Can you transplant potatoes?

[journey11]

This may be a dumb question... My spuds didn't come up very well this year, lots of gaps in the row. I am tempted to dig up a few and fill in the rows to save space, but I'm not sure but what that will just make things worse. Anybody tried this and had any luck?

 

[catjac1975]

I would think it is possible-will probably stunt them for a bit. Why not just add a few new spuds to the row. That's why I plant the whole potato.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I wish I knew. I may be able to answer your question better next year, which does you absolutely no good this year. I had a volunteer potato this year and used a shovel to relocate it when the ground was kinda wet. I was able to get the potato and all the roots pretty much undisturbed since that dirt held together. It was pretty small too, just recently come up, and was really shallow.

Id think your risk of stunting them depends a lot on how small the plants and the root system are and how much you disturb the roots. Potatoes seem like something that would transplant pretty well if you get them young but a risk if you wait until later. This is a guess, no real experience doing it.

Is there something else you could plant in those open spots instead of moving the good potato plants potatoes?

 

[the1honeycomb]

I planted potatoes in my basement in bags this feb. I got over excited and harvested a bag, only got about 2 pounds of new red potatoes, I put the plant and all the way to little to eat back in the bag the plants are growing again they are not as big as the others but they are coming along! I think It will only slow the plant down, I hope that it works out for you~~~!!!!

 

[MontyJ]

I wonder if it's a regional thing Journey. Mine came up poorly as well. I have lot's of extra broccoli plants, so I'm going to fill in with those. I agree with Ridge though, they will probably transplant fine if the roots aren't disturbed too much.

 

[journey11]

I think I'll go ahead and move some of them. I had 6 rows in...so that takes up a lot of my space. :/ Looks like some of them rotted before they could take off. We had a dry spring up until now, so I'm not sure why. Maybe just cut some too small.

 

[lesa]

I am a believer in planting the whole potato. I put my fingerlings in - and I have nearly a perfect row coming up now. I like the idea of filling the gaps with other plants. Let us know how the operation goes!

 

[MontyJ]

Same problem here. Some just rotted in the ground before they could get going. I dug up a few that had roots going, but the potato was rotten. I left them in. I'll give them a week or so then maybe move some like you are doing, and fill any other spaces with broccoli.

 

[journey11]

Well, I went ahead and transplanted about half of them today. The perfectionist in me couldn't handle looking at those spotty rows! I dug them up with a big ball of dirt and tried not to disturb the roots and planted each one immediately into its new hole. I'll let you all know how they fare...

Lesa, I think I will be planting them whole from now on too. Or halves at the least. I have always cut them up, but I think maybe I may have cut some of these too small... I chitted them well beforehand and I must have gotten a little too over-confident when dividing up the sprouts.

It was also a long time between planting and a good soaking rainfall. Maybe that had something to do with it too.