POTATOES

[2 Green Thumbs]

The weather is mild and rainy to day warm and rainy tomorrow and warm and rainy on monday, hopefully this weather will help everything I have planted so far.

[gixxerific]

4 -6 month's, well that is about how long it took for a few I missed last season to volunteer in my garden.

[Duets]

Now I am just plain discouraged...I was out checking on the garden after work and got curious as to how much growth I had on my spuds so I dug one up on the end of a row and it looked just like it did when I put it in the ground 9 days ago I am a real greenhorn at this so maybe I am over reacting.

It will be OK, take up needlepoint, reading or birdwatching, lol. Patience!

[GardenGnome]

If you bury the whole plant will it die and then kill your potatoes?

[2 Green Thumbs]

If you bury the whole plant will it die and then kill your potatoes?

I take it you mean when you are hilling them after they have come up???

[GardenGnome]

Yeah I bult up the sides of the box and am filling it in. Im trying not to bury the smaller plants. How far do you hill the plants? I'm up to a foot on some will it just keep growing?

[2 Green Thumbs]

Well the lettuce came trough the ground nicely, still no signs of potatoes or carrots. Now with this lettuce I think I may have fluffed up alittle bit. I planted mine in 12 inch rows between my onions. So I have onion sets planted maybe 10 or 12 in a row then a 12 inch straight line of lettuce. I see now that most space this type of lettuce ( buttercrunch) to one plant every 12 inchs. Will each of the little sprout leaves turn into a head? So when I thin do I take out all but one sprout. I mean the little leaves are packed into that 12 inch row, what would happen if I just left them.

Strawberries look nice and green and seem to be doing well but only have one flower and it has been there for 2 weeks with no other flowers appearing. I did just plant them a month ago is this normal. When mulching strawberry plants do you cover the plants or just between the plants in the rows. And when do you take mulch off, or is it ok to leave all summer and witnter?

Thanks to all for reading
AND BIG BIG THANKS TO ALL WHO REPLY

[greenstubbs]

If you bury the whole plant will it die and then kill your potatoes?

Well isn't that just great! I just had to bury one plant that's next to some that are going bonkers! Half of my box they are huge and the other are about 1/2 the size of them. There's about a foot difference of earth in the box and it seems to be getting bigger as time passes. I did take a pic to show the difference and would post but I can't even get a avatar to take, so the heck with trying to post a pic.
People say not to use store bought spuds that have sprouted because of this & that, but I'll tell you that my store bought ones are doing so much better than the seed spuds that I got. Depending on my harvest will tell weather or not I ever do seed spuds again.

[jal_ut]

Yeah I bult up the sides of the box and am filling it in. Im trying not to bury the smaller plants. How far do you hill the plants? I'm up to a foot on some will it just keep growing?

You only need to hill the potatoes one time about 3 inches. The only reason for doing this is so that the developing tubers will not pop out into daylight and turn green.

[Dillbert]

here's my little secret: I never bother hilling up potatoes.
I plant them about 4 inches deep, cover and mulch - that's it.

as to hilling:
I've heard people say you have to hill them because the potatoes only grow above the depth of the seed you planted. apparently somebody forgot to tell that to my seed potatoes, or perhaps I have anti-gravity potatoes - it just isn't true.

jal's advice about exposure to sunlight is true. one or two in my patch pop through. then again, I do try to keep them heavily mulched.

as to using grocery store potatoes for seed:
there's two cautions, actually....
one - most have been treated with an anti-sprouting compound - which as your experience indicates is not 100% certain or 100% effective.

two - you can buy certified disease free seed potatoes, not so with spuds from the produce section. there are a number of soil borne potato diseases; once you've got it in your soil it's there forever.

[2 Green Thumbs]

My spuds have still not broken ground, I dug up a seed on the end of one of my rows and it had sprouts about 2inchs long on the eyes, am I ok or do I replant?

Also I planted my lettuce inbetween my carrots in about 12inch furrows that I put a line of seed in. not that they have been up for awhile I am wondering about thinning. What if I do nothing? If I do thin them do I only leave one sprout in each space?

Anyone use PREEN on the ground after tilling before they plant tomatoes?

[2cents]

2 weeks ago, I sat my taters(with 1/4 to 1/2 inch eyelet clusters) on top of the ground & covered with 2 inches of composted leaf & such
1/2 of them have green leaves sticking through

I will apply another 2-4 inch of compost(leaves & straw) in another month

[rainbowgardener]

My spuds have still not broken ground, I dug up a seed on the end of one of my rows and it had sprouts about 2inchs long on the eyes, am I ok or do I replant?

Also I planted my lettuce inbetween my carrots in about 12inch furrows that I put a line of seed in. not that they have been up for awhile I am wondering about thinning. What if I do nothing? If I do thin them do I only leave one sprout in each space?

Anyone use PREEN on the ground after tilling before they plant tomatoes?

If the sprouts are growing, that is they are longer than when you planted the potatoes, then you should be ok. Just be patient and keep watering as needed.

Yes you are going to need to thin the lettuce and probably the carrots too. Both of those have very tiny seeds and for me at least tend to come up kind of clustered. If you want the carrots to make good roots they have to have a bit of space around them, like at least a couple inches in every direction. If you want the lettuce to make heads, then it needs at least 6" in every direction, from ONE sprout. If you don't care about making heads and just want to pick leaves from it, it can be a little more crowded. But if you don't thin, they will all be competing with each other and none of them will do very well.

No, I would never use Preen in my garden. Here's a thread about it:

http://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/v ... 139#250139

If you have tilled, you should have gotten rid of most of the weeds. Just hoe out what sprouts after that, before you plant the tomatoes and then mulch thoroughly.

[2 Green Thumbs]

SUCESS...my potatoes came through and look amazing, I was able to till between the rows last night now that I can see them clearly with the plants up, I have been dying to take care of the weeds and grass int he garden,.

[2cents]

congrats!
Patience is the key when waiting for veggies.

[TheWaterbug]

I put in 40 lineal feet of potatoes today:



Two rows x 20', with 10' each of Yellow Finn, Red Thumb Fingerling, Yukon Gold, and Purple Peruvian Fingerling. I've never grown any kind of potato before, so I'm winging it!

I double dug the bed with my broadfork and mixed in 4 demo bags full of municipal mulch. A finer compost would have been better, but that's all they give away, and it's free.

I ran out of the free stuff, and I had some bagged soil, so I mixed in a bit of that as well. I keep reading that I don't want a lot of nitrogen in there, so I diluted the bagged stuff quite a bit.

The soil is now so fluffed up that it's almost like a raised bed. I'm sure it'll settle back down after some water and a few earthquakes .

All the seed potatoes varieties looked fine when I put them in, except for the Yukon Golds. I got only 2 Yukon Gold potatoes from the Potato Garden for my $5, and they had eyes, but all the eyes were bunched up on the ends. I sliced them up a little bit, but I didn't want to have tiny little bits or wafer thin slices with eyes, so I was left with some largish chunks with no eyes.

I planted those anyway, but will they grow? Should I ask for replacement potatoes? Should I just not bother and fill in any gaps with the purples? I have lots of purples left over.

[applestar]

Somebody at one point posted that she plants potato skins. I decided to give that a try and thickly "peeled" the eyes off a potato that was starting to sprout. (I used the rest of the potatoes for dinner) I put the eye pieces in a small container of moist sand/soil mix and kept it moist. The sprouts rooted and grew and were about 4" tall when I planted them out.

Right now, those sprouts are "bigger" than the cut and planted seed potato sprouts that are just poking up out of the ground....

[2 Green Thumbs]

None of my plants are real consistant in size, I am concerned about when to hill, anyone have pics of spuds that are ready for hilling?

Carrots--I used a hand planter to plant carrot seeds and they came up in nice rows that are not real thick at all...is it possible that I will not need to thin them?

[Ohio Tiller]

[quote="2 Green Thumbs"]None of my plants are real consistant in size, I am concerned about when to hill, anyone have pics of spuds that are ready for hilling?


If they have broken ground you can hill them anytime. NO you will not kill them if you cover what has broken out. If you have good tilled soil you don't need to hill them other than to keep the sun of any that might get sun burnt. I did not see if you bought seed potatoes or used from the grocery but make sure you use seed taters it will end much better for you. I always run a furrow about 8 inches deep and them line it with straw place the seed taters about 2 feet apart then cover with a mound. Most of the time I don't need to do any mounding up later.

I planted mine in early March and I have plants about 8 inches tall right now.

[2 Green Thumbs]

I did use seed potatoes but i only put mine about 6 inchs apart because that is what I seen on the net. All the plants have broken ground, even the spots that I thought would not produce plants because they were so late have sprouted nad now I have 5 FULL rows of potatoes. I see you said you put your seed 2 feet apart, does this mean I can plan on having small potatoes since I went 6inchs and they are crowded. So I thought when hilling you waited until there was some space between he leaves and the ground and just hilled the stem? Mine are about 6 inchs tall some more some less but the leaves keep sprouting at ground level so if I hill them I will certainly be covering some leaves up. I Planted 3 kinds of potatoes in these 5 rows and did not separate them by type just cut them all up waited 3 days and planted in my 4 inch trenches. Inm the future is it better to give each type its own space?

[Dillbert]

>>is it better to give each type its own space?

quite possibly. it depends on the "time to harvest" thing - some mature earlier than others - but don't get too excited about 10-20 days difference in the "cited lit" - potatoes will easily "hold" in the ground for multiple months.

in the end, it depends on what you intend to do with them - we plant enough to keep us in fresh spuds until the ground freezes. I do separate ours because once you start digging "a hill / plant" you need to finish that entity unless the plant top has died back. once "dormant" they really don't care - they sit, they freeze, soil warms, they soften, they spout, more spuds . . .

if you want to dig & store them, there is more concern about harvesting the whole batch at once - obviously if they are all "ready" it's fairly simply to sort them out for storage.

[TheWaterbug]

I put in 40 lineal feet of potatoes today:

So, I'm about 8 days in, and I saw this this morning:



Tater or weed? Seems a bit soon for emergence, but the weather's been good, and I've kept it moist (but not wet).

What does a potato shoot look like? Spikier?

[rainbowgardener]

I wouldn't say spikier exactly, but more lobed:



Yours isn't saying potato to me, but it is pretty!

[SOB]

Strawberries look nice and green and seem to be doing well but only have one flower and it has been there for 2 weeks with no other flowers appearing. I did just plant them a month ago is this normal.

I just came across this thread and thought I would chime in about your strawberries...

I was reading this fact sheet from the Ohio State University Extension (http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/1000/1424.html) about growing strawberries. See below for a note about the first year flowers:

"Remove the flower stalks of June-bearing strawberry plants as they appear throughout the first growing season. More production can be expected if the plants are allowed to attain large size before fruiting. Remove the blossoms of day-neutral types of plants as they appear until about the middle of June (first year only). Then allow flowers to set fruit for harvest during the remainder of the season (August through October). "

Do you know what type you planted...June-bearing, ever-bearing or day-neutral? Above it only talks about June-bearing and day-neutral but if you have ever-bearing you should do as it states for day-neutral.

[2 Green Thumbs]

Thanks for the strawberry tips. I planted everbearing, so I have some flowers and small fruits now should I cut them off back at the plant or just the head?

The kannabec,youkon gold,red russet, and one other type of potatoe took 5-6 weeks to show up and there doing great, alittle worried about over crowding but that will only be told with time, My wife seen some fingerling seed potatoes at the FM and picked up a lb, I cut them and planted them right after cutting, 10 days later they have all broken ground...CRAZY!!!

When you plant seeds in mounds like water melons, pumkins, cantalop how many seeds do you sow in each mound? I planted all of these this weekend and used the sheet mulch to cover my mounds then cut 5inch circles at the top of the mounds about 2 feet apart then put 2 seeds in each cricle...

[Ohio Tiller]

4 -6 month's, well that is about how long it took for a few I missed last season to volunteer in my garden.

Yeah I changed up my garden this year and I now have some taters coming up in the bean rows.

[TheWaterbug]

Yours isn't saying potato to me, but it is pretty!

It's a weed! Out it goes!

But I looked again last night, and this one is definitely a potato!



There are 2-3 others breaking green through the crust*, and there's a bunch of places where the crust is cracking a bit, so I suspect those will be up in a few days:



*Despite I mixed in a bunch of composty stuff, after I watered the silty clayey stuff came up to the surface and set like mud. I've been trying to keep it a bit moist so it doesn't get too hard for the spuds to break through.

[SPierce]

The container potatoes I planted a week and a half ago are now coming up, so I'm planning on shortly starting another container of them- the ones in the ground now are purple viking, the ones i plan on planting next are purple majesty. can't wait to munch on them

YAY i love gardening. It's so much fun!

[TheWaterbug]

If I plant a seed potato with 6 eyes, and all 6 send up shoots, are those 6 plants? Or are they like 6 branches of one plant?



Should I thin them out?

[applestar]

I think if you mulch the area, it would help relieve the crusting.

[jal_ut]

Each eye of the potato tuber produces its own plant. Yes you have a plant for each eye. Each one is genetically the same since it is vegetative reproduction. I have experimented with this and find that if I cut the tubers to two eyes per piece, I get larger potatoes than when I plant a whole potato and have numerous plants grow. Oh, I get loads of small tubers when I plant a whole potato.



I don't know that you can remove any of them with total success as the eye will still want to send up a shoot. It is best to cut your seed potato to one or two eyes per piece. I think I would just let it grow. Give it plenty of water.



This one had two eyes on the seed tuber. See how much bigger the tubers are?

[TheWaterbug]

Ah, good to know for next year.

Some of the seeds potatoes I bought were pretty small, but had tons of eyes on them. The Purple Fingerlings were about the same max diameter and twice the length of a "C" battery, tapered at both end, and had ~20 eyes on them, and all of them pretty active.

At the time I was thinking that I'd want to have a larger piece of potato down there, so the plant would have more starch reserves and have a better chance of getting to the surface.

Clearly they're not having a problem!

Next year I'll cut them down to size.

Or, if I have plenty of seed potatoes, could I just cut out most of the eyes and leave 2-3 to grow?

[2 Green Thumbs]

Well alot of mine had 3 or more because that is what I had read prior to planting...Hope I do not have a whole harvest of 1inch potatoes for all the hard work we put into them, I hilled all 5 50' rows this weekend, worked out great I just used my small cultivater and went down each rown to loosen up the already till earth next i came backa nd raked each side of row both sides until I had 12inch mounds runningh the whole length of my rows. And now 2 days later the plants still look good or atleast what you can see of the now...When can I check for some new babies?


OK so it has been over 90 here the last two days and above 80 for 4 days before that only cooling to about 60-70 at night I watered each plant in my tomato bed last week with a gallon of water and 1/4 teaspoon tomato food, I went out and checked before I came to work and poked down about 3-4 inchs not finding any sign of moisture...Should I Water??? Only asking because I seen where some guys only water when transplanting unless things are dire, well it has been hot here and I figured when I get off at 4am I would water carrots, peas, beans , pumkins, strawberries, watermelons, sunflowers, and potatoes and while at it why nopt give the toms another drink surely cant hurt right??? I know that the soil my toms are in is quick draining because they are above ny infaltraitors ( septic bed)

[jal_ut]

Or, if I have plenty of seed potatoes, could I just cut out most of the eyes and leave 2-3 to grow?

I have noticed that on most potatoes there are eyes scattered around all over the tuber, but on one end sometimes there are 6 or more in a very small area. I sometimes cut some of those off just so there won't be too many shoots that close together. Two or three shoots seem to get along OK, but more than that and you get small spuds. Too much competition.

[Ohio Tiller]

If I plant a seed potato with 6 eyes, and all 6 send up shoots, are those 6 plants? Or are they like 6 branches of one plant?



Should I thin them out?

Leave it alone it is all one plant and it will not cause a problem. Thining your just cutting your potato harvest.

[TheWaterbug]

Two or three shoots seem to get along OK, but more than that and you get small spuds. Too much competition.

Now I'm worried!

I'm tempted to thin down to 2-3 shoots, and then just keep cutting them back if they pop up again.

[2 Green Thumbs]

Didnt have to worry about waqtering Ol' Mother nature took care of me, got home @ 4am and had .75 inchs of rain in my gauge....How long is a rain like that good for...a week is what I am figuring?

[TheWaterbug]

All the seed potatoes varieties looked fine when I put them in, except for the Yukon Golds. I got only 2 Yukon Gold potatoes from the Potato Garden for my $5, and they had eyes, but all the eyes were bunched up on the ends. I sliced them up a little bit, but I didn't want to have tiny little bits or wafer thin slices with eyes, so I was left with some largish chunks with no eyes.

I planted those anyway, but will they grow? Should I ask for replacement potatoes? Should I just not bother and fill in any gaps with the purples? I have lots of purples left over.

So 24 days after planting, nearly all my potatoes are up. There's 1-2 missing from 3 of the varieties planted (out of 30 plantings), but the Yukon Golds were a failure

Of the 10 plantings, 1 came up strongly (nearest the white piece of paper, middle-left) and 2 more might be trying to emerge (little tuft of green nearest the bottom of the left furrow):



The other 7-8 are MIA, but those were the pieces with no eyes, so that's not entirely surprising. Should I just cut my losses and replant with my leftover purples? They're just sitting in my shed, growing longer and longer shoots every day, almost as though they're mocking the Yukons' failure.

[RogueRose]

I have a question about hilling and I'll just piggyback on this thread if that's alright.

I planted some potatoes in a trench about...hmm...8-10" deep. I've hilled the potatos now so the trench is no longer there so that the soil is level with the rest of the ground. Do I need to keep hilling the potatoes? The plants are a little less than knee-high now.

[dtlove129]

Rogue, this is my 2nd year and my first year trenching and hilling. Last year I just dug a trench and buried them. This year I did a foot deep trench and pulled in dirt as the plants grew. Once the trench was filled I kept hilling the plants by pulling in more dirt out of the middle of the rows. I heard some people saying their potatoes didn't do well this year, but mine are much better than last year.

I also through the P and K to them when I planted them and put more to them probably 4 weeks after planting them. As far as foliage goes it is up probaby almost chest high and have already bloomed. Only time will tell what kind of potatoes I actually get though.