POTATOES UNDER STRAW/LEAVES #4

Linda, I so thought of you the other day. Our neighbors down the street had an OLD washing machine out by the curb. I told DH, "We could take the tub out of that and use it to grow potatoes in." LOL LOL

Girl, you better go get that tub!

Before it's over with, I'm gonna spray paint them a nice copper color for garden art enhancement! The drainage is so unbelievably relevant to growing the potatoes! I can water all day and not drown my spuds!

This message was edited May 26, 2010 10:45 AM

Okay Gymgirl, you have jinxed me with your talk of the snake. LOL I was thinking when I read that I would be running or at least a brisk walk back into the house after I screamed like a little girl. Well guess what, that's exactly what I did. Called someone and the silly thing moved and my dalmation didn't find it again. Now I have to work up the nerve to go back out there. I'm sure that we will be lucky enough to find it again. Oh well no choice since I plant by the moon and tomorrow is a good day to plant my sp.

The joys of it all,
Donna

Take the hoe with you!

"Hi HOEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

"Hi hoe, hi hoe, it's off to work we go..."

There is absolutely no way I could do that. I'm a real sissy on those things. Shoot I get so excited I probably hit one of the dogs.

LOL You guys are so funny! You know, I am going to do that washing machine tub thing. That is a terrific idea. Think of the yield. And you could spray paint the bottom and no one would ever know. Do you have a picture of one of yours Linda?

DDDal,
How big was it? Cause if it was just a teeny weeny thing, I'm gonna ride up to Eaton, and have a sit down discussion with you that'll make you wanna go face the snake instead (smile).

Now, wipe the wimp off and go tend your garden.

We can't let the animals control our lives!

Seriously, though, I understand phobias. My mom was a catatonic arachnaphobe who left a newborn in the house alone once after she ran outside. Never thought anything could get in the way of "mother love..." Which is why I respect your issue with the snake, and I support your working on it, little bit by little bit.

In my case, although I have no phobias I can identify, after being cornered in my yard by two stray pit bulls, it took me a year and a half to even be in the yard without losing my mind. I'd jump at every creaking limb, falling branches, squirrels jumping, grass moving. I worked my way back and, just when I thought it was safe again, they showed up two months ago, after being gone almost a whole year.

I now reserve the right to defend myself on my property, against any, and all, predators....

MechelleT,
Look at the above posts. Those are mine. I'm gonna spray paint em when I change out the potting soil for the next planting, at the end of August...

Gymgirl, It was probably about 10-12 inches long and maybe a little bit larger than a nickel. But he had a forked tongue. Now you come right on up here and while you're teaching me maybe you can find it and do something about it. This is the first time in almost 30 years that I found a snake at my house. So once you find and get him away from me I'm expecting it to be another 30 years before I find another one. I am working up my nerve and I read the info that came with my sp. Okay here I go I have no choice.

Donna

Donna,
You go girl!

"Just holler and whack! Holler and whack! Holler and whack!"

You'll either scare him to death with the hollering, or kill him from the whacking!

Are we all in agreement that we're NOT using the same planting medium to grow our next crop of potatoes in? Soil-borne diseases and such?

I just googled and it says not to plant nightshades in the potato soil (tomatoes, potatoes, eggplants).

Sooooooooooooooooo. I'm not throwing away all that great organic leaf mold. I'm planning on using it for my cole crops in the fall (brassicas: cabbages, cauliflowers, broccoli, brussels sprouts.)

FEEDBACK IS BEING SOLICITED...COMMENTS, PLEASE...

Good for cole crops Linda... Also, I think I might just plant more sweeties in the tater bed once I pull them. They look bad so not sure how much of a crop I'll get. I think I planted way too late...

Those are great Linda.. We have an appliance repair store uptown and I am going to stop and see if they have any extra tubs. I am curious where the potatoes start forming on them. How often do you water your potatoes?

MechelleT,
Read this thread from the top. You'll get most helpful tips.

Those of us who have harvested discovered the spuds were sitting almost on the bottom of the containers and did not (at least for us) grow up with the piled on leaves. Sooooo, next time I'm not hilling past the top of the tubs...

I need an alternative to growing my sweeties in the ground. I just received FORTY EIGHT sweetie slips: Vardamans and Georgia Jets....

HELP ME, PLEASE!

Rubbermaid tubs...two to three slips per tub. :) That's how I have mine done.

Melissa,
What planting medium are you using in the RM tubs?

MIxture of MG Potting Soil and straw. The ones I've got now are layered. Potting soil on bottom, straw on top as a mulch/growing medium. Was starting to get expensive fast and I have a bale of rotting straw just alaying around.

Ok, peeps!

Gonna empty another spud container tomorrow. Stay tuned for pics!

I believe this one has the Kennebecs and Red Fingerlings mixed together. Ya'll can help with the ID when you see em!

Tomorrow will be 103 days since my spuds were planted (February 14th). And, I still have very green bushy tops in three containers!

Can't wait to see the pics!!

Waiting . . .

;o)

Kelly,

I like that emotion! ;o-)

How do you dig your spuds?

Steph,
My potting medium is so loose, I can just move it aside with my hands. Last time I used a small shovel, but this time I'm just gonna move the leaves off the top and roll the washing machine tub on its side!

How's THAT for agitation??!

Come on, ya'll remember "agitation..."

Yeah, I just started shovelling with my hands. If I use a shovel to dig or even a rake to pull the leaves and dirt off, I always manage to stick it straight into the biggest, most perfect, potato. By hand is not really practical if you have ant issues, of course, so just try to be gentle if you need to use implements.

O.K, finnally potatoes! I've taken out my 2 containers of potatoes, 1 is the smartpot and the other is the wine barrell, in total I have 8 pds all toguether, but I think I got more taters from the smartpot than the rainbarrell.

There are many potatoes that I have that are very small though, the size of marbles or even smaller, I am wondering what to do with these, could I use them as seed potatoes. The only thing is that it is too hot now to plant potatoes so I am wondering if it is even a possibility or not.

Also I noticed that there was no potatoes at all where I had placed the leaves so I am wondering if the plant would have produced more if I had just placed compost instead of leaves.

The first time I read about planting taters in leaves, it was an article on DG by Doccat. She said to whollop the leaf pile with a rake handle before rummaging for potatoes in order to drive the snakes out. I believe I could not do otherwise... and agree on the fireants warning.

Alrighty, folks, I went and dug up my two "dead" containers. Look what I found!

Congratulations, Steph, that is a gorgeous pic! Please enter it in the next photo competition!

This is sooooo exciting!

I'll try to dump mine tomorrow. Might get rain tonight.

Steph, how many pounds did you get?

I'll be heading out this morning 2 harvest a washing machine tub. Will post pics soon.

Stephanie great looking taters, :). By the way are the smaller ones french fingerlings? I almost planted some as well but unfortunatelly ran out of room, and decided to plant just the Yucon golds.

Nice taters!

Well, I ended up with 1 1/4 lbs of reds and about a pound of the fingerlings. Many are very small, about the size of marbles. I think they needed more room.

I still have the big container going and will be digging those in a couple of weeks.

We also found the taters down in the dirt, not in the leaves. The soil was very wet, though, and we'd not watered for at least 3 weeks and it's not rained!

Steph,
I pulled my spuds outta the same growing conditions. My harvest was very, very modest. I think they needed more growing room.

Here they are roasted in olive oil with SnP. Only stole the teeniest, tiniest ones.

Gymgirl, what did you think of the fingerlings roasted? They look delicious. I've always saved my little bitty ones for seed the next year or I would throw them in a pot of soup.

Donna

can you save the itty bitty ones for seed that long? they won't rot?

I usually harvest around Sept. or Oct. and plant the next May (just this year started planting in April like I should) some of them get shriveled but alot of time I see sprouts. I still have some from last year and I've almosted forced everyone I know to take some. Now most of those have shriveled. Didn't have a great year for size last year but great for seedlings.

I thought this was interesting. Yesterday I was watering my garden that is surrounded by straw bales from last year and to my surprise there was a potato plant growing in the middle of one of the bales. I'm sure this is a fingerling. I would bet what happened is that I laid the fingerlings up on the bale while harvesting and one of those itty bitty ones fell down there.

Donna

I'm going to make some dill potatoes tonight for dinner with dill and taters from the garden!

I am actually wondering whether I can keep seed potatoes in the fridge and then sprout them later. According to my planting cycle I can plant Irish potatoes after September 15th and harvest new potatoes in sometime in December.