About to Plant Taters

[JimWWhite]

I've got 10 lbs of seed potatoes in the sunroom that are sprouting out all over the place. I've got to get them cut into seed pieces and dusted with agricultural sulfur so I can get them in the ground tomorrow. But first I have to rebuild one of my boxes. I got my weedeater out this afternoon and I noticed that one of my oldest boxes had rotted out on one corner. It's at least 10 years old and it's a 10'x4'x12" which is made of 2x6 lumber with 4x4 posts in the corners. But first I've got to get the dirt out and pile in up on the box next to it and get the old box out of the way. It's toast so it'll go on the neighbor's burn pile. It's the first one I've lost and all the others look to be doing pretty well. Water must have gotten down in the treated wood somehow and rotted it out.

 

[thistlebloom]

So what variety of spuds are you putting in Jim?

 

[JimWWhite]

Sorry, I meant to report that I'd bought Red Kennebeck seed potatoes. I plan on putting Kennebecks in the two big boxes once I get the second one replaced. Then I'm going to take a smaller 4'x4'x12" and plant a pound of mixed fingerlings that I bought about six weeks ago and I've let them sprout. I bought a bag of organics that had at least three different varieties and it looks like all have sprouted eyes. Depending on how far the Kennebecks go I may go back and get a couple of pounds more of Yukon Golds and put them in one of the boxes to finish it off.

We've had great luck with potatoes in the raised bed boxes for the past three years or so. Last year we got over 90 lbs from just one box. This is my first attempt at fingerlings. I'm not even sure they'll make here in the spring. They may work better in the fall. We'll see.

 

[digitS']

I remember looking these up when once before Jim mentioned Red Kennebec potatoes. There is a seed potato company, Kennebec.com! You will find them there.

There's also a russet relative to the white Kennebec.

Of course, there is a geographical place . . . in Maine. Probably tons of things named Kennebec down there.

Steve

 

[hoodat]

When in doubt about which variety to plant I always go for the reds although I usually plant Pontiac. They are the most adaptable and will do well wherever potatos can be grown.
I'm ahead of most of the country. My taters are already starting to bloom.

 

[thistlebloom]

We've had great luck with potatoes in the raised bed boxes for the past three years or so. Last year we got over 90 lbs from just one box. This is my first attempt at fingerlings. I'm not even sure they'll make here in the spring. They may work better in the fall. We'll see.

Wow Jim, that's a great harvest! Do you know what your ratio was, pounds planted to pounds harvested?
I'm always trying to increase my harvest poundage to hopefully get to the place where we are eating homegrown exclusively year round.

I need to pick your brain!

 

[JimWWhite]

Well, I'm not really a good record keeper but I do seem to remember buying 5 pounds of the Kennebeck Red seed potatoes from our local SouthernStates co-op. It may have been 10 but I'm just not sure a year later. We planted reds in one 10x4 box and Yukon Golds in another the same size. I remember planting them in a 5 point or star pattern and I kept the pieces about 6 inches apart. I know that's a little close but that's what I did. Here's a pic of some of what we took from that box:

This is just one of those big plastic flexible totes that would hold a half of a bushel, if I'm not mistaken. The funny thing is that Teresa went out and 'Harvested' the taters in this one box and then went and got the camera to take the pic. Afterwards I told her that I bet I could find more that she'd missed. I started carefully moving the dirt from front to back and started finding more and larger potatoes lower down. In the end I almost filled up a second tote from the one box. We weighed both totes and came up with 95 lbs of potatoes.

The soil we planted in is the mix that we got from the book 'The Square Foot Gardener'. This was not the first season I'd planted in this box so I remember augmenting it with three or four bags of composted cow manure I'd bought at Lowes and worked it in deeply. I don't normally use commercial fertilizer but I do put down a little lime just to sweeten the soil a bit. It's just something my Daddy always said to do. It was like when I planted the pecan trees in the back yard a few weeks ago. I remember him telling me to throw in a handful of galvanized roofing nails in the bottom of the hole to add zinc to make the tree grow better. I always do what my Daddy told me to do...

 

[thistlebloom]

Well that's a pretty picture Jim. My harvest is usually okay, but I'd love to up it. The soil I've planted in the last two years has been raw unamended ground both times, as I keep expanding my beds. I've been improving the soil so hopefully this year I'll see some heavier harvests.

 

[Carol Dee]

So envious. No way are the potatoes going in soon. Ground is still frozen under the slippery top inches.

 

[897tgigvib]

Carol, have you ever tried using plastic over the soil to warm it?