Okiedoke,

Some years are that way, but I'd try to figure out why yields were low and then try to fix it. I know you're disappointed and I would be too but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try potatoes again. Maybe try again with inexpensive local seed potatoes and see what results you get. Then if that works out well, you might feel like giving Ronninger's another shot.

Did all your potato foliage naturally yellow and die before you dug the potatoes? I usually wait 2 or 3 weeks after the foliage dies before I dig unless the soil is very wet. Often people harvest too early and don't get as large of a crop as they otherwise would have.

Did the potatoes get lots of water and adequate fertilizer? Potatoes are heavy feeders and need good nutrition to produce a sizeable crop. If they do not have high levels of fertility, they'll barely make any potatoes at all and the ones they make will remain small..

Variety selection is very important as not many varieties produce well in our climate. The most reliable ones I've found are Kennebec, Yukon Gold and, for reds, Red Pontiac and Red LaSoda. I usually get pretty good production from All-Blue too.

Fluffy soil will give you better results, so potatoes may not be the best possible crop for y'all to devote space to if you can't amend the soil enough to make it fairly fluffy.

Did you mulch? If the soil gets too hot before tuber formation begins, your yield will be poor. I like to have 3 or 4" of mulch all over the potato bed well before tuber initiation. Once your soil temp hits about 85 degrees, tuber set and enlargement is poor.

Did you plant your seed potatoes too shallowly? They need to be planted 6-8" below the soil surface.

Potatoes grow in a fairly wide range of soil pH, but if your soil is pretty acidic (below 5.2), that would explain your yield.

I grow several kinds of fingerlings, but none of them are heavy yielders for me.

Finally, I don't know if yours had enough sunlight. Did the potato foliage grow well and look good? I have had good results with morning sun and then dappled shade from noon on.

I hope you'll try again. Fresh, home-grown tomatoes have amazing flavor and are worth whatever fine-tuning is needed in order to get them to produce better yields.

Dawn

Thanks for the encouragement....
yes, foliage has looked happy.... the ones in the back (shade) did yellow on their own...but I would say I waited a few days rather than a few weeks...maybe that was a big part of it. The ones in the smart bag (sun-fingerlings) had not yellowed yet, but I knew we had some in there waiting for us. We had 8 inches of rain this am (I'm in Central OKC)and more on it's way...I went ahead and pulled them because I was afraid they would be too wet and rot. Maybe I was just anxious to see them and used that as an excuse :-b . I may be kidding myself, put went ahead and replanted the plants to see if anything else happens....silly, I know.
Backyard is prob a little acidic...shade is from a pecan tree....
they are yummy though!

Okiedoke - I am sorry that you didn't get good production this year. I am not a skilled potato grower and have only grown them a few times. I will be very disappointed if my potatoes don't produce this year, because I haven't liked having them in my garden. It's hard to have yellow, falling over, dead looking plants in a place where everything is pretty and green. My plants grew in excess of three feet tall. Although I had a very small space devoted to them they managed to fall every-which-way so it looks like much more than it is. I had pepper plants that were planted a reasonable distant from them that are leaning forward in their cages and their leaves are reaching upward for a glimmer of sunshine. I finally just moved the potato plants over and laid them down in a new spot so they wouldn't cover up the other plants. I'm afraid I will have to find a new area for them next year.

We have had light rain off-and-on last night and this morning but it appears to be increasing now, so my potatoes may have to stay in the ground a while longer than I would like. I am SO ready to get rid of them.

Okiedoke,

I almost always dig mine too early because, like Carol, I get tired of looking at them. So, this year I moved them out of the main garden to an auxilary area in partial shade and am eager to see how they've done. I am not in any hurry for them to yellow and die back because I want maximum productivity this year, and they aren't bothering anyone but themselves because they aren't close to other plants. We are very dry here, so I've tried to keep them well-watered. At planting time we were much too wet, so I kept waiting and waiting and waiting for the soil to dry, and still planted into very wet soil a month late.

I do love potatoes, though, and especially figerlings. I'm going to keep working at it until I do it right. I'm pretty sure you'll do the same. We're Oklahomans, which means we tough it out and stick it out and survive despite everything the climate/weather throws at us and our gardens.

If I lived in central OK, I'd probably be glad I'd dug my potatoes already because this rain situation is a gardening disaster in the making. NO garden is going to be happy with 8 or 10 or 12" of rain or more in just a few hours. We'll be working together here on solutions for all the rain-related problems....probably for weeks and weeks and weeks.

Here I sit all alone and hot and dry in southcentral OK while all of you are cool and comfortable and wet. Won't somebody PLEASE send me their extra raindrops. Pretty, pretty please! (We always want what we don't have.)

Okiedoke - we dug our Adirondack Blue yesterday and let's face it - this is just not a good potatoe year because of all this wild weather. We just bought a bag of seed potatoes @ Lowes and planted them. We did get about twice the amount as the original potatoes. We're going to dig the rest one evening soon when the rain quits. We have Pontiac Red, Yukon Golds and Kennebec. I'll try to come back and post the result. We got hit pretty bad with the potatoe bugs, so any harvest is going to be a surprise.

Onions aren't doing worth a flip this year either. This weird spring weather has just been rough on root and cool crops.

Paula