
Planting, Growing, Harvesting, and Storing Potatoes
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Potatoes can be prepared in many ways: boiled, mashed, cut into pieces and roasted, french-fried, scalloped, made into dumplings or pancakes, grated into hash browns, and even brewed as alcoholic beverages.
Most potato dishes are served hot, but some are first cooked, then served cold, notably potato salad and potato chips.
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I've always been told to plant potatoes on dark nights so there is less chance of potato bus. Is this true? I know my husband always did this. He planted according to the moon. Always had a beautiful garden and plenty of produce.
Hi, Ellen, There is a lot of lore around planting potatoes. For example, planting by the Moon proposes that flowering vegetables that bear crops below ground should be planted in the dark, or waning, of the Moon—from the day it is full on any day until it is new again. Other lore proposes planting potatoes as well as other crops on Good Friday or St Patrick’s Day, or when the first dandelion blooms. Potatoes can take a bit of chill unlike a lot of vegetables that thrive in warm soil. Finally, these times are considered propitious, or favorable, days. Some gardeners swear by these times, but many gardeners also know that the best time is when you have time. Good luck! We hope this brings you bushels of spuds!
This was the most thorough education on potatoes I have ever received. Is your book this thorough?
Hi, Stacia, If you are referring to The Vegetable Gardener’s Handbook, it is close to the same, but being a book it has different qualities. The book has no hot links, the book’s pests/diseases are several pages away. the book has space limitations where the web site does not. Word for word, there are subtle differences between the two but either one should bring you success.
Thanks for sharing such a piece of detailed knowledge about potatoes. I learned a lot that I didn't know before.
We planted last season and got about 10 pounds. Some of the smaller ones have developed eyes and seem to be growing stems (this was s in our pantry). Is there anyway or anything we can do to use them to plant this next spring? We live in yorktown, va. We started with seed potatoes (yukon gold).
Yes! If your potatoes have sprouted, you can certainly plant them in the garden. Slice them into chunks so that each chunk has at least one eye/stem, then plant them as described above.
Thank you for your thorough explanation of the potato growing process. I had some small red potatoes from the store that had started to sprout. I found conflicting information & decided to try different ways of handling the potato for planting. From one small potato, I took broke 2 growths off & rooted them in water. Others were cut in two & rooted in water (4 plants). And a couple were just planted whole. They were planted in a no dig plot of good 2 yr old mulch about 5 inches deep in mid-May. After they grew some, I added more mulch. They all grew, though the ones without a potato were smaller plants. I kept them watered (hot summer). After about a month & a half, they were lush green plants. They didn't flower. Then the leaves started turning yellow & dying, but new leave grew from the stems. They all grew again, but one of the potato-less plants died after growing new leaves. I dug around around & found 1 potato. That was about 3 wks ago. Now I've found a couple new potato plants popping up between the existing ones. Would potatoes that grew from these plants sprout & grow a plant this year? Should I did them up or wait for the plants to die again? (Still no flowers.) Sorry for the long prose & thank you for any advice you can give.
Interesting experiment, Ellee! Congratulations! We can not say for certain whether your plants would grow (again). The most significant question we would have is, was the “mother” potato organic? You did not indicate. Grocery store potatoes are often treated and so are not suitable to grow as plants. That said, many will sprout eyes and may even take root. We would advise that you start again with “seed” potatoes (they cost only pennies—ok, maybe dimes) or some potatoes that you can confirm are untreated (organic) such as you might buy at a farmer’s market (be sure to ask, of course). That way, you can be assured that the plants and spuds can continue to be planted year after year.
can I use oak leaves as a mulch?
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