Storing Potatoes?

[Sally PB]

80%... that's a fantastic goal! Good for you! I'm aiming for 50%, realizing that may or may not be attainable this year. ("May or may not"... well, that covers it! What other option is there? )

Chickens were a big step forward. Mostly for eggs, a source of protein, but also for poop to enrich the soil. I had the BEST compost this year. None of it will go to waste, either, as I have one garden that is very sandy, and one that is clay. Compost helps with both. The potatoes are in the sandy garden.

That's interesting about regrowing green onions. I might give that a try.

 

[humblehillsfarm]

80%... that's a fantastic goal! Good for you! I'm aiming for 50%, realizing that may or may not be attainable this year. ("May or may not"... well, that covers it! What other option is there? )

Chickens were a big step forward. Mostly for eggs, a source of protein, but also for poop to enrich the soil. I had the BEST compost this year. None of it will go to waste, either, as I have one garden that is very sandy, and one that is clay. Compost helps with both. The potatoes are in the sandy garden.

That's interesting about regrowing green onions. I might give that a try.

I have no expectations to grow 80% by next year, but I’ll still do and grow and much as I can! Last year I grew bush beans instead of pole and had an abysmal bean harvest. I also battled crows in my corn and drought. I hope to manage at least two of those three things this year. I also chose a more disease resistant and drought tomato and I struggled with blossom end rot. My potatoes were actually my best harvest. I got about 40-50 pounds but did have to buy another 50 pounds to supplement.

How do you manage all of your poop compost? I struggle to have enough browns to mix with so most of the goes to waste! I scoop it from the poop board and dump it in a pile outside.

 

[Sally PB]

Ah, chicken poop, how do I love thee...

I have as many leaves as I care to rake up, so the browns part is whatever I get done. Also, I have a lot of grass/field that we don't mow, so I rake up thatch. That works great as a weed barrier mulch too.

Last summer, I learned about the Berkeley method for compost. Big pile, let it sit for about 4 days to get started, then turn every two days to mix it up and aerate. I had usable compost in about 25 days. Before chickens, I did the cold rot/let it sit for months method. Last summer I had enough to give a load to a friend. (Best friend; compost is like gold to me!)

I got some impressive -- to me! -- arm muscles! They've gone back to flab now.

 

[nao57]

I was wondering if they'd catch up. I don't have pictures, but the purple potatoes had sprouts that were a foot long. I couldn't even plant and mound them that high, part of the tips are sticking out by 1-2" but it looked as though they were about to sprout leaves. I was reallllly hoping that meant I had a leg up, but I've never grown potatoes in my life.

They will do fine. And you can leave the leaves on on the sprouts etc. Now usually what happens for me is there a about 2 weeks where if you have the sprouts in the ground, but the sprouted growth with minor leaves is slightly above ground with a bud or two; at this point fo this period it will look like its going to to hell and drying up but will bounce back in about another period of time after. (I thought I'd tell you this part because when you are in this part of the time where for a few days it looks like they are wilting the fear can get to you, to change it, but you can just let it stay.)

Potatoes are really great.

But the part I worry about potatoes is how to store them more than growing them. It almost feels like leaving them in the ground where they are grown stores better than inside

Now I haven't done the purple types before, but I'd heard some people like them.

I would suspect, but I'm not sure if some types have 'curing' advantages? I hope someone else will talk about this. And some people keep raising the mound also while they grow out and swear it works, but I haven't really done this part. (Maybe someone else has?)

 

[nao57]

The purple and the white ones I had saved from someone else's potatoes from December. I also had red. Reds didn't stay firm for as long as the others. The purple are supposed to be higher in antioxidants than other potatoes. I made mashed potatoes, roasted potatoes, french fries, fried potatoes, baked potatoes, and potato soup with them. They were absolutely gorgeous and tasted like a normal potato. Only downside is more of them were smaller whereas the red and white were larger.

Making me hungry talkin like that...

Thanks.

 

[humblehillsfarm]

Very nice!

That looks beautiful. I didn't know the leaves looked sort of turquoise colored on that for that type of potato. This must be the purple one I'm guessing. I hadn't done those but the leave colors are quite surprising.

And regarding your white ones sprouting now, that doesn't surprise me! Often they will look dead and rejuvenate themselves. As long as they aren't rotted and still have stored resources in the main spud they do seem to still rejuvenate themselves even when dead. But in my own experience it seems that I still might have 10% of them that will not sprout for some reason and just sit there. (So I would count on some loss still. But in my observations the seed loss failure rate of potatoes is much lower than any other vegetable also. I forgot to mention this. This is another reason why they are such a great vegetable, and very heat hardy as long as the growing spuds are covered.)(But some of the failure rate may depend on if you are using potatoes from a store that's winter treated them to keep them from sprouting too early. But this will cause a small amount of them, (usually less than 15%) to not sprout at all.)

Also, I'm very interested in what that white/gray material is around the potato plant you have there? Is that an ash mixture, or just how the soil there normally looks? Did you mix something in there, or is it just turned over soil?

Thanks for sharing and showing us. It looks like you have some growing/budding talent for this also.

Yes, that was the purple variety. The more leaves it sprouts, the less purple it is starting to look. So far about 70% or so of the white ones have sprouted. All of the purple except for 1 rejuvenated. I'm sad I got a low rate for the white potatoes, because those were the ones I wanted the most, but I didn't have very many seed potatoes for them. The soil was just very dry in that picture and the sun was very bright causing an overexposure of light. The soil isn't actually that ashy. I had forgotten entirely to even plant the potatoes with any kind of compost so I am just hoping that because it is new ground, the potatoes will do just fine without fertilizer! So far so good.

 

[Mtnboomer]

We are on day 6 of straight rain here in va. I have not been sble to work the garden in a week other than to pick a few bowls of peas in the pouring down rain for dinner. If it ever stops, I have 5gal buckets full of peas waiting to be picked and the potatoes are starting to wilt and will be ready to dig as needed.
If this proves to be a wet summer, I will have to dig them all in July which will make storage more difficult.

Your plants are beautiful and shaping up to be a bountiful harvest.