POTATOES

[2 Green Thumbs]

How long after planting should I see my potatoe plants emerge? I dug trenches 4 inchs deep and placed seed potatoe sections about 6 inchs apart, covered with 3 inchs of loose dirt and did not compact. I put in red russet, youkon Gold, kanabec and another kind that starts with a K. Very nervous about my first REAL garden any reply is appreciated!!! ALSO hello to everyone I am new here and I think this may be my new favorite board...atleast until hunting season comes around.

[jal_ut]

It will depend some on the weather and soil temperature and also on whether they had sprouts already at planting. Ten days to three weeks.

Welcome to the forum.

[greenstubbs]

It took mine about a month before they popped. I started mine on 14 Feb. and are now starting to grow crazy. Hilling them every 4-5 days to stay on top of things.

[gumbo2176]

Mine came up in about 10 days in the large planter I made out of an old garbage can but it took the ones planted in the ground a couple days longer to show. I'm in New Orleans and our weather is a good bit warmer than yours is right now.

[dtlove129]

My red potatoes were coming up in about a week. I saw last night that my Yukon golds are coming up now (probably 10 days on them). I dig a foot trench, but buried them about 4 inches to start.

[2 Green Thumbs]

How often should I water them? Last night after work I scratched down in the garden and my soil was moist at about 2inchs. Does anyone know what the number one thing new gardeners do to hurt their crops...may seem like a dumb or corney question but I would like to avoid making stupid mistakes...Thank You all for the replies I can tell by reading through older posts that this will be a very helpful website and has a very awsome culture...

[lorax]

The number one problem with new gardeners is overwatering. Once or twice a week if it hasn't rained is usually enough - daily is overkill! If the soil's still moist when you scratch into it as you've described, you don't need to water that day.

For spuds, mine seem to come up between 5 and 7 days from planting; I chit (cut into sections containing just one or two eyes), callus (allow to dry for a day), then plant about 4-6" deep. I'm also living in potato central and working with cultivars that y'all don't have up north, though, so take that speed with a grain of salt.

[2 Green Thumbs]

I did cut my 30lbs of seed potatoes into parts with 3-4 eyes and let them sit outside for 3 days before I planted...they had some growth on the eyes when I put them in.

[2 Green Thumbs]

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.

[Dillbert]

>>9 days ago. . .

patience, Grasshopper (g)

over the years I've seen two to six weeks. depends on soil temps, etc.

[2cents]

I SW Ohio we've been a bit wet & cold for much growth in potatoe patches. Neighbors been in 3 weeks & no leaves above ground, he worries he'll have to replant. I tell him be patient.
I'm putting mine in this weekend. On top of ground with compost over. The air is warmer than 4 inches down, so think they will get a quick start, as long as we don't see anymore <45 * nights.

[rainbowgardener]

I'm in SW Ohio also. I planted my potatoes mid-March when the forsythia bloomed. They had sprouts on them and I only planted them a couple inches deep. They sprouted in a couple weeks. They are now about 4" high and I am about to start hilling up.

[2 Green Thumbs]

Checked soil tonight after work with a ph and moisture tester. Came out with a 5.5 to a 6.5 for ph I checked it about every 2 feet and it ranged between these two numbers the whole way through...Is this ok...the package that it came in says 6.0 is about ideal for most veggies. And the moisture tester came up dry on everything...Should I water my garden???? So far I have planted potatoes,lettuce,onions,carrots and gladiolis bulbs as a border.

[applestar]

I think lettuce and carrots prefer less acid -- more neutral.
Potatoes are said to be better in slightly acid soil to prevent scab. I've used garden sulfur on cut ends in the past (I was out of it this year so I didn't though) and I always add pine needles to the mulch to hill the plants.

I water more often when I have seeds waiting to sprout so the surface soil doesn't get too dry. Once they have sprouted, I know their roots go down at least 1-2" so I go back to deep watering and less often.

In my area, we're waiting for the spring rains to begin and the minimal thaw we had due to lack of freezing temps and snow over the winter have already dried up. All we're getting are teasers in the forecast. I have been watering for the last three days in sections (one more section to do tomorrow) -- each section getting three hours.

[mhannum]

Maryland is having the same problems as New Jersey, as one would guess - a really warm winter with almost 0 snowfall, and now a dry and warm spring. I'm worried that this summer will be hot, dry, and miserable, which won't help potatoes or much of any other plants in the garden.

[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. I'm 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. I'm 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:

https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=250139#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:

[img]https://dl.dropbox.com/u/3552590/PotatoBed_w.jpg[/img]

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 [url=https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=219603#219603]demo bags full of municipal mulch[/url]. 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:

[img]https://dl.dropbox.com/u/3552590/TaterOrWeed.jpg[/img]

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:

[img]https://www.hippityhooves.com/Potato_plant.jpg[/img]

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 ([url]https://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/1000/1424.html[/url]) 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...