Hot Potatoe

I've read that Irish Potatoes do poorly in the summer heat here so I got mine in as early as I thought I could get away with. I planted half around January 15th and the other half Feb 1. I planted Kennebec and Yukon Gold. A few things I was wondering about though.

I've read they need about 100 days of growing time and they take about 3-4 weeks to sprout. Is the 100 days from when I see them sprout? Would I expect to harvest around June 1 for the Feb 1 planted Potatoes?

I planted the seed potatoes 4-6" deep and when the plants are up I plan to mulch them with Wheat Straw to keep them cooler. Will this extend the amount of time it takes the plant to make potatoes? (because I'm covering part of the plant?)

What actually happens to the plant when it gets too hot? Does it just stop growing and producing Potatoes or does it die down? I'm wondering if there will be some sign to know when to dig or if I'll have to just dig a few in early June to see.

Thanks in advance.

Jeff

1. Depending on the weather you may have an emergence problem with your January planting. Sometimes they will rot when sitting too long in the ground. I plant here around February 15. 2. You should be able to get Yukon Golds ( new potatoes) around the first of June. Kennebecs have a slightly longer season. For storage potatoes, you wait until the vines die. It usually occurs in a short interval of time. In this area they will all be down by the first of July. 3. Good plan, It may extend the life of your plants, but the first one will be ready at the same time. Potato tubers grow on the vine above the roots, so if you cover the lower part of the vine more tubers will form. Die back may take a little longer but you will get an increased yield. 4. the vines will stop growing and dieback with hot weather if tubers have already started. It will reduce the size of the tubers to whatever they attained before it got too hot. Sometimes tho, if it gets hot before they set tubers, they never do. While the plant remains green, it never sets a tuber.

Dill, not sure I understand the last part of what you posted. "While a plant remains green, it never sets a tuber." Could you elaborate please?

Sometimes a potato plant or several, will grow beautifully, but still be green and lush when the rest of field dies down, In my younger days I would leave them until fall sometimes, but regardless they they never grew potatoes, only vines. Potato vines die back, very quickly after forming potatoes . My granpappy would say the "strength is going to the potatoes". The all vine/no potato event usually happens with late maturing or late planted potatoes in the south.

OK, got it. Thanks.

Thanks Farmerdill. If I don't see any sprouts on the January 15th group in a few weeks I'll replant that area. It's a raised bed so I hoped it would stay pretty warm but it's been so cold here recently... I only planted 10 lbs each time so it won't be too bad if I need to replant it.

Jeff

Hey!,
Other Georgians who either plant or wish toplant potatoes!
My family hails from Maine (where the potatoe is King) so growing them down here in Ga has been a guessing game for me. The humidity and growing season are entirely new for me.
Over the last 3 years, Ive tried trial plantings of Norlands, Blues and this last year I planted a handful (literally) of caribe (purple). Each year Ive tried a deviation of planting on hay and piling it as teh vines grow.
I can say I havent had alot of success, mabye becuase Im so used to planting them on a more Northerly schedule.
This year I'll try planting the Caribe's I got from last fall in a raised bed Im fixin to wack together here this week. Mabye I'll plant 2- one liek normal, one bed I'll add and add to.

I'll look in to see at ya'll have for suggestions! :D

Hi Ninnian,
My family is all originally from the midwest and Potatoes are one of the things I really looked forward to growing because I remember digging them with my grandfather. Such a treasure hunt turning over the fork and not sure what you would get!

I'm trying them in a fairly deep raised bed about 12" with straw mulch but as you read above I think I planted too early. Been way too cold the last few weeks. Looks like we're going to get a big warm up this week though so I'll try replanting some of them.

As a backup I've started some sweet potatoes making 'slips' inside since they're a more proper potatoe for down here. My wife really likes them and they're healthier, but they just don't make fries the way irish ones do!

Hey there Jkehl,
Omigosh, do you have the same memories as I do of running your hands thru black soil and knowing that there were some lil ones off to teh side of the rows, if you could just Find them?? Nothing like the hunt for lost 'taters when Granpa is looking over the end of some tines at you grinning like nobodies buisness!
Weirdly enough- we never did have a problem with potatoe beetles- here we have em for sure!

I was thinking of trying the straw bale method- but bales are about 4.50 here - I can wack together some 2x6 and order some raised bed corners from Parks Seeds for far less than it would cost me to put enough bales together.
This week , hmm? OK- I think I can match you! I'll try at least. Mabye I can get some thrown on hay and have the raised beds ready this week or next? I think we're due for more cold weather? I'll look at the long range Mellish forcast at WSB's website.

I havent grown sweets becuase I have so very little sun room!.. My Mom in Maine(where she has LOTS of garden) is dying to becuase she fell in love with them when down here visiting , but Im trying to get her to recognize she might not have enough of a growing season!!
She has what I want, I have what she wants! Sheesh!

Nin :D

Yeah, I'm trying to get mine in as early as I can to get the most growth before the heat sets in. It's my understanding that they'll take 3-4 weeks to emerge from the ground after planting (I'm planting 6" deep) So I'm hoping that in 3-4 weeks we'll be past the frosts. I'll also be mulching them in straw once they appear so even if there is a frost or 2 it shouldn't hurt them much.

I agree it's pretty easy to setup a raised bed for them. I've just been using pine logs for mine so they're free other than whatever I amend them with.

Wish you luck with your taters!

The picture below is what my Potato patch looked like 3 days ago before the cold... They all died back to the ground with the cold snap. The growing guides say they will grow back from the ground level when this happens but I'm somewhat skeptical because the plants were fairly large.

Anyone know from experience if these will grow back?

I want to replant the bed asap if they are goners.

Jeff

Last year mine got hit by a late frost and they came back fine. That has been my experience over the years, get frosted every 10 years or or so and bounce back fine. This years is a little more severe so we will wait a little while and see.

Yikes, it was 19' here this morning and my potatoes got nailed! But I am counting on them making some kind of a come back and making some taters.

Thanks for the responses. I'm hoping they will regrow. They were really strong vigorous plants, but we hit 25 here. I may start a new bed just to be on the safe side.


Jeff

Jkehl, What is your method of planting potatoes in raised beds? After setting up your pine logs, Do you just set the potatoes on the ground and add soil? or do you dig a trench, set in your potatoes and go from there?
Sue :)

Actually, laying down the potatoes and then adding soil would have been easier but I did it the hard way because I had the soil before it was time to plant. So I got the bed all ready and then dug trenches to put the potatoes in. In a way I think that was better though because the bottom of the bed is forest floor full of pine needles, leaves and other organic matter that I'm counting on breaking down. I don't know that I'd want the potatoes in the middle of that. Instead they're in cooler soil a bit above the organic material decomposing.

Jeff

Jkehl; I know it is a lot of difference from there to here. as far as planting times. I just wanted to add that one year, I planted on good friday. After the plants just poked through. They froze off three different times, but kept comming back. I planted 35lbs
got back over 700lbs. They were not as tall as yours but they did have leaves above ground. I hope that is true for you as well.
You can mound up dirt around the plant as you weed. that will promote more roots / to produce more tubers. Does that work there Farmer Dill?

Thanks Randb,

I can see green at the base of the plants where they were covered with straw so I'm hoping they'll come roaring back.

Yep. except more roots is not the objective. Tubers form above the roots, so increasing the cover increases the chances for tubers to form. That is why we hill up, or mulch, and why the the tater towers work.

Mine went to the ground also, but they are already coming back.

Will tomatoes regrow from the roots like that? I was looking at my tomatoes today and some of them are green on the stem under the straw. Made me think I ought to give them a chance to come back before I replant.

Jeff

Not often.

Dill do we call the shoots that I called roots" tuber shoots"??? chuckle chuckle Laughing at my self.

jkehl, Thanks for the great info on raised beds! I should be getting my taters this week, ordered from Ronniger's. I'm going to give the raised beds a try.

Well a month later, the taters are about back to where they were before the freeze. Really pretty amazing how resilient they are.

Jeff!,
Those taters are doing great considering. We hit 16- but thankfully my lil caribes hadnt gotten thier heads above the ground yet. *whew* .
Now Im trying real hard not to go scarf the rotting hay bales down teh road Ive been eyeing since Nov.!!
Its been a slow moving Spring fo rme- I havent gotten anything out BUT the taters and a few snaps, onions, and some scattered lettuces.
I tell ya, I looked at teh peas on farmerdills thread- I think we should all meet in Augusta fer dinner :D
( I'm hoping my other Ga neighbors got that awesome rain last night and this Am also!)
Nin

Hi Nin,

Yeah I'm happy they're doing well, but it's discouraging to lose a month's worth of growing time since I know it will be hot hot hot here soon.

My shelling peas haven't been doing well at all. They were damaged a bit by the freeze and the drought has hit them pretty hard. I've been picking a handful or so every day but I just eat them in the garden because there' so few. I got a ton of snow peas though for some reason they did really well. I have one batch of little marvels just flowering now so hopefully I'll get some off them.

We got a bit of rain yesterday and last night but only about .3 inch all told. Still I was glad for it, the plants all just seem to take off when it rains.

Updated pic of the taters. I'm hoping they're doing ok below the ground... A lot of them are flowering but most of them are curling/wilting from lack of water.

Jeff,
things look yummy over to your place!
I have hilled my taters up a good foot or so. I couldnt decide what I was doing with them in teh raised bed, so they have about 3 inches(I figured squished up as it must be now) of leaves, and then about 12-16 inches of soil. Who knows what Ive done to em, but they are looking rather healthy.
I have a couple volunteers also coming up that I didnt realize! I had put a huge pile of oak leaves on teh spot where I last grew purples.. after having sorted thru teh soil for anything I could use to plant This year (I never got enough to eat last year). Well, I guess I didnt search thorough enough.... poking out of about 3 foot of leaves came this volunteer. It looked alil spindly, so I raked the leaves back, laid it down, and hilled 6-8 inches of soil on that whole stem. Mabye it'll produce sideways like that!? Im out on a limb, but its an extra- I say " what the heck!".

I've managed a handful of sugar snaps off my lil planting by the side of my ramp railing. they were SOO yummy! the aphids like them also,so Im having to hammer the peas with water every other day. I wish they weren't so delicate. I;d soak them down with soapy water and alcohol like I do my roses .

And now forJune, hmmm??
Nin

jkehl I know what you mean about the water shortage. we finally got rain from that tropical depression it was only an 2" but it's better than nothing. The garden dirt was like powder and it's only the beginning of June! Up here it's just the start of planting season. Hope you got some much needed rain for your potatoes.
Nin, I hope you enjoy your sugar snaps! even a handful is a joy! I'm still waiting for mine! It's been running 10-15 degrees higher than average for this time of year with very little water so I don't think they are overly happy!

Hello saanansandy,

We're a bit inland so Barry missed us completely :( still no rain in sight for the next week or so. I'm starting to become philosophical about it. I go out and water as much as I can each day and continue to be amazed that some plants are still alive and producing.

In a way, the drought has been good because the plants seem to be rushing to produce fruit and seed so I'm getting some veggies from plants that seem far too small to be putting out fruit. The pic below is stuff I harvested today. When I pull something like a cabbage, it is truly amazing to me because the roots of the plant are sitting in dust. I can't understand where they're drawing the water to make the cabbage.

The potatos are all still alive and happy, many of them have flowered so I'm hoping they're making taters.

Jeff

I have some hot potatoes, too. I planted them April 11 - Red Cloud and Yukon Gold. They looked great until it got to the high 80's, then the tops were wilting in the heat of the day, even though hilled up and mulched with alfalfa (wishing they were in Ireland instead of West Texas). The reason they say only grow plants adapted to your climate.

So a couple of days ago I got the idea of shading them with sheer window curtains. I was congratulating myself on the ingenuity of using the casings at the top and bottom of the curtains to thread my 9 gauge wire hoops through, similar to a covered wagon, but not coming down to the ground on the sides.

Well, guess what! With the rain and the heat, there wasn't enough air circulation under the curtains, and they got Early Blight. So I spent a lot of time today meticulously cutting off the blighted leaves. Then I was going to spray them with a Dr. Bronner's Lavender soap and Tea tree oil mixture, but couldn't get the sprayer to work. About that time it rained again, so everything's on hold till tomorrow.

By the way, I found an interesting South African sustainable gardening website that has loads of botanical remedies you can make out of weeds, manure etc. to protect your plants. It even gives you the names of the plants in Zulu, in case you wanted to know:

http://agriculture.kzntl.gov.za/portal/publications/books/plant_diseases/disease_7.htm

Im alive,... just so incredibly busy.

We're getting rain! woohoooooo! .. m,y potatoes are alil sad looking, but they are doing better than teh rets of my garden. Next year Ill get them more sun.
Getting rain in Rome?, How about Sandy? My Mom in Maine ha sbeen getting plenty.

and when will I get tiem to go to that way cool sounding site from South Africa? What a gem that may be! (even if I dont speak Zulu)

::waving:: Ill try to get back in soon!

Nin

Hi Ninnian,

My Potatoes have turned out to be one of my better crops this year. They are surviving the drought better than most things with a little help from the sprinklers. I've dug a 50' row and got around 50 pounds of spuds so far. Not stellar but good enough in a bad year. I've planted more potatos 3 times since the original batch so it should be interesting to see how they do in comparison. Only the first two plantings were in the raised bed. The rest I did the hard way, digging and then hilling them. So far so good.

We're still really hurting for rain but it thunders and lightnings every day it seems like. Front page of the paper said we have a major hay shortage yesterday. Next story ironically was a lightning strike struck a barn, caught it on fire and burned 13,000 bales of hay...

Good luck with your spuds!

Jeff

Just dang!!,
It thunders quite a bit here also teh last week, with usually a few spits of rain to tease.
My potatoes are of 2 minds- some have succumbed to whiteflies , an dthe others have been chomped on by deer! I think I have one plant thats still going gangbusters. Im almost afeared to dig them up!

Wow, I'd say you got a pretty good crop out of 50', considering our soil and our temps so far!! YAY!!! I would liek to se ethe comparison betwixt the later plantings.

I need to get my butt moving and take soil samples to teh Ag extension. My plants hate me. akk!

Nin!