2007 Posts: 437

guess I'll go out and dig up a white sweet potatoe and see how it did.

Shannymara

I had the same problem as RedStateGreen, who lives nearby: all my potatoes were tiny. I had them in the ground, and our soil is actually supposed to be pretty good for them as far as ph and texture, but I think the heat and drought did them in. At least I got seed potatoes for next spring. I will try containers, and also plant them earlier. The move disrupted things this year.

Ludi, I did get 3 varieties of yams (Dioscorea rotunda, alata, and bulbifera), and the vines are doing great though I will have to bring them inside for the winter. I'll plant them in either the ground or big tubs next spring.
_________________
"Every junkie's like a setting sun..." - Neil Young

JJ · Heavy Crude Joined: Aug 07, 2007 Posts: 437

OK can't post a picture cause my computers in the shop (using my kids laptop) but one plant had two potatoes about the size of two fists each, then about ten skinny little tubers. Bing said I should have waited until the end of October...still a bunch of plants growing, looks like it will be white yams next year....will eat one tommorrow.