Potatoes

How many seed potatoes per square should I plant? Glenn

4 per square, however, you should build a raised box around the square and fill it in with MM to give them room to grow... I put my potatoes into a whiskey barrel instead so they have more room to grow.

Hi countrystepping.

I posted this the other day don't know how well it works but I plan to
give it a try this season.

how to grow 100lbs of potatoes in 4 square feet

4 per square with a "high rise" box on top of the 6" box. Second year doing it this way and had great success last year. (Page 61 in the ANSFG book.)

25 years ago I used a 30 gal trash can with the bottom cut out. Now I would do the same but put weed cloth at the bottom before I put the MM in. Put 4"s of soil in to start. Plant your seed potatos. As the plant gets about 3 " above the soils keep adding more soil as it grows to the top of the trash can.

Mike

All 5 of my cuts sprouted the past 2 days!!1 YAY!!!

HOORAY! I have to chit mine and plant them later this week or next.

Now 14 April is the time for our early potatoes to go in here in South Wales UK .



I was going to put my spuds in large black trash bags but the ones I was after don't seem to be available any more .. bio de gradable issues & all that. The flimsey ones now available would have degraded in a two months or so even if I had use there inside each other.

So today I have planted my spuds in collapsable purpose made poly prop bags that are about 20 x 20 x 20 when full . These are sited in my glashouse and contain five small ANYA fingerling type potatoes in one bag and five ROOSTER red egg shaped & sized spuds in the other . These are all certified seeds stuff.

Total weight at the start today of fully chitted potatoes is :- 114 gram for the five ANYA and 214 gram for the five ROOSTERS .

They are set in a true to recipe MM that was made today .

Tomorrrow I'll be putting five Maris Piper ( out the supermarket's kitchen range of veg ) in January at a weighed 232 gram in the same sort of bag in MM but these will go outside in a sun trap by the fence.

A nice potato info pdf.
http://www.ronnigers.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/2010-rpfpotatoes.pdf

philct, I think that's a really cool looking picture and congrats on the spuds!

Dave, I can't wait to follow your progress with the spuds. Of course the Roosters will be the best

RoOsTeR wrote:philct, I think that's a really cool looking picture and congrats on the spuds!

Dave, I can't wait to follow your progress with the spuds. Of course the Roosters will be the best

Thanks!! That was taken on my Iphone before coming in to work... All 5 look like that, I'm hoping this whiskey barell potato party works out!!



Camp: I chited mine by buying them chited in the store already... LOL

Here is another good link
http://www.ronnigers.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/2010rpfguidecover.pdf

camprn wrote:HOORAY! I have to chit mine and plant them later this week or next.

I had never heard of chitting before. Then again, I've never attempted to grow potatoes,either. I know I'm going about it all wrong, starting with two overgrown bags of sprouted kitchen potatoes--they chitted themselves! I just finished cutting the eyes/sprouts off of them, to make my own "seed potatoes".
This is an experiment, since I know that supermarket potatoes may have been treated, so as not to sprout (OMG, they aren't even organic--what is wrong with me?)
As soon as I read a bit more, and make sure my chickens are done "helping" me prepare the space, I shall plant them. Wish me (beginner's) luck

More sprouted today!!!

[img]https://squarefoot.forumotion.com/[/img]

I'm hoping this experiment works, although next year I may switch to garbage bin or a row in my bed...

philct wrote:More sprouted today!!!

[img]https://squarefoot.forumotion.com/[/img]

I'm hoping this experiment works, although next year I may switch to garbage bin or a row in my bed...

Can you give us a wider shot of the bed?

[img]https://squarefoot.forumotion.com/[/img]whiskey barrel with 5 cuts and half the soil taken out

[img]https://squarefoot.forumotion.com/[/img]all 5 have sprouted, smaller than a quarter but green!!!

[img]https://squarefoot.forumotion.com/[/img]closer view

philct wrote:All 5 of my cuts sprouted the past 2 days!!1 YAY!!!

Maybe I missed an earlier post, but: When did you plant your potatoes?

Nicola wrote:

philct wrote:All 5 of my cuts sprouted the past 2 days!!1 YAY!!!

Maybe I missed an earlier post, but: When did you plant your potatoes?

Zone 6A, planted them March 25th

Nicola wrote:

camprn wrote:HOORAY! I have to chit mine and plant them later this week or next.

I had never heard of chitting before. Then again, I've never attempted to grow potatoes,either. I know I'm going about it all wrong, starting with two overgrown bags of sprouted kitchen potatoes--they chitted themselves! I just finished cutting the eyes/sprouts off of them, to make my own "seed potatoes".
This is an experiment, since I know that supermarket potatoes may have been treated, so as not to sprout (OMG, they aren't even organic--what is wrong with me?)
As soon as I read a bit more, and make sure my chickens are done "helping" me prepare the space, I shall plant them. Wish me (beginner's) luck

My potatoes (planted March are now a couple inches high for most plants. The warm weather the last two days really helped. For the record, these were organic supermarket spuds, self chitted. Those that were cut I did NOT give time to crust over. See:https://squarefoot.forumotion.com/t9747p90-potato-growing-methods
So far the reds and the russets have performed very well. The generic golds were slower to pop up. To date, it looks like my germination rate is well over 100%, in that some spuds developed more than one plant.

I would not recommend supermarket potatoes unless they have sprouted in the store. No sprouts mean the likely presence of an anti-sprouting spray. Hence my choice to use organic spuds only.

In addition, my store bought white onions have also sprouted, along with my store bought garlic.

Photos tomorrow maybe.

Tom

I always use supermarket potatoes. No sprouts in the store but if left long enough they usually do. I think the anti sprouting stuff may delay only.

Chopper wrote:I always use supermarket potatoes. No sprouts in the store but if left long enough they usually do. I think the anti sprouting stuff may delay only.

That's my understanding, too.

I think you can buy individual organic taters in the grocery stores these days, though (don't always have to buy 5# bag).

Spuds doing ok. The only problem using supermarket seed spuds is that I don't know the cultivar, only the color. Each cultivar has unique characteristics and it would be nice if we knew what cultivar we are using.

These were supermarket spuds planted March 8, 2012

I planted these potatoes on February 25. It was sunny and 72 degrees. there are three different varieties: Red Norland, Freedom Russett, and Yukon Gold.
I did not have my box filled - thus the lack of grids - so I just dug down and planted the seed potatoes about 5" deep. As they began to grow I just added more MM and - as you can see I am about ready to finish up adding the material.
The photo was made April 16, so this is close to two months.

Mine never grow that evenly. There are always some that grow fast and some that grow slow making adding more soil tricky.

+1 Chopper

Kay

So, how are everyone's potatoes? I don't think any of mine have sprouted yet. Hard to tell, since I have them covered with loose plastic mesh (used to be two bags in which corn came to my farmer's market), with a section of lattice flat over those--all to keep the chickens from digging them up.

Maybe tomorrow I'll go buy the 4'x50' roll of plastic chicken 'wire' that I searched for online, and actually located two towns over. Then I can make a fence to keep the my chickens out of the potato bed, and a second plant cage (the first fits around the whole 4x4 box, and I think I may do it that way again).