How To Grow Great Potatoes
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planting potatoes
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potatoes
Potatoes, mashed, baked, boiled scalloped and perhaps my favourite, potato salad especially when it is made with new red potatoes, are a great food. What is even better you can grow your own potatoes and make your favourite dish with the freshest potatoes around.
You can grow potatoes on your patio or balcony in a container or in a community garden plot or your backyard.
Potatoes can be grown in old tries which I have done but do not recommend doing so for more than a season. There are materials in the tires that you do not want in your food and if you are planning to grow organically, using recycled tires is not considered to be an acceptable organic method.
However, if you want to give it a try, fill a tire with fresh soil, plant the potatoes as the potato plants begin to grow, add tires and soil, until they are stacked 3-4 tires high.
I prefer to use straw, I find it less work and cleaner; less work because there is no digging involved.
First I lay down enough cardboard to cover the area that I am using to grow potatoes. Make sure the cardboard overlaps so that no weeds get through. Then water the cardboard through; Spread either compost or well-rotted (composted) manure over the cardboard; then add another layer of cardboard and wet thoroughly.
Now put the seed potatoes approximately half a metre apart and directly on top of the cardboard. The next step is to cover the potatoes with straw 3-4 inches, at least.
Spread some compost or composted manure over the straw; than add another layer of straw and then another layer of compost and then straw until the pile is 40cm deep. Be sure to thoroughly water.
As the straw thins and the plants grow taller add straw to keep the sunlight from getting at the potatoes.
Potatoes that are grown in straw are cleaner than those that are grown in dirt, I still recommend that you wash them before eating but this will be easier to do that pulling the spuds out of the dirt. Speaking of pulling the spuds out, harvesting potatoes that are grown in straw is much easier than harvesting those that are grown in the earth.
A straw potato garden may be one of the simplest ways to provide fresh, chemical free potatoes for your family. It is also an excellent way to use part of your backyard rather than growing that resource and time waster lawn that you cannot eat or even use as a garnish.
- Growing Potatoes
Gardeners are growing potatoes again because the choice & flavour beats any you can buy - especially when organic gardening. Helpful space saving methods to grow potatoes are also described here.
harvesting potatoes
no dig
- How to grow potatoes without digging
Growing potatoes without digging really is as great as it sounds! It's a lot less effort than the usual way, and you can use it as a method to clear ground of weeds. If your land is infected with potato eelworm you can use this method to grow a bette
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Comments
You are welcome John, good luck with the potatoes
Great hub bob, I have often grown mine in tires, and never even gave that a thought. I did try the hay once but the yard was so open and we had strong winds therefore I gave up as hay ended up all over the yard. So didnt try again.
This is a wonderful hub. Thank you. I do have an alternate suggestion to growing the potatoes that would be green. I know how some people argue that the method with the tires makes it eaiser to harvest them, due to the fact that all you have to do is knock down the tires and dig through the soil inside them. There is another way though... Many winerys are throwing away or selling old barrels for a low price, the majority of which are about 50 gallons or more. My great aunt used to grow her potatoes in one of these barrels and it worked wonders. It also made harvesting them really easy, too. Using this method, you can make sure you don't miss any when you harvest. Happy planting.
The barrels are a good idea.
Excellent hub, my wife's family were potato farmers, but on a much larger scale, I'm going to have to tell her about growing them in straw. That's a new one for me. I want to give it a try now. What is the appropriate potato growing season?
It depends upon where you live Peter.
Any idea for Texas?
now is a good time as frost is unlikely. :-)
It's been a few years since I grew potatoes (we have a pretty heavy clay to deal with) but I always thought there was nothing like the new potatoes fresh from the garden. Dig em up and take them straight into the house.
straight from the garden is still the best.
I didn't know that you could grow potatoes in straw Bob. One of the memorable sights I have as a kid is seeing all those potato storehouses in Idaho on the way to Canada on our yearly trips.I love potatoes- any way you cook um.Question? My son gave me some potatoes to grow- they were sprouting roots in the bag- can I just put those right into the ground? He cracked me up when he gave them to me to grow- he knows I love to garden!
You can put them in the ground, some are likely to grow, I have tried it with limited to success, go for it.
We need to be growing everything or else we will eventually starve with the price of food and gas prices combined.
Thanks,
C.J.
You are welcome and yes the more we can grow in our communities the more food secure we become.
thanks for ur useful information bob
you are welcome.
qwoe, that sounds pretty easy. have you tried this?
yes, I have.
Thanks for all the info! Potatoes are probably the food that can be made to taste great the most ways of any food.
Thanks for stopping by, potatoes can be prepared in many ways.
ooooooow.. I love potatoes..
do you have some potatoes recipes ?
Bob, can you gorw them for fall harvest by planting in summer? Or do they not like the heat and humidity. I thought about making squares that I can stack like the tires, only from scrap wood? 2x6's?
Donna, the squares sound like a good idea, where do you live, I ask because the length of the growing season matters,
Great info! I actually want to grow sweet potatoes without soil, but someone says they won't get sweet if you do. I've grown potatoes in hay before. I built a ring 3' across from chicken wire and rebar (to hold it steady and keep it from falling over) and put the potatoes on about 6" of soil, then kept adding hay. All I had to do to harvest was take the chicken wire off, and they just fell onto the ground. It's best to wash them well, though, because mold can grow in the hay.
I might try the Rubbermaid container method this year. I need to do container veggies, because I'm only doing a small 10' square plot for my veggies. BTW, in SW Florida, this is our planting season.
Here it is harvest season, too cool for me to grow sweet opotaoes but I do enjoy eating them.
working
John says:
7 months ago
Thanks Bob, for another helpful hub. I will be back for more later. My wife is now looking for locations in the back for the new potatoe plants.