Jack Frost nipping at the taters.

Good frost Friday and Saturday nights. Won't hurt them, but they will look ugly for a week or so.

Dill, you are still so far ahead of the rest of us. It was 21' here yesterday morning and I haven't even planted any potatoes yet. What a difference a few hundred miles makes. Are you growing Pontiacs again?

Yep, I like new Red potatoes with my snap beans. Hit 27 degrees here.

Too bad Farmer, good lookin' taters! I actually lost a few Kennebecs last year from frost, got down to 25*.

Mine are not up this year yet so the frost we got the other night didn't hurt. ☺

My potatoes are still in the bag. .......for another 3 weeks. They grow just swell here after that.

Looks like I'd better get busy and prepare my bed and buy some seed potatoes.

It seems that seed potatoes are hard to find for a later summer planting.
The only time I've seen them at the garden store is in spring. What is the latest you can plant for a fall crop ? I'm in zone 6a.

I'm wondering if you planted some early summer harvested potatoes would they grow? Do the potatoes need a time lapse or chilling period to sprout?
This year I'm growing Elba, RoseGold, Onaway and Butte from Wood Prarie Farm, just small amounts of each, so we'll see what I get.

For a time before I was born my mother lved in Hanover County, Virginia, which was at the time the market garden for Richmond. They would dig potatoes around the first of July, Leave the small unmarketable ones in the row for a bout a week to dry out, then pick them up and use them for planting fall potatoes. I used to plant a fall crop in July, but never used the spring crop for seed.

my taters havent come up yet...I always get impatient waiting for them but with this cold spring here in upstate S.C. it might be a good thing that they are not up !

Farmerdill, we got colder here in central FL over the weekend than you did! Down to 25º but the taters didn't take a hit. The toms, corn and squash did just 100 feet from the taters.

We planted the taters in late January (MUCH too early) and they started coming up in mid March. They are 5-6" high now.

Seems like I read somewhere that you aren't supposed to use seed potatoes from your last crop because of possible disease problems being transmitted to new crop. Is that familiar to any of you tater-growers, or did I dream that one ? It would be about the only way to get a fall crop here as they don't sell them after springtime. Unless you ordered them from the seed companies, and shipping might be a little pricey since they weigh a lot.

Unless, you really work ar disease free practices, there is always a chance of of encouraging a disease. This was especially a problem when late blight (Phytophthora infestans) was wiping out potato crop after potato crop. The more dangerous practice is getting seed spuds from a grower with infested fields. If your spring crop was disease free, you should have no problem with saving your own seed. Certified potato seed stock has been inspected (both fields and spud) to insure that known diseases are not passed along.

Good to know Dill, thanks.

Does that mean scab too ? I'm afraid some of mine will have scab this year, as I added rich compost to the furrow. (didn't know better) Will scab carry over to the next crop if I use the ugly scabby ones for seed, and use the purty' ones for the table ?

Streptomyces scabies is soil borne, so it is a good idea, not to plant spuds from infested soil. While it thrives in soil rich in decaying vegetative matter, Using compost is no garantee that you will get the disease. There is an acid scab (S. acidiscabies) which occurs at low pH. Effects are very similar. Needless to say, in 60 plus years of growing, I have had very little problem with scab. I actually had more in acid soil than neutral soil. It is a bigger problem, where potatoes are grown year after year. I do rotate, one year in potaoes, three years in hay (Grass).

Our soil here is slightly acidic. The soil test came back with a 6.3 ph.
I guess that's not real bad, is it ?

A pH of 6.3 is very good for most veggies. Anywhere between 6 and 7, Many veggies are not overly sensitive to pH and and grow down into the 5's. Some like like lima beans and beets show noticable improvement with the pH 6-7.