Unfortunately, I’m not familiar with Jersey Benne, but it appears that it is an early type, with waxy flesh, good for new potatoes, salads, boiling? If so, you might ask your local garden center or county’s cooperative extension for that type of variety that would grow well in Arkansas. For contact info, go to:
http://www.almanac.com/content/cooperative-extension-services
In general, ‘Yukon Gold’ is a popular yellow potato, but grows a little later than the first or second earlies (midseason). Not quite as waxy, but valued for its flavor. ‘Red Luna’ is said to be flavorful. Other options might be ‘Dark Red Northland’, ‘Red Gold’, or other red potatoes often grown as new potatoes. There are also heirloom varieties that might be fun. Good luck!

Several bugs enjoy potatoes. Controlling them will depend on the insect. The Colorado potato beetle is one of the most common, and is a yellowish-orange beetle with black stripes. Handpicking is one of the better options; also remove any of the bright yellow eggs that cling in clusters on the undersides of the leaves. Mulching with a thick layer of straw helps reduce populations, as does covering the plants in mid-season with row cover. The beetle can quickly develop resistance to many pesticides. Crop rotation can help future crops. Hope this helps!

Covering small (less than 4 inches tall) potato plants with a layer of soil will not harm them, as long as the soil is removed as soon as the danger of a frost has passed. For larger plants, use a clear plastic covering.

Potato plants can fall over for various reasons. If, however, they look very healthy, it likely isn’t due to over- or under-watering, nor to disease or extreme temperatures. Sometimes the plants just get leggy, such as if the plants are too crowded, don’t have enough light, received too much nitrogen fertilizer, etc. And, when they reach a certain growth stage, falling over is fairly normal. Be sure to keep hilling them at intervals with mulch (such as straw) or soil, as this helps to give them support and encourages more potatoes to form underground. See the article above for more information. Good luck!

Potatoes shouldn’t be exposed to the Sun, which will happen if you don’t hill up/cover them with soil. They’ll get sunburned, in which case they turn green and will taste bitter.

Well, Jack, it sounds like your plants and so your potatoes are getting too much water. You say you water every other day…but not how much or what you climate is or anything else. That seems like a lot of water. Guidance above to “water regularly” to provide “consistent moisture” is not necessarily a soaking. If you are planting in containers, the water may not be running off as quickly as it might in an in-ground planting, saturating the plants as a result. And about those containers: If you are not rotating the crop/s in them, are you at least rotating the soil?? You don’t say, so we will only suggest that you can not have it both ways: same plants in same soil. That’s all we’ve got on this…except to suggest that if it never happened before, you must have done something differently.

This season, start with fresh soil, fresh seed potatoes, and containers with enough holes to provide good drainage. Good luck! Let us know how it goes.

If you’ve had potato scab before, check the pH of your soil and adjust it to 5.2 or a bit lower, down to about 4.8. To do this, you can add sulfur. You can also dip the cut seed potatoes in sulfur before planting, to help deter disease, including scab. As for using a soil acidifier for blueberries – that plant likes the pH in about the same range. If your product is basically elemental sulfur, without other additives focused on blueberry growth, then it should be fine to use.

The usual approach to ‘volunteers’ is to dig them up because they get blight and the last thing you want is disease. But it’s up to you. If the potatoes seem good, just look at them closely and make a call. Most volunteers are poor.  It’s all experimentation!