It IS a tuber!!!
Today I yanked the potatoes. We had six plants growing in a raised bed. This is our third year of growing potatoes and we’ve had modest success in that we’ve always actually gotten potatoes, but not necessarilly as many as one might imagine we could get. For the last couple of years we have attempted to mound the dirt around the plants as they grow, which in theory is supposed to increase your yield. This year we spent way too much money on new dirt in order to aggressively try this strategy. Results = inconclusive.
From six plants, this is our complete harvest…
Many garden plants are an economic plus for a househould. Spend $2 on a packet of seeds, get many many times the value of that in veggies from that packet of seeds. Potatos, not so much in our experience. We could’ve gotten more potatoes than our harvest for the cost of the seedlings alone, not to mention the cost of the fancy store-bought dirt we brought in.
But ultimately there is something very exciting about potatoes. It’s a gamble and a surprise. You watch the plants grow all summer and get huge and you have to wonder what’s going on below the surface. Then when the time comes you break out the shovel and dig them up and there’s no turning back. And even if you only get a handful of potatoes from your crop, goddamnit, there is nothing like some fresh potatoes from your garden (especially if you’re living in the city, like fresh grown corn from your garden, its just something that you normally don’t get).
Will we continue to grow potatoes here at Torley Manor? Probably. At least give it another year and see if we can increase our yield. If not, maybe we’ll find it better to devote that section of garden to something else.
Speaking of which, our patience with the brocolli looks like its about to pay off. Two of the 3 plants now have edible looking brocolli heads on them. This guy is about 4″ across now. The other one is just starting to form. So exciting!!!!
what’s cheaper and easier than mounding up dirt is straw. that’s right, get a bale.
I hear of folks using old tires as the potato plant grows, I copied and pasted something here,
Tires: There are two different methods of growing potatoes in tires. One way is to stack three or four tires, fill them with soil and plant two to three seed pieces about 1 or 2 inches deep in the top tire. The black of the tire absorbs and radiates heat, and there usually is a heavy yield.
Another method is to put a tire on the ground, fill it with soil and plant the potatoes within the tire. Plant two seed potatoes, whole or halved, about 2 inches deep. Once the potatoes have developed 3 or 4 inches of foliage growth, a second tire can be put on top of the first, Fill in with more soil, always leaving at least 2 inches of leaf growth above the soil level. Continue to fill as the plants grow. Once you’ve filled in the center of the second tire, continue the stack to a height of three or four tires. Keep in mind you must always leave about 2 inches of foliage showing.
Last year, we grew potatoes in eight stacks of tires, using eight: different potato varieties. Each tire stack averaged 11 pounds of potatoes: Some readers have reported yields of up to 38 pounds per stack. Others have reported poor results, averaging as few as one or two potatoes per stack. Over-watering or the use of too much high nitrogen fertilizer could be the reason for poor yields.
The reason you can grow potatoes successfully in this manner is that potatoes develop on stems above the roots. Of course, it’s for this reason that mounding or mulching potatoes is recommended so highly.
Some of the potatoes that we grew in tire stacks were: not harvested until January of this year. So the tire stacks also provided an ideal place to store them throughout fall and winter.
[I personally have yet to try this, but instead of filling it with soil as it grows, add straw]
Comment by Happyneck — October 16, 2007 @ 6:05 pm