My huge potato crop.

[Gary350]

My Kennebec potatoes were planted late about mid April, plants looked good for 3 months. Plants were 2 feet tall for 2 months, now the plants are laying on the soil like vines growing 5 feet long both sides of the row. The leaves have been drying up and dying for several weeks but still plenty of green leaves. It has been hot 95 to 97 for 2 months and rain only a few times. Today I dig up the first 2 feet of a 40 foot row and this is what I found. Not enough for dinner.

[jasonvanorder]

So far my russets are the same way. Dug up the Pontiac reds last weekend and in just 1 45' row we got 2 milk crates and a 5 gallon bucket full. And I would say about a 1/4 were tossed due to various things like rot and critter infestation

[applestar]

I guess Kennebecs are later maturing variety?

(Haha you really got us with the subject title -- but maybe you will still post about a big harvest later )

As much as I want to grow some varieties that get rave reviews, I'm starting to accept that I just cant grow later maturing varieties -- I REALLY wanted to grow German Butterball....

Mostly due to disease and insect pressure, the potato plants start to go down by August no matter what, and then the wireworms and something -- maybe chipmunks possibly field mice -- start getting into the tubers. So theres a window of opportunity for harvest that I need to fine tune my variety selection for.

My nemesis this year (and last year, too though I didn't realize it in time) were Tortoise Beetles. They arrive early, lay eggs, and their larvae and start munching on the leaves right away. They reiterate at least two generations over the season. This year, I was more vigilant and knew what to look for, so managed to keep them down.. The Colorado Potato beetles are arriving now but has not been as much of an issue.

I harvested my potatoes already -- not huge, but acceptable and some nice sized ones. I'll have to review my notes snd decide which varieties might come back next year. I think I should try Red Pontiac, too.

[Toxic1979]

I pulled a few of mine tonight.... the norland reds are doing well, and producing well. one plant had 6 medium sized potatoes on it, and few real small ones. The yukons were a bit disappointing so far. Only 2 on each plant. Medium sized. My liner delikatess variety are high producers of smaller potatoes. I love them for roasting!

The russets were a huge disappointment and will not be invited back next year. I planted ll the potatoes at the beginning of June and I have about 3-4 weeks of growing left, before the stalks fall over. Russets will not be doing any better by then. My russets look like the picture above.... learnings noted! lol They looked great all year though... above ground.

I know your pain.....

[jal_ut]

When planting do you cut the seed potato to one eye per piece? Plant them 3 inches deep and plants spaced 18 inches in the rows? Hill them up when the plants get up well? Just wondering since you didn't say much about how you planted them or cared for them.

[Gary350]

When planting do you cut the seed potato to one eye per piece? Plant them 3 inches deep and plants spaced 18 inches in the rows? Hill them up when the plants get up well? Just wondering since you didn't say much about how you planted them or cared for them.

FIRST POTATO CROP MARCH 1st. It rained every day for months the garden was mud, the only place I could find to plant potatoes was right next to the south wall of the house. I pulled all the grass by hand, set the cut potatoes on the no till soil, covered them up with soil, and it made a small crop of potatoes about the size of golf balls.

SECOND POTATO CROP APRIL 15th. I tilled the garden then pushed the potatoes into the soft soil about 1" deep. Some were cut potatoes with 1 or 2 eyes and some were small whole potatoes with 1 or 2 eyes. 12" spacing covered the potatoes with about 5" it took 3 weeks for plants to come up. The plants looked good all summer until a month ago the leaves started dry out and die. I dug around in the soil looking for potatoes but no potatoes. I wait another month still no potatoes I can find.

It has been too long since I planted potatoes I don't remember how. I remember my grandfather use to plow and disc the 1 acre garden with the tractor and plant potatoes the same time as everything else in the garden, tomatoes, beans, corn, etc. He use to cut his potatoes then let them dry for several days before planting. He set the cut pieces on the soil surface and covered them with soil. About once a month he pulled more soil up on the plants. When the plants started looking dry and dying he pulled the plants out of the ground and many of the potatoes came up with the plants. We lived in Illinois then weather was not as wet and 10 degrees cooler in the summer than TN.

Years ago I tried and tried to grow potatoes in TN the only thing I every found that worked good was growing potatoes in a stack of car tires. In the FALL I put 1 car tire in the garden and fill it with soil. Spring no matter how much it rains the 6" of soil in the tire is not mud. Place 5 potato pieces in side a tire, place another tire on top and fill it with soil. When the plants come up put another tire on the stack then put enough soil in to create a dam to seal off water from leaking out between the tires. Once a week I would fill the tire stack with water. When the plants start to die I push the tire stack over and there are the potatoes. I could usually get 20 lbs of potatoes from 1 stack of tires. I don't like having 20 old tires laying around the yard all year so I quit growing potatoes.

I am no potato expert but I think these plants should have been pulled up weeks ago. Look at the photos.





I dugs up the whole 40 foot row of potatoes this morning. Most plants had no potatoes. Some plants have marble size potatoes. Only about 1/3 of the plants have a good number of small potatoes. Harvest is 9.5 lbs.



About 6 or 7 years ago I planted potatoes in the fall. Wife was throwing out a bag of grocery store potatoes that were all vines so I planted the whole bag in a 25 ft row with the vines sticking up above the soil. A little more than a week there was a very good crop of nice dark green potato leaves. I covered the plants with soil deeper and deep every few weeks. First frost is usually about Nov 1st I remember covering the plants up with a tarp until cold weather killed the plants 3 weeks later. That turned out to be a good crop of potatoes about 2 times more than I have here from a smaller 25 foot long row.

Some of these little potatoes are trying to grow I wonder if that means they should have been harvested sooner? I think I will get a winter potato crop started soon.

[Taiji]

I can't say enough every year about these inexpensive little bags of early red seed potatoes from Walmart in the garden section. They have been so prolific and reliable for me. They don't call them anything but early red potato. They automatically come about the size of a ping pong ball or smaller, so cutting them is not necessary. I've found them to be excellent for all uses except baking. You can bake them and they're alright, but nothing to write home about. You also have to use them rather quickly. I've noticed too, when it gets to be around the first of August here, something starts to work on them underground, I start to see some damage and I have to get them out of there. I'm almost thinking earthworms might like them. Whenever I dig up a potato plant, the ground is swarming with earthworms there more than in other places. This pic is from this year, only about 3 plants' worth. You might give these a shot if you can find them, then plant something else for your main crop.

When I lived at home decades ago, we always grew Red Pontiacs. There is a farm store here that has them in bulk as seed potatoes for the same price as grocery store potatoes, but they get them in too late. I can plant potatoes at my lower elevation place by end of March, first of April. I almost wish I could take a trip to someplace warmer and buy them earlier.

[jal_ut]

Can't say much about growing potatoes in TN. Here they do well. I recommend getting certified seed potatoes. (certified disease free) Plant them where potatoes have not grown for a couple of years. This to avoid diseases. The type that does very well here is Red Pontiac. When you see bloom on the potato plants, there is usually some tubers. I just poke a finger in and feel for a tuber and lift one out leaving the plant to grow more. When the plant falls down and dies, dig them all. Or if you have a patch, you can dig some as you go along when needed. If you have a pit or cellar to throw them in, they will keep all winter. Good food item.

[Gary350]

Red Pontiac potatoes grow very well here in TN but they have too much starch. According to the food chart red potatoes have 2 times more starch than white potatoes that is why the red potatoes are so sticky and do not bake well. I have experimented with many different potatoes and Red Pontiac is the only potato that does good here.

If you slice Red Pontiac potatoes or grate potatoes for fries or hash browns soak the pieces in a LARGE pot of water over night it soaks the starch out of the potato then they cook and taste more like white potatoes. Slice a red potato in 1/2 soak 24 hours they make good baked potatoes. You can not have a cellar in TN it will fill up with water, it makes a good underground swimming pool.

This year I planted certified seed potatoes from the Amish Garden Center. I talked to the people at the Farmers market about how they grow such good potatoes and they all say, we live in the country, we plant on the side of a hill where it is dry enough to plant very early spring. Many of the farmers are selling potatoes first week of June at the farmers market. TN is very hilly but town is built is a flat area, my garden is never dry enough to plant potatoes early.

About 8 years ago I hilled the soil up 12" for a 25 foot row of potatoes in October, then March all I had to do was push the potatoes into the hill. Frost killed the tops a few times they grew back each time and made an ok crop of potatoes. I talked to a man in Manchester TN 12 years ago that grows 20 acres of potatoes he said he plants early and uses $5000 worth of 4-4-16 fertilizer on his crop it is the only way to get a good crop.

This year I put a 5 lb bags of 0-0-60 and a little bit of 15-15-15 on my potatoes plus I put wood ash on the potatoes from the BBQ grill every day. I like to grow anything we eat but I keep thinking potatoes are taking up valuable space in the garden for other things I could plant that will grow better but I love the challenge sooner or later I may learn how to grow good potatoes in TN.

Maybe I am expecting too much from potatoes I just keep remembering how my Grandfather use to plant 1 row of potatoes that produced 3 wheel barrow loads of potatoes that we hauled to the cellar in Illinois where it rains less and the temperature is 10 degrees cooler. That was 55 years ago I think his potato row was about 150 feet long, it was a 1 acre rectangle shape garden for the whole family, 22 people.

[Taiji]

"About 8 years ago I hilled the soil up 12" for a 25 foot row of potatoes"

Sounds like maybe your best bet would be to plant them in raised beds to get up out of that wet muck. Or, maybe make a huge hill of garden soil and plant the potatoes around it at different levels. Might keep them drier?

[Gary350]

We had Kennebec potatoes for dinner, these potatoes are weird. Alice boiled 6 small potatoes in water about 10 minutes they are like having a balloon full of mash potatoes. The skin is like a balloon and the inside is white mush. It has been along time since I bought Kennebec potatoes at the farmers market I don't remember them being so soft. We need to try a baked potato next time to see how that turns out.

[sweetiepie]

Kennebec potatoes are my favorite to grow for my area and my husbands favorite to eat. They are more creamy in flavor.

If you do not believe they were eaten by bugs such as aphids or had disease, then I will tell you how I plant my potatoes and usually get about 20 medium potatoes per hill. Some potatoes grow to be as big as my face. The only variety I can get to grow that big here. Anyway, I cut my own potatoes up from the year before and get new seed potatoes about every 3 years just to keep disease at bay. I cut them up about 24 to 48 hours before I plant them to make sure they heal over so they don't rot in the ground. Whole potatoes I have found give poorer results for some reason. I work the ground to about an 8 inch depth and rotate every year usually follow my corn because they do better in poorer soil. To much fertilizer encourages vine growth and not tuber growth. As they grow I hill dirt up around them covering some of the vines, I do this as many times as I can before they get to bushy and it's difficult to hoe anymore. I use a soaker hose to water and make sure I don't bury it. I water, if it doesn't rain, every other day.

Yes the sprouts mean they should of been harvested earlier. I am getting medium sized potatoes now but if I wait another month that is when I get the huge ones. My vines are very bushy and still blooming. Hope some advice helps.

Here are some from a couple years ago.

[jal_ut]

As a kid potatoes was a big item on the table. Dad would grow a large potato patch. Grandpa would come down, (he was on crutches and moved slow, could not get out in the garden and do anything, but he could sit there on the porch and cut potatoes) cut potatoes and Dad and I would plant them. Him with the shovel, make a hole and I would toss a tater in it and he would cover it up. Repeat. In the fall we would dig them with a team of horses and single bottom plow. Plow a row, go pick up the spuds. Repeat. There was a tater cellar where they were stored. They would last until spring. Now, I don't bother to plant potatoes. No more than I need, I just buy a few now and then.

[jal_ut]

A potato pit from the past.

[Taiji]

I wish I could store root crops like that underground. It would solve a lot of storage/space problems. I don't dare because something works on them, and nothing is left after awhile. I need to get stuff out of the ground. Maybe because it's warmer here in the winter.

I love planting potatoes. It's one of the first things up and going in the spring, and in these parts and any hint of anything green is a joy to behold! I think too, I like the treasure hunt aspect of it later when digging them up. You never know what you're gonna get!

[sweetiepie]

I can't store them in the ground either, the ground freezes about 8ft deep at times during the winter.

But my great grandparents had an outside root cellar that was made of cement with cement steps that went way down into the ground to store their potatoes. What a creepy place, no light except your flash light and in the winter the steps would be icy from the snow drifting in under the wood door. No railing. There was always the biggest grossest bugs down there and you just prayed their wasn't any other critters down there keeping warm. Of course us kids were always the ones sent down there when we came over to bring up more potatoes.

Sigh.... Basements are so much nicer.

[Taiji]

Here in AZ basements are very rare. We do have an under the house space that one can actually walk down into at first, then it becomes a more shallow crawl space. The only thing is, I hesitate to put vegetables down there because the musty smell. I think of the vegetables picking up that odor. But , maybe they wouldn't. Or, maybe there's some solution to that problem.