Well, Skybird, I'll tell you that I tried to float the idea and it didn't go over well, as it would be another crazy Dan idea. I can spend the money and make a neat structure and ensure it looks nice and I can do a formal bin. Ordering from Ronninger's Potato Garden, they have a nice bin. I'm all for it. I want to. Skybird does it, why can't I?!?!?

Dan

Uh-oh! You mean I'm having Crazy Dan ideas??? That sounds dangerous! Maybe I have Multiple Personality Disorder!!!

I gotta tell you, Dan, of all the pictures you post, I haven't seen one crazy idea yet! I assume you're talking about where you grow them, rather than MY crazy idea to grow King Soopers variety! Where are you growing yours now? My "bin" idea just evolved because the year I planted them right IN the compost pile, they kind of "went" all over the place in the pile, and it was hard to find them when I tried to dig them! With my separate little bin, it's really (REALLY) easy to dig them out! They're "planted" by laying them on top of the hard clay at the bottom, so they virtually NEVER go down into that, and all I have to do is push the compost back from the one end, filtering the potatoes out as I go---lay the new crop of potatoes in the bottom, and then I push it back to the other end to get the potatoes on the other side, and put the new potatoes in there before leveling it all back out again! But mine is really little, so it's very easy to do that!

But since it's 12" deep, when I heap the compost up on it, it's plenty deep enough for the few I grow! Deeper would be nice, but I'm not that much into "construction," and it would be harder to dig them up if it was deeper! Now I can just sit right next to it and dig around in it! (I have more stepping stones in there now to sit on!)

After growing them in the "same" compost last year, I have pretty much made the decision that I'm gonna start over each year with "new" half finished compost! I think they grew better the first year, and not as well last year, which is why I decided to refill it with new stuff this year! Will be interesting to see how they do this year!

So if it's the "bin" idea you're talking about, tell your wife that I don't think it's crazy at all! And if it's the King Soopers Variety, and planting the ones that are already growing that you're talking about---I don't think that's so crazy either! (And I don't have to pay shipping!)

:-)
Skybird

P.S. I checked out your Potato Garden site, and I couldn't find anything but potatoes there! No bins!

Of course, the problem with growing soopermarket potatoes is that they are offering them for eating and not growing.

They are kind of like the beer I sometimes get at the market. It's for drinking. Now, I'd appreciate using it for hair conditioner but I'm afraid it has additives - not even listed on the bottle - that make that dangerous. So, I'm forced to drink it rather than have it go to waste.

And, this yogurt that I'm eating for breakfast . . . what if I wanted to culture some store-bought milk and make more yogurt. I don't think Yoplait included that in their plans for my purchase. Besides, our dairy products up here are now radioactive. So, everything is dead and I may as well just eat it! Not wanting it to go to waste, and all.

Let's turn to advice on commercial storage and Cornell University. They are in New York and thru the wonders of the internet, it is easy for me to pick on them: "Although most potato varieties are dormant for two to three months after harvest, they will eventually sprout even in long-term cold storage. Two chemical sprout inhibitors are available to lengthen the storage period. Maleic hydrazide is applied as a field spray on green foliage two to three weeks after the full bloom stage. This material is translocated to the tubers and helps prevent sprouting. Chlorpropham (CIPC) is applied as an aerosol through the air ventilation system of the storage facility or as a spray on tubers on the packing line."

Now for my antidote, uh, my anecdote: My neighbor once planted a nice little piece of ground to potatoes. He is supposedly a biker and learned that he could use his father's rototiller to spin kind of reverse Brodies - piling up the soil in his "hills." I don't know if he planted the soopermarket spuds after he'd completed this artistic sculpturing of the space but I believe it was before.

Anyway, after several months, it was obvious that the spuds were not going to come up! One would have to decide for oneself if it was a result of Maleic hydrazide, applied to the growing field of potatoes destined for human consumption, the Chlorpropham, gassed through the storage ventilation system onto what was supposedly human food, or Biker Billy and his Briggs and Stratton.

Steve

Here is a link that might be useful: Cornell University

I'm pretty sure the organic store potatoes don't get sprayed with that stuff. At least the ones I've bought seem to sprout a couple inches on the way home from the store.......

On the front page lass! (as he watches "Leap Year").

I have lots of half-finished compost that could go in such a bin...

Dan

There is a serious argument to grow potatoes just for a freshly dug, 'new potato' salad on the 4th of July.

Maybe on the way out to get decomposed granite I'll see if there is suitable lumber to scavenge to make a tower...hmmm...poh-TAH-toes...yum

Dan

I was back to the garden center this morning looking at the fingerlings. If they still had the Amandine Fingerling in this country, I'd get that. Probably should be happy with the "La Ratte" instead but appreciation for food has a lot to do with appetite and anything named "La Ratte" just doesn't stimulate my appetite . . . (I'm reminded of a Far Side cartoon and Grandfather Snake and the family at the dinner table ;o).

My choices this year aren't very exotic: I've got the Goldrush and Yukon Gold again. (It's that name thing, maybe?) And, for a red - there's Red Norland, which I've also had before. The new spud on the block will be Purple Viking. Think it might be lots like Caribe which, I guess, I'd need to have shipped to me.

I'm Well Enuf pleased with these choices. They are 3 earlies and 1 (the Goldrush), a mid-season variety. I guess I'm copping out a little since I was looking to grow a late to see if I couldn't get better storage life from it. But, I'm willing to take my chances and not rush to eat all my Goldrush by New Years Day. They might make it to St. Patrick's Day! I'll just have to see.

Steve

I've ordered from Ronniger's/Potato Garden in the past. This year I'm growing Azul Toro a Tom Wagner variety sent to me by another gardener and 5 varieties from Irish Eyes. Yukon Gem, Kennebec, Tom thumb, Cherry Red and Yellow Finn.

The Azul Toro is a purple potato and some say the best purple they have grown. Will try to keep some tubers for next year if they do well. Jay

Irish Eyes?!

I thought only people in central Washington knew anything about that company!

If Ellensburg wasn't so far from here . . . I'd drive over to avoid the shipping charges. There are some gardeners around here who used to drive to Ronninger's in Moyie Springs to buy their seed potatoes but since Ronninger's is somehow a Colorado company now, I don't know if they are in Moyie any longer or not.

S'

We grew Kennebec last year. Yuh-hum. I'm working on the fam to build a budadah bin. Not there yet, but I have pile of compost that is 3/4 finished...perfect place to finish...

Dan

I am not one to bury the leaves but has anyone thought of this:

(actually, I'm sure someone has because this seems more like a memory of what someone did than an original thought ;o).

using a container built like a strawberry pot to grow potatoes?! Might not get growth on the northside without turning it often but . . . Potato Mountain!

S'

Old tires, stacked up, and painted white.

(nothing toxic will leach out and poison you. Honest)

I decided the seed potatoes had better find themselves in a warm spot for a few days since they are fixin' to take their garden location soon. That darn basement cold room! Over the last 5 days and at only 51F, they've been growin' just fine, thank you!
{{gwi:1198934}}Top to Bottom Red Norland, Goldrush, Yukon Gold,& Purple Viking

I got them out of their paper sacks and into a box, anyway. Now, you don't suppose that it would hurt to put these spuds in some 45F soil tomorrow, do you?

Steve

Uh. That's pushing it. But you're not soaked up there, are you? You might avoid scab & critters with the dryness...

I'm holding off a week so I can harvest a tad later & cooler.

Dan

Yeah, I would prefer to wait for warmer weather - any warmer weather, Dan! We still haven't had a 60F afternoon. Have I already said that somewhere? I don't know - it is miserably cool up here!

No, I was out with the spading fork and the soil almost felt dry. Which is odd because it seems to rain every other day and snowed a couple of times last week. But, it has done almost no hard raining. The snow was gone just a few hours after sunrise.

Scab does show up, especially on the Yukons. Know little about the problem - or solution.

I just hate to do much handling of the tubers if they grow much more. I've done spud planting that takes 2 hands, and an elbow - to try to not break looong sprouts and still get soil over them! Bothersome . . . I know that they can be broken off and the seed piece should grow again but suspect the viability decreases quite a bit.

At least, it won't be a a big difference in temperature for the potatoes. I know that these got a start in the store but I'm really surprised they've grown so much, at a reasonably cool temperature, and in such a short time!

Steve

My friends in Wenatchee say the same thing about their weather. Their potatoes are in. Exposing my potatoes tomorrow I think, but they are going where a coldframe is and I have to see if everything inside is ready to come out, so a little tricky.

Dan

As they say, a gardening enterprise is growing!

Yesterday, I knew nothing about "Purple Majesty." This morning I was asked if I knew anything about these potato plants. Nope. Just after lunch, I see Purple Majesty at the garden center. . . . . !

I already had 8 pounds of seed potatoes; 2 pounds more than I needed for the 100 square feet that I had as a spud patch last year. So, already defeated, I bought another 2 pounds! This afternoon, I planted 5 varieties and 200 square feet of spuds. This is the largest potato garden I've had in nearly 40 years!

Steve

I have some red organic potatoes that have gone past their prime. I can plant these and have some success?

Skybird, in one of your pictures above you have some sort of material protecting your fence from the compost pile. What is it and how is it working out?

Greg, you can plant them as along as they are not completely dessicated. If they are sprouting and not totally shriveled, go for it. Decent chance no pathogens. Tastier than in the bag.

Dan

I was just reading about red potatoes. This probably has absolutely nothing to do with your interest in planting your potatoes, Gjcore, but my attention drifts. And, it is snowing this morning so . . . I'm inclined to prattle on about things.

On Red La Soda information at the garden center it says "likely to be the red potatoes you are buying at the store." This seemed like news to me since I thought it was Red Pontiac that was in the stores. So, I did just a little reading about both.

Both of those varieties were hybridized from Triumph and Katahdin from what I gather so, they are closely related genetically.

A few years ago, I was kind of surprised to learn from a state potato scientist that Russet Burbank is grown on over 80% of the spud acreage in Idaho. There are some worthy varieties that are just hard to beat.

Steve

I think the potatoes I have come from this farm via door to door http://www.strohauerfarms.com/varieties/index.php Not much info on them other than being red potatoes.

All righty.

Some of my Ronningers potatoes rotted and they just sent me replacements, waaay more than what I have space for (square foot gardener).

I see Nick's has potato grow bags and I have a bunch of unfinished compost I can use, along with bark fines. Anyone tried these bags? Should I spend money there or use something else?

Dan

I have never had a problem with anything from Nick's unlike Lowes or HD but I'm not sure what old man Nick has in his grow bags.

GJCore, I meant to get back here to answer your question above and then forgot about it till this thread came back up again!

The silver stuff attached to the fence to keep it from rotting out is the biggest sheets of galvanized steel I could find. They're 4' high and 3' wide, and there are two of them on each side. I was gonna look for some kind of "clips" to hold them to the fence (so I wouldn't have to try to drill holes in them), and then, when I looked thru all my miscellaneous hardware stuff I found some little 2" long, very sturdy metal thingies with two holes in them and decided they'd work just fine! I wedged the bottom of the steel into the soil as far as I could get it (not very far in hard clay!) and screwed enough of the little thingies into the fence along the top to keep them from flopping over--and they're overlapped in the middle a little bit, of course! For the fence post on the right that's still exposed, I wound up sticking a 1 X 6 in against it to protect it, and in the left corner I found a "corner piece" from a shipping box--think it might have been the box I got a file cabinet in!--and it's just cardboard but is incredibly thick and sturdy, and actually seems to be holding up better than the piece of 1 X 6! Overall it's working great! Did have a problem about a year ago where the weight of the compost was pushing the steel "into" the fence on the end where the framing is on the inside, and the top edge of the steel was "slipping out of" the little clippie thingies, so I took them off and reattached them a little bit lower. No problems since then. Here's a pic of it in '07 where you can see it better--second year of the garden, and I didn't have a whole lot of compost yet at that point! I'll do thumbnails and you can click to enlarge.

It would have been convenient if I could have found even bigger pieces of the galvanized steel, but what I wound up with works! One thing! If you should decide to do something similar, when I went to look for something (I think it was HD, but it might have been Lowes), I asked somebody if they had any kind of big sheets of flat galvanized steel and they showed me the 3 x 4 ones. I said thanks and kept looking around---and I found exactly the same thing in another department---for a couple dollars less! I walked back and forth a bunch of times to be sure they were the same, and they were! The one place I found them was in the "gutters" department, and I THINK that was the cheaper ones, and I don't remember what the other department was where they had them, but if you decide to get some, look ALL OVER THE PLACE to be sure you're getting the best price you can!

This is it in '08 after I had dumped the last of the fall leaf bags on the pile. My "Compost Pile Potato Garden" was eventually "built" where the black pots are sitting! (see below) The second pic is the potatoes growing ('08) where I wound up building the frame in '09! In '08 I just pulled some of the half done compost down to that area and planted my "growing" potatoes there! The third pic is my "crop" of potatoes that I "harvested" that year!!!

The first pic is the Compost Pile Potato Garden frame that I added in '09, because in '08 I had had a problem with the compost "going all over the place" since there was nothing to hold it in place! And the second and third pics are my two "crops" of potatoes in '09! You can see by the different colors that the potatoes I had in the cabinet at planting time were from different bags! And for the second crop I had mostly white ones already growing in the cabinet, and the few red ones I had didn't turn out very well---but they were sure good! At first the two pieces of 2 X 12 were just sorta leaned against each other, but since then I've nailed them together to reinforce them a little bit. The end on the compost pile side is just left open, so if I have enough potatoes, I still plant them a little bit "into" the actual compost pile!

So to answer your other question, YES, you can definitely plant any that are growing (or not) from your cabinet. If they're not already growing, they take a lot longer to come up. I plant them whole, and leave all the "new growth" on them, and since I'm covering them with half done compost, it's light enough that it doesn't appear to even break off any of the new shoots! They come up REALLY quick if they've already started growing! I think whoever mentioned above that store bought potatoes have a growth inhibitor of some sort on them might be right! If you get a brand new bag at the store and plant them right away, it's gonna take them quite a while to come up! Don't really know how it compares to the seed potato ones! Last year some pretty new ones I had took too long to come up, and now I try to plant ahead enough to have some already growing when I want to plant them!

Dan, I've never used potato grow bags, but I don't see why you'd need to spend money on them. Isn't there a way you can just section off a little corner of your compost pile with boards or concrete blocks or bricks and plant them there? I think it would be a LOT easier to water them that way than in the "bags" out here with our low humidity. And a question! I can't figure out why the corner "posts" are so tall on the little potato garden you pictured above. Why is it so tall/deep? I know potatoes like deep---but not THAT deep!!???

Skybird

Thanks for the long rambling post and pics skybird. You have inspired me to just throw these sprouting organic red potatoes we bought for eatin' right at the edge of the compost pile and water them and see what happens. My "compost" pile does poorly, I do not give it much attention and it usually dries out. We have laying hens now and are creating straw waste. I am thinking that the chicken poop on it will probably kinda wash through when I water the spuds and not be too hot. We can always just through other bits of unfinished compost on the potatoes too. My other bonafide potatoe seems to be doing well...some green is just now poking through the soil.

The sun was way too high yesterday morning, the light too bright but here they are still!

That's a 66" lawn rake leaning up against them. The bed is a little higher than the path the rake is sitting in. Still, I had expected for them to begin maturing. Last year, it was July 14th that harvest began and some of the vines were flat against the ground by that date. These don't look like they are going to flop over anytime soon:

{{gwi:1198947}}
bed with bunching onions and late-planting of zucchini in the foreground. neighbor's shed & trees, yonder.

So, how are things in your potato patch??

Steve

How long does it generally take before potatoes are ready to harvest? This is my first try with potatoes and I know i planted them later than I should have, but thought Id still give it a go -- dont have much room and someone gave me one of those potato grow bags so decided to give it a whirl.

Well, Blueiris, if I planted my potato seed on the same day in 2010 as I did this year and began my harvest on July 14th, which I did -- that is 93 days.

Only one variety came out that day but I had all of them harvested by August 7th. That would be another 24 days, so 117 days.

All of the varieties I had in 2010 were classified as "early." Potato Garden and others would say they are 60 to 80 day varieties. I consider any that mature in July should be thought of as early.

Steve

I'm new to potato farming too. One of my plants just started to bloom. What is that telling me? Thanks for any info.

The plants are attempting to make fruit, Steseaq!

BTW - The potato fruit contains solanine, a poisonous alkaloid. Not all varieties are inclined to flower and conditions are not always favorable for the production of either flowers or fruit for those that do flower.

With flowering, tubers begin to form underground. You will soon have new potatoes available, if you'd like to harvest them in that smaller size. The rule of thumb is supposed to be 2 weeks after flowering.

Did you know that there are determinate & indeterminate potato varieties - just like with tomatoes! I guess this means that the determinate varieties will only continue growing for just a few weeks after flowering. Yukon Gold is a determinate.

Senescence is what a potato does at maturity. The potato tuber shouldn't die but the foliage will die back to the ground. Under some conditions, and given enuf time, the foliage may begin to regrow. That is not what you want to have happen but you probably have a few weeks to harvest and, of course, cold weather will delay regrowth.

Steve

Thanks for the info, Steve. Only one of the three plants I have is flowering but I won't read to much into that given your advice. Can I take what you wrote to mean that I can harvest at 2 weeks past flowering but I can leave them until the plant begins to die for larger size. Or did I misunderstand?

Thanks again,
Steve

I'm no potato expert. (At the University of Idaho, I spent far more time eating potatoes than thinking about them. ;o)

I believe that those people that really understand the plant don't pay too much attention to flowering because occurrence varies by variety and depends on environmental factors like soil moisture and temperature. I've just read 2 articles on the development of tubers and the word "flowering" wasn't used in either! It does, however, indicate the end of things, especially for the determinate varieties.

If I understand the attached paper correctly, "bulking" can be very rapid during the tuber development stage in the spud's lifecycle. Leaf senescence, however, is the real deal. The plant is finished growing and leaving the tubers in the ground much longer is only for the purpose of toughening the skin.

This final stage of the leaves dying results in some movement of nutrients out of the vines and into the tubers. I am surprised that the experts say it only accounts for 10-15 percent of the final yield of the crop. But, done is done.

You can hasten the maturing of the skins by cutting back the vines. One good reason for growing potatoes in your garden is that the commercial operations will spray a chemical on the plants to kill them . . . This is AFTER they have probably sprayed the plants to inhibit sprouting in storage and BEFORE they are gassed in storage for the same purpose! Along with the herbicides/insecticides/synthetic fertilizers, it is a nice little cocktail of chemicals to go with what you thought you might serve au gratin at the dinner table!

Anyway, without all that "stuff" - you especially want undamaged spuds for storing in your basement. Giving them some time after active growth is important to those tubers. I have gone thru with pruners and even the weed-whacker so that I can harvest a bed that has as many as 4 different varieties in it and varying a bit in sun exposure, as well.

So, plan on using potatoes that you pull out before that leaf senescence right away but give the ones headed for storage some time (a couple weeks) after the vines are either dead or removed so that the skins can toughen.

Steve

Here is a link that might be useful: tuber bulking, U of I pdf

Wow, what a fun group. DH and I have been growing potatoes for several years now and he really hates to have to buy them at the store. Last year I was having a blast - we had 8 varieties of potatoes - then the hail. We had very small potatoes, lots of them but very small. just to pacify me, we are doing most of the same varieties this year. I'm hoping the hail we had Thursday night didn't slam them down.

DH is the real gardener, I just help out and watch mostly, but he seems to wait until the plants die off - or start to, then he harvests them.

The VERY best hash browns are when you harvest the potatoes right before breakfast :) I'm not a hash brown fan, but those are very good!

Posted by marycatt . . . The VERY best hash browns are when you harvest the potatoes right before breakfast :) I'm not a hash brown fan, but those are very good!

I'm right there with you on that, Marycatt!

DW makes the bestest hash browns! And, one other neat thing about that is that I taught her how! Well, the first 33 1/3% of how.

Steve

The first 5 feet of a bed:

{{gwi:1198948}}
17 pounds of Red Norland . . .

The spuds will be harvested in the order they "go down" and as I have compostables to bury in the beds. Then, succession crops can be planted in those beds for fall.

I really like spuds fresh from the garden! I've gotten into this early variety thing and don't want to get outta it!

With 50 feet of potato beds and the need to pull up no more than 10 feet each week, I will take this spud harvest up fairly close to 1st frost. At the rate I'm going, I can only sow one-half the spud patch to fall greens without running out of time. Well, transplanting out of the 1st part into the 2nd part worked well last year so I can do that also. Can't tell, may need every forkful of potatoes and bok choy this winter . . .

(I've got quite a few late cabbage coming on, too. Anyone else enjoy Bubbles & Squeak? ;o)

Steve

That's awesome, Steve! Very pretty taters!

I'm going to poke around this weekend and see if the hoppers have left me anything.

Barb

I can't post pics yet--that "missing Picasa situation"--but Steve's pic got me activated enough to go dig up mine too--which I had been planning to do anyway! The vines had mostly died down--probably helped by the fact that I hadn't been bothering to water them, and I wanted to get them out so I could put in my "second batch" anyway!

Interesting situation this year! When I planted them (April 2) I put in a few old growing white ones from the cabinet, a few old not-growing red ones from the cabinet, and a bag of pretty new red ones from the store that I had bought about a month earlier--hoping they'd start to grow before I put them in the ground--they didn't!

NONE of the red ones came up! First time that's happened to me! The couple old red ones from the cabinet I had planted at the far end of the Potato Garden, right up against the actual compost pile, and I think I might have forgotten exactly where they were and sat a big pot full of finished compost on top of them! Some of the red ones, I think maybe the new ones I had bought to plant, were still intact in the soil! They look like they're actually thinking about growing now, so tomorrow or the next day, when I plant the next batch (most of which I also bought not too long ago!), I'm going to replant the ones that have been in the ground all summer and still haven't started to grow! I'll see what I get! This whole thing has been a fun experiment for me anyway!

The old white ones from the cabinet, which WERE already growing when I put them in, grew well, and I wound up with 2 pounds of potatoes this time--less than I usually get, but since less than half of them grew, not too bad! Most of them are bigger than I usually get--which isn't saying a whole lot--and I got the biggest potato I've ever gotten out there so far! It's almost 6" long by about 2" diameter! Not huge, but big for me! The rest are considerably smaller, tho still bigger than what I usually get. Don't know if that's because they're white instead of red this time, or some other reason! I did take pics and will post some--someday, when I get around to installing Picasa!

But for right now I have a dilemma! King Soopers has Olathe sweet corn--the only sweet corn worth buying in a food store--on sale this week, so I bought 15 ears yesterday! Had 5 ears for dinner last nite, and was planning to do the same tonite---and tomorrow nite, but now I have a little bag full of home grown potatoes! Oh my oh my oh my! What to have for dinner tonite---and tomorrow nite! It boggles the mind!!! :-)

I love red potatoes, Digit, and I can almost taste yours in your picture! Guess I should stop licking my computer screen!

;-)
Skybird

Skybird, I hope you enjoyed both the sweet corn AND the potatoes!

I just got into a few of the Yukon Gold plants this morning. It is remarkable - no scab this year!

I don't think YG has ever come thru without some scab. It is never enuf to make any real difference in production. In fact . . . now that I think about it . . . those 2 YG plants didn't have many spuds under them, nor were they of very large size. Strange if a "scabby year" yields more YG spuds than a year when they come out real pretty.

Steve
who just returned to those comments from Dan about the risk of scab in wet soil. Well, it was dang cold in mid-April but the soil certainly wasn't very wet. guess i kind of lucked-out.

All of this talk about potatoes encouraged me to go out and check on mine...last year, I had GORGEOUS red sangre potatoes. This year, I'm trying Yukon Golds and a different red potato variety. The plants haven't been looking nearly as dark green and beautiful as they were last year and none of this year's plants have bloomed but I wasn't too worried. Well, I turned over a plant that looked like it had completely died back this morning and was very discouraged to see only a couple of very tiny red potatoes attached to the roots...about the size of a pea. I'm concerned about the state of them all now and am tempted to dig them all up but then thinking they're just not ready yet. Slightly confused...

So I went out again after writing the above message and dug around just a wee bit more around the dead plants and struck GOLD! Yukon golds as well as Red Norlands! Holy smokes! I really just didn't hunt enough. I can't wait now till the others die off so I can go panning, I mean digging, for more golds :) !!!

Yay, Karen!

Starting at one end and digging out the entire bed really is my favorite way of harvesting potatoes. I work my way up to the hill . . . carefully . . . then start pulling dirt towards me with my hands.

Any other approach just results in me missing spuds or slicing into them! I have used a spading fork without all the digging but skewering them on a tine is disheartening.

.

.

I'd rather be down on my hands and knees in a trench, groveling after my precious potato fortune . . .

{{gwi:1198927}}

Steve

Awesome image, Steve! That's exactly how I felt finding those first few potatoes!
Karen

Seems kind of amazing that it is from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN.

Want some international recipes for your potatoes?

Click the link below and go to the bar on the left side for Soups, Salads, Main dishes, Side dishes/snacks, & Sweets!

Steve

Here is a link that might be useful: Potato recipes - FAO, UN

What a great link. The potato fudge has me very curious.: ) Hash browns are still my favorite though...we had that with a frittata (Sp.?) Sunday night using garlic, onion and peas from the garden. Amazing, rich tastes and so simple...

Has anyone tried growing potatoes in hay? We tried this year and there was no tuber growth above the dirt where the seed was planted.

We built a small wood box, planted the seed potatoes in 8" of soil and as the vines grew we covered with hay and added layers of wood to contain the hay. What we are assuming, based on observation, is that the hay stayed moist and the ground dried out. The stems/vines are all wet and we weren't sure if this constant moisture may prevent tubers from forming. I know that roots can rot out if they stay wet but don't know how that applies to potatoes. We watered 1ce/wk but it has also been raining a lot in boulder this summer.

We planted a variety and only a few vines flowered- no tubers along those vines. Is the season over? The vines haven't died back yet but since we planted in April I'm assuming if they didn't come up-they won't.

I'm also assuming that since we watered from the top, we caused too much moisture throughout the hay. Growing in hay seems like a great idea- easier than dirt, if it works.

Being in zone 5, can we start again for a fall crop? Any ideas of why no tubers? We bought organic seed potatoes and sprouted them before they went in the ground.

Thanks.

Lesuko, I once tried growing them in a large plastic pot with potting soil - it was a joke, lots of green tops and nothing to eat.

My brother is married to a Peruvian and lived in that country for 20+ years. They would often take trips to the highlands to get a load of assorted potatoes, dozens of varieties, he said they were wonderful, nothing at all like we're used to. Unfortunately, they don't keep very well - like a matter of days in a humid environment. Which is probably why nobody else raises them ...:-)

Being in zone 5, can we start again for a fall crop?

Too late now unless you cover from frost and purchase a variety that matures in 60 days. Maybe a fingerling or two might do that. Suspect hay too dry for spuds.

Dan

Bummer. We had high hopes for container potatoes.

Dan- the hay stays moist and never really dries out- which is what we think was the main reason tubers didn't form along the vines.

Weellll,

I dug the soil out from only 2 Red Norland plants on Saturday.

Found a little over 8 pounds of potatoes and made potato salad for Sunday supper!

Steve