Potato Patch
Have you ever planted potatoes?
The argument against growing potatoes is:
they’re cheap to buy, not worth growing (unless you have somewhat unlimited growing space).
The argument for growing spuds is:
Ahh, they taste so good fresh out of the garden. And a secondary argument is you can choose many different varieties that you wouldn’t otherwise be able to buy.
Being that we’re in a bit of a transition with our garden, I figured I’d use some otherwise non-productive space and grow some potatoes.
I’m not very timely or completely prepared, but I don’t have much downside here so what the heck.
We’re in zone 9 in the San Francisco area. It get’s a bit chilly during the winter, but it doesn’t get cold (relatively speaking).
Potatoes don’t fair well in the cold. The typical growing season is get them in the ground early-late spring (after the last frost) and harvest them early-late fall (before the first frost).
Depending on the variety, you have a grow time of 70-140 days. I’ll be using mid-season varieties which means my harvest time on these will be in the January - March time frame. (Which may just remind and inspire me to get another crop back in the ground right away.)
Optimal potato growing conditions
- Potatoes like sun, but not directly and not intensely. The potato root itself - which forms the tuber - doesn’t want any direct sun exposure. Potato plants prefer low 50’s (degrees Fahrenheit) at night and under the mid-80’s during the day.
- Whereas most plants grow and “fruit” above ground, spuds fruit underground. So they like loose, loamy soil over hard, clay soil.
- Spuds prefer slightly alkaline soil - pH: 5.0 - 6.5.
- Potatoes like Phosphorus (P) and Potassium (K), but aren’t very Nitrogen (N) loving. So if you’re fertilizing you want a low N and high P & K. Potash, fish emulsion and seaweed make good fertilizers. If you’re using manures, they should be well rotted.
Potato seeding process
You can buy certified seed potatoes. This will ensure they’re insect and disease free.
Or, you can live on the wild side and seed your own. I’d start with organic potatoes. You won’t need many.
Potato roots grow from the “eyes” or buds of a potato.
For seeds, you’re going to cut up the potato into pieces. Optimally, you want 2-3 eyes per piece. Each piece is your potato “seed”.
My tray of potato seeds are a bunch of mostly quite small potatoes we found in one of our boxes that we rehabbed. While digging out all the soil we found a few left overs hiding in there from the spring. They’ve been sitting in a closet for a month or so and - as you can see - some of them have sprouted.
You want to sit your cut potatoes out, cut side up, for 1-3 days in room temperature to give them a chance to dry out a little. Otherwise they may get mouldy when planted. I cut these this morning and plan to plant them this weekend.
It takes 2-3 weeks for potatoes to germinate.
Planting potatoes
There are actually quite a few methods of growing potatoes. First I’ll cover the more typical followed by the less typical.
The two typical ways are in hills and in trenched rows.
The hill method: Create short mounds spaced 12″-24″ apart. In each mound bury 3 potato seeds 3-4″ deep. The potato seed should be cut side down/root side up. As the plant grows continue to mound dirt up around the stem, leaving only the leaves exposed.
The trenched row method: Trench down about 6″, plant one seed every 12″. Cover the seeds with 3-4″ of dirt. As with the hill method, continue to add dirt as the plant grows. Rows should be spaced 2-3′ apart.
Keep the potatoes fairly well watered until the plants blossom. Then cut back on the water.
Potato crops should be rotated every year to prevent disease.
Trash cans and tires
There are other ways to grow potatoes…
Scandanavians typically grow potatoes in stacks of straw. Simple. Lay down potato seeds on a bed of straw, cover with a couple inches of straw and continue to cover with straw as it grows.
A modification to that is to put the seed in soil and cover with straw.
Grab a trash can or similar container. Cut a few holes in the bottom for drainage. Put in a base of soil, 8-12″ deep and bury the seeds 3″ into it. Again, as it grows, cover with soil or straw.
Have some old tires sitting around? Lay a tire down, fill with soil, bury seeds 3″ down. As the plants grow, add tires and soil.
How about a simple garbage bag? Sure. Same as above… bury seeds 3″ down in 8-12″ of soil, add more soil as the plants grow. Make sure you cut a few holes near the bottom for drainage.
It’s pretty much the same process regardless of your container… bury the seeds 3″ under and continue to cover the stalk as it grows.
Potato harvesting
When the plant flowers have browned and died down, your spuds are ready. You can harvest “new potatoes” ahead of this. And you can leave potatoes in the ground longer than this. But you should get them out of the ground before a frost.
Harvesting depends a bit on how you grew them. If you grew them in a container, you can simply dump out the container. If you grew them in the ground, you can use a garden fork and gently “comb” the soil.
Insects and disease
Rotating crops will help with disease. Potatoes are also susceptible to aphids, nematodes and potato beetles. If you have moles or mice, they tend to burrow down and eat the spuds.
I’ll be planting my spuds over the weekend. I’m thinking about adapting the trash can method…
We have a tall, unused compost bin. I think it may be perfect. I’m also going to put a few in one of the no-dig beds.
Here are a few more like this one:
Tags: No Dig, Patti
