Potato Patch

[karstopography]

Today, when I was digging holes to plant my tomato transplants, I dug up several red pontiac potatoes from my November crop. The potatoes hadn’t sprouted yet and looked pretty good, but I put them in the compost bin.

Got to do a better job harvesting my potatoes.

[rxkeith]

i always miss some.
they over winter pretty well here with 3 ft of white mulch for much of the winter.
they provide a supplemental harvest, some times a pretty good one too.


keith

[Whwoz]

Yes, missing the odd spud is standard when digging them, regardless of skin and soil colour

[karstopography]

IMG_5565.jpeg

IMG_5567.jpeg

IMG_5571.jpeg

Covered my potatoes. Going to freeze tonight, 28°, I figured a layer of soil might protect the tender plants. I’ll find out.

[karstopography]

FullSizeRender.jpeg

Covering the potatoes with a layer of soil evidently prevented their freezing. We were sub-freezing for something like 12 hours and got as low as 28° if not lower. Other than some minor mechanical damage from being covered with soil, the potatoes look fine.

When I add soil during the season, there’s always a measure of mechanical damage from that process.

[karstopography]

IMG_5659.jpeg

IMG_5655.jpeg

I don’t think anything beats a potato plant for rate of growth. The February 20th freeze did nothing to slow these down. Pleased with the patch this year. I planted more potatoes than ever before. Hope it works out.

[GoDawgs]

Looking good, Karsto! And that reminds me to set hoops in place ready for row cover over the 12' row here. Too much frost damage over past years so now I try to set the anchors and hoops as soon as they're planted. Nothing up yet as they were just planted three days ago. Note made to get this done. Thanks!

[karstopography]

Yes, my potato plants weren’t up so high that they couldn’t be easily buried with loose soil then unburied after the freeze. The Kennebec potatoes were only just breaking through the soil at the time of the freeze on the 20th. Luckily, I had a pile of loose soil mere feet away that I had planned on using to hill the potatoes. One active shovel and elbow grease is all it takes. Potatoes evidently are amazingly resilient to having a bunch of loose soil piled on top of them.

The potatoes have all been hilled at this point except a few of the kennebec laggards. I don’t go bonkers with hilling repeatedly, maybe one good initial hilling when the plants are up 6-9” or so and a subsequent tweak or two, but I do think some hilling helps keep any of the higher up potatoes from getting light on them.

[GoDawgs]

Yes, my potato plants weren’t up so high that they couldn’t be easily buried with loose soil then unburied after the freeze. The Kennebec potatoes were only just breaking through the soil at the time of the freeze on the 20th. Luckily, I had a pile of loose soil mere feet away that I had planned on using to hill the potatoes. One active shovel and elbow grease is all it takes. Potatoes evidently are amazingly resilient to having a bunch of loose soil piled on top of them...

We do that too. However we've had freak heavy frosts come through in the first half of April when the plants are too big to cover with soil. Better to be ready than not.

[karstopography]

FullSizeRender.jpeg

FullSizeRender.jpeg

Probably the best my potatoes have ever looked at this point of the season. Minuscule amounts of pest sign. Everything is nice and green. The Purple Majesty in the white bed have flower buds appearing.

The Dark Red Norland look strong, I don’t know if they tend to bloom or not being this is my first experience with that type. The kennebec are the laggards, but they always are.