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sheeshshe
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potatoes make me impatient :):):)

I feel like a crazy person bc it is all a mystery until they die... and I run out of patience bc they're not dying hahahaha!!! They just keep looking better and better and keep on growing... and I feel like they should just die already so I can dig. bahaha! I planted them in May, a bit late, so I'm sure that is most of the problem ;) But then again, the waiting part for the digging part is most of the fun :)

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jal_ut
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Ok, so break the suspense and just go out and poke in a finger here and there until you hit a nice fat tuber, then lift it out with your finger. You can find enough for dinner without digging the plant. Let it grow to make more tubers.

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gixxerific
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jal_ut wrote:Ok, so break the suspense and just go out and poke in a finger here and there until you hit a nice fat tuber, then lift it out with your finger. You can find enough for dinner without digging the plant. Let it grow to make more tubers.
Jal this has me thinking. I have done that before but never thought about if picking a few here and there would force the plant to produce more. Like trimming most plants has more energy for what is left.

Am I making sense?

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jal_ut
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You well know a potato plant usually has several tubers. Take one from each plant, it will just continue to put energy into those left. I do this all summer before time to dig the whole crop.

DoubleDogFarm
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Dono,

I would call it thinning. :wink: :)

Eric

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gixxerific
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Thanks but what I was getting at is would it make MORE tubers or just tranfer energy into the remaning ones and not really produce any new ones.

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rainbowgardener
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So I harvested my container full of potatoes awhile back (they were planted mid March). Now that container has a nice healthy looking new potato plant that popped up all on its own. Presumably I accidentally left a potato or part of one behind.

Does that mean I could plant fall potatoes? There's not time for it to mature before frost. Any possibility it would over winter?

DoubleDogFarm
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gixxerific wrote:Thanks but what I was getting at is would it make MORE tubers or just tranfer energy into the remaning ones and not really produce any new ones.
At this stage I believe it would only store more food in the existing tubers.

Eric

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rainbowgardener wrote:Does that mean I could plant fall potatoes? There's not time for it to mature before frost. Any possibility it would over winter?
If you plant them deeply and mulch them in well, they should overwinter live like mine do in Albany (OH).

I might wait a few weeks if you are after summer '13 spuds.

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sheeshshe
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OK OK, I will poke around tonight :) I don't know what they're up to anyways. this is the second round off flowering...? they flowered a month ago and are flowering again it seems...

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sheeshshe
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well, I dug around 2 plants and found 1 nice potato :) it is one of the chieftains ;) it wasn't hugely big, but a moderate size, so something is happening at least!

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jal_ut
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Any possibility it would over winter?
A potato will overwinter as long as it doesn't freeze. It is rare here for a potato to overwinter as the ground usually freezes and they then get frozen and spoil. Sometimes if we get a heavy and early snow that stays on the ground all winter, the snow insulates the ground and it doesn't freeze and the potatoes that get left behind, will then overwinter and grow in the spring.

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gixxerific
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I didn't plant any potatoes this year. I had way too many volunteers from last year. :wink:

SLC
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sheeshshe, I was in the same boat as you! I had never grew potatoes before, so I had no clue what to expect. I planted mine on May 1, and about 3 weeks ago or so the plants started to die back and my bf's dad was over (who was very poor when he was a child and all they had was whatever was growing in the garden, so he knows a thing or two), and he was looking at my garden, and I said to him, the potato plants are starting to die back, does that mean the potatoes are starting to grow? And he said, oh you should have some now and he reached his hand in there and pulled out a huge potato! I was completely shocked! I had been just like you, afraid to dig, cuz I was afraid I wouldn't find any! Then he went to another plant and pulled out another one! I couldn't believe it! And I've been pulling out some here and there ever since to have for dinner! Not all so big, so the smaller ones I cut up and roast. Wow they are gooooooooooood!!! At this rate, I won't have any to store! :lol:

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sheeshshe
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I just can't FIND them. they must be deeper down than I thought, the one I did find was deeper than I imagined it would be. definitely not in the mounded portion that I did at all. so to find it, I had to unmound the whole thing and then keep digging LOL

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sheeshshe
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OK, so 2 of the plants kicked the bucket. totally dead. So me and my 2 year old dug them up. One plant had 2 potatoes. TWO!!! what a disappointment!!!!! They must have put all their energy into flowering and making seeds etc :( They were beautiful plants, lots of foliage. :( the other one had maybe 5 small ones. :( what a bummer!

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rainbowgardener
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Very sad.. you should respond to this person's post from maine and see what they did:

https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=48202&highlight=



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