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| Lettuce | Onions | Peas | Potatoes | Radishes | Salad Greens | Spinach |
Potatoes, the staple of American diets, are easy to grow but can take up a lot of space. But memories of a meal of new potatoes, peas and fresh salad is enough to at least plant a few.Unlike other vegetables, potatoes are not planted from seed but from pieces of potatoes, called seed potatoes, containing eyes or buds.Potatoes can be planted in early spring about one month before the last anticipated frost date and on through mid August to September for a late fall crop. Ten weeks are needed to grow golf ball size new potatoes.My rule of thumb is 5 lbs. will plant a 50-60 ft. row.My biggest secret with potatoes is sulfur. Sulfur, an organic product, does three things; it is a fungicide, acid fertilizer and insecticide. Let me explain.
Varieties:
The Kennebec is a large potatoes with light tan skin and white fleshy inside. It is a good all-purpose potato and can be used for fries, baking, and cooking. The Kennebec has a high and dependable yield of potatoes and is blight and disease resistant. It also stores well for the winter. This is an ALL TIME FAVORITE.
The Red Pontiac is a top-notch all-purpose mid-season variety of potato with thin red skin, shallow eyes and crisp white flesh. It is a good potato for digging early and having new red potatoes with your freshly picked batch of peas and spring onions. YUM!!!
HEIRLOOM VARIETY: It was first introduced in 1876 and has earned the nickname “Old Reliable”. The Cobbler is a very early maturing variety (65-85 days) with tan skin and mealy, white flesh. It is a good all-purpose variety with deep eyes and irregular shaped tubulars.
The Yukon Gold is a large variety of potato with smooth, eye-free skin and yellow tinged flesh. It’s waxy, moist flesh make it good for baking, broiling, frying, and roasting. It produces a medium to high yield. The large tubers are slightly suspectible to hollow heart (hollow center). They store well in a cool, dry place.
There are numerous other varieties available depending on your area. The Yukon Gold are delicious and gaining in popularity but I still prefer the plain, white potato!! The red potato makes wonder new potatoes but they are not good keepers. *My favorite varieties Extra Note: One of my books says that there is an advantage to planting small whole potatoes as seed. Without the cut surface, they are less apt to rot in the ground. Small potatoes have more eyes which results in more stems and a heavier set of tubers per plant. Larger seed pieces produce plants that yield a high number of small to medium size potatoes. I have not proved this either way.
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Preparation: Cut potatoes into small pieces (1-1/2 to 2 ounces) about the size of a walnut or large ice cube with two or three “eyes” per piece. Dust with sulfur and let set several days before planting to allow the potato to “heal” or “cure”. The cured pieces will retain their moisture and the sulfur helps to prevent rotting. Garden sulfur (4, 5 or 50 lb. bags) bags are available in most lawn & garden centers or farm supply stores. Potatoes planted later when the soil is warmer and drier are less likely to rot and can be planted immediately after being cut.Planting: Potatoes like to be in the ground deep. It is most ideal to dig trenches 4″ wide, 4″ deep and place rows 30-36″ apart. Place seed potatoes or whole small potatoes 12″ apart in the trench and cover with 4″ soil. I usually plant 5 lbs. of potatoes–just enough for spring eating. I take my 5 lb. bag of sulfur and dust my cut potatoes. Then I dust the top of my covered potatoes with the remainder of the sulfur. I also side dress with 1 lb. of Triple Superphosphate (0-46-0) and 1 lb. of 5-10-10 per 25′ row.Potatoes need extra phosphate for root growth and then do not like too much nitrogen or you will get all plant and no potatoes.”Old timers” who plant by the moon, plant root crops on new moon (Good Friday) and above grounds crops on full moon. This is the first year (2002) that I have tried it and I have the best stand that I have ever had and they came up much faster. So we will see what the harvest is like!
Care: Be patient, it takes potatoes a little while to come up. After the potatoes have emerged from the ground several inches, hill the soil up around the plants. You may need to repeat the process one more time. This protects the potatoes growing deep in the soil from sunlight which can turn the tender new potatoes green and bitter. I also like to mulch with straw or horse manure with shavings to help with weed control. We have a near-by stable and the daily pickings from the stalls make excellent mulch. I have found the manure tends to be “hot” so be careful not to burn the plants. Harvest: You can harvest new potatoes in 10 weeks. For larger potatoes, wait until the vines have died. The potatoes will have developed tougher skins. Dig, wash potatoes and let dry under a tree for several days. Pick out any potatoes with rotten spots or that cut during digging. The potatoes are then ready to storage in a fruit cellar or dry, dark, cool room. You do not want the potatoes to freeze as the insides will turn dark when fried. The hungry Colorado Potato Beetle will be your biggest challenge. So be prepared to spray or dust regularly. They can strip the leaves before you know what happened so keep regular watch over you potatoes!!! |
