Grow 100 lbs. Of Potatoes In 4 Square Feet: How To
 

Re: Grow 100 lbs. Of Potatoes In 4 Square Feet: How To
 

Reminds me of the tire method being espoused earlier and found within the article comments.

My issue has been finding these elusive "seed potatoes".
1stly, it is my understanding that is a poor choice to use super-market spuds with eyes.
2ndly, when I do find someone selling "seed potatoes" they look like regular old potatoes being sold for well above regular potato pricing.

Anyone want to explain to me why I should pay 3 times the price for "seed potatoes" just so I can hope the thing actually comes to more than 3 potatoes in its' course of growing?
As I understand it the supermarket potatoes are prone to pests and disease which makes me wonder how so many of them make it to the supermarket.

Lastly, when is the time to plant and when is the time to harvest; I thought planting season was past for potatoes.

Re: Grow 100 lbs. Of Potatoes In 4 Square Feet: How To
 

Seen similarly done with tires. Just kick em over when you're ready to harvest.

Re: Grow 100 lbs. Of Potatoes In 4 Square Feet: How To
 

You need seed potatoes because the ones you buy to eat have been sprayed with a retardant that makes them store longer before they sprout. You can use regular ones but it will be less sucessful and we are still talking cheap as hell to use seed ones.

Re: Grow 100 lbs. Of Potatoes In 4 Square Feet: How To
 

Even cheaper than building a box is using tires. Start in the first tire and when the sprouts get to about 8 inches, stack another tire on top, add dirt. Keep stacking tires as the plants grow. When finished just push the tires over, harvest, and start again...

Re: Grow 100 lbs. Of Potatoes In 4 Square Feet: How To
 

Like hell we are. Perhaps if you can find seed potatoes locally. But the 10 pounds of Yukon Golds that I ordered delivered from Colorado to Indiana cost me $30 including shipping. The fact of the matter is that potatoes at the grocery store are among the cheapest produce items at the store. It's hardly worth the effort and garden space to grow potatoes at home at all; the only reason that I do is that I want to have already developed the skill on the day that the store goes empty.

Re: Grow 100 lbs. Of Potatoes In 4 Square Feet: How To
 

Wow, we paid 39 cents a pound here for those. Nothing better than a potatoe fresh out of the garden.

Re: Grow 100 lbs. Of Potatoes In 4 Square Feet: How To
 

WHOA! $30?? Call around to garden centers and old style harware stores. That is a raping. Fresh potatoes are good, we especially like to eat the little young fingerlings. Little of what we grow is to save $$--especially when farmers markets sell it cheap in season. I do it for satisfaction, for something to do with the kids, because it tastes better, I know whats been sprayed on it, because its fun, and because I always have had an urge to turn the dirt in the sping.

Re: Grow 100 lbs. Of Potatoes In 4 Square Feet: How To
 

just find a local (organic) farm that sells what they grow, and use them for your seed stock. That's all they are doing anyway. they will not tell you that though, 'cause they don't want you growing your own.

dont use ones from the grocery store, even organic. you want ones grown locally. they will grow better, they are climate specific.

Re: Grow 100 lbs. Of Potatoes In 4 Square Feet: How To
 

Store bought potatos that have sprouted work just fine as "seed" potatos.
The only problem with them is they are sprayed with an anti sprouting agent which keeps them from sprouting as quickly as they naturally will.
Once they've sprouted, they can be planted. From one potato with,
say 10 sprouts on it, you can get 10 plants. Just slice a bit of potato
off with the sprout (maybe half inch thick) and plant, sprout upwards.

Actually, as long as there is an "eye", you can slice that part off and plant it. It will grow and produce.

Biggest problem with potatos is when the above ground plants are attacked by potato bugs. Left alone, they will strip the green plants
and nothing or very little will grow on the roots. They need to be
sprayed a couple times with an insecticide if you are not inclined
to pick the little grubs off by hand. There might be some "organic"
solution to the bug problem, I don't know of any though.

Re: Grow 100 lbs. Of Potatoes In 4 Square Feet: How To
 

garlic, cayenne pepper, water - BLENDER. you have the best bug deterrant you could ever want

Re: Grow 100 lbs. Of Potatoes In 4 Square Feet: How To
 

http://www.ghorganics.com/page9.html...tato%20beetle:

Re: Grow 100 lbs. Of Potatoes In 4 Square Feet: How To
 

I throw in a little dish soap too....AFTER the blender part.

Also, tobacco steeped in water makes a good insecticide.....the nicotine gets 'em.

Re: Grow 100 lbs. Of Potatoes In 4 Square Feet: How To
 

One thing about using tobacco water is you had better use it. It goes rancid fairly quickly and is truly disgusting to get rid of. You don't just make up a batch and let it sit under the sink for whenever you need it.

Re: Grow 100 lbs. Of Potatoes In 4 Square Feet: How To
 

Re: Grow 100 lbs. Of Potatoes In 4 Square Feet: How To
 

I haven't grown potatoes for awhile.

Years ago did the tire thing.

My alltime favorite was to put the eyes just barely into the ground,

Then cover with about 12" of straw.

Maintain straw as necessary.

The daylight side of the plant would come through the straw

Just like that, and when harvest time came,

Rake the straw away and simply pick the 'taters off the ground.

No digging.

Now, this was for reds and french whites,

Not for the Idaho behemoths.


scyth

Re: Grow 100 lbs. Of Potatoes In 4 Square Feet: How To
 

Yes, potatoes are very cheap and likely to remain so.
Better to use your gardening space and efforts on more perishable and nutritious produce, like fresh greens, for instance.
jmho

Re: Grow 100 lbs. Of Potatoes In 4 Square Feet: How To
 

Save your taters to plant the next year and they cost nothing. They are better than greens in that you can store them over the winter in the root cellar (you do have one don't you?). If and when the store goes empty you will not be able to find any to grow. I don't eat that many but my bags in the cellar are insurance.

Re: Grow 100 lbs. Of Potatoes In 4 Square Feet: How To
 

Plant potates about the same time as the dandelions flower. Hasn't happened yet here in New England zone 5. I put them in a warm place for a couple of weeks now to get the eyes started early, then plant them.

Re: Grow 100 lbs. Of Potatoes In 4 Square Feet: How To
 

Yeah, $30 is crazy. Find a feed store! I bought mine at Stillwater Milling in Claremore. They bag them and sell by the pound. Ten pounds is five dollars!

Gregg

Re: Grow 100 lbs. Of Potatoes In 4 Square Feet: How To
 

Thanks all for the heads up on the non insecticide methods/mixtures
solutions for the "bugs". I hate using insecticides..I'll try some of
the methods outlined above.

Re: Grow 100 lbs. Of Potatoes In 4 Square Feet: How To
 

Not so. "Seed" potatoes are special. Here's why they're worth money;

To make a "Seed" potato, they have to grow potatoes, collect the flower seeds, then grow the new plants from the seeds. The tiny virgin tubers, 1st year, are seed potatoes. They are the strongest.

What you get from the store are generally sprayed with anti-sprouting, but they are the 2nd generation tubers. They're a little weaker.

What you'd be planting from store leftovers are the 3rd generation tubers. Quite a bit weaker.

So the real question you'd ask is, "If they're not any better, home come potato farmers spend hundred thousand dollars more per season to plant the seed potatoes?" Well, naturally, "seed" potatoes are productive enough to be worth the (high) additional cost.

Now does that matter to you? Maybe not. We've grown adequate potatoes from store leftovers, but we could see a noticable boost from the seed types. I'd guess the basic problem is that potatoes are cheap and heavy. It's not worth the low price to divide them up into user-sized bags, so they're overpriced, and shipping is very high because of the weight. If you could pick them up at a farmer or farm market, probably they would be only marginally higher than crop potatoes, but you'd have to live near the seed farm.

And once again: this is not just a problem with potatoes, there is a noticable drop in vigor for most seed-saved crops, unless they are planted and pollinated properly, with adequate crop size to insure continuing vigor. For something like squash it's like 5 acres. Can you imagine?

I'm new to this, so much of my info is coming from "Gardening When It Counts" by Steve Solomon, founder of Territorial Seed Company, and he goes on at length about various vigor of seeds and how seed companies dump their weak seeds on retail customers.

But yes. Seed potatoes are differnt, important, and worh some additional cost. The trick would be getting them at a price that matches the modest (30%?) boost in production.

...Also they insure no plant diseases, which can be fatal in potatoes.

TS

"Instead of diggin' taters I'll be diggin' lumps of gold."

Re: Grow 100 lbs. Of Potatoes In 4 Square Feet: How To
 

What about diatomaceous earth?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diatomaceous_earth

Pest control
Diatomite is also used as an insecticide, due to its physico-sorptive properties. The fine powder absorbs lipids from the waxy outer layer of insects' exoskeletons, causing them to dehydrate. Arthropods die as a result of the water pressure deficiency, based on Fick's law of diffusion. This also works against gastropods and is commonly employed in gardening to defeat slugs. However, since slugs inhabit humid environments, efficacy is very low.

It is sometimes mixed with an attractant or other additives to increase its effectiveness. Medical-grade diatomite is sometimes used to de-worm both animals and humans. It is most commonly used in lieu of boric acid, and can be used to help control and eventually eliminate a cockroach infestation. This material has wide application in control of insects of grain storage.

Disadvantages of using diatomaceous earth for pest control include the health risk to humans (see below), and the harm it does to many beneficial insects, including predatory beetles and bugs and many detritivores.

Re: Grow 100 lbs. Of Potatoes In 4 Square Feet: How To
 

For the tire method would you have to worry about toxins from the rubber contaminating your potatoes? I would think so.

Re: Grow 100 lbs. Of Potatoes In 4 Square Feet: How To
 

I do not know the answer to that question. I assume it would be minimal as tires do not degrade easily.

Obviously it is optimum to grow in rich organic soil without any wood or rubber residue, but we do not and will not always face optimum conditions, and may be required to adapt to new conditions.

I got this method from a book by Kurt Saxon. I have never tried it, but it sounds like it is reasonable in a survivalist situation.

Re: Grow 100 lbs. Of Potatoes In 4 Square Feet: How To
 

I dunno, I seem to do just fine planting some leftover potatoes from last year, and some that I got cheap at the grocery because they were starting to sprout. Yukon golds, 3 lbs for $2, just cut em up and plant. I just look for a bag thats starting to sprout back in Feb, and by April they are good for planting. Works every year for me, and generally we get about 50 to 100 lbs of potatoes from the garden from it each season. Theres no way I'm going to pay $10 for seed potatoes. Might just as well BUY potatoes if you are going to spend that much, IMO.

Re: Grow 100 lbs. Of Potatoes In 4 Square Feet: How To
 

The straw method intrigues me; it sounds brilliant. What about soil - do you need to put soil in the straw gradually as well? How much, how often?

The tire method also seems to be a great way to solve a current ecological problem. The more uses we have for old tires, the better.

Re: Grow 100 lbs. Of Potatoes In 4 Square Feet: How To
 

Zuwxiv -

I wish I could claim to be the inventor.

Not so.

Google a lady called Ruth Stout, who was an incredible

Gardener and person, and wrote books about how she gardened.

I presently use a mix of Ruth Stout and french intensive,

And it works out just fine.

scyth

Re: Grow 100 lbs. Of Potatoes In 4 Square Feet: How To
 

I don't have a root cellar; but my basement stays around 55 degrees over most of the winter. The potatoes that I harvest from my second crop (planted around July 4th here in NW Indiana and harvested the beginning of October) keep long enough to plant in the spring. And, so far I haven't seen any difference between the potatoes grown from commercial seed and those grown from my winter-stored spuds.

It's taken me several years to work out this schedule. The potatoes that I keep over winter really have to go into the ground by the beginning of April (they're sprouting like crazy by then.) On the other hand, the Yukon Golds take 90 days to harvest, so some of them can be used for my second planting at the beginning of July. The second harvest potatoes are the ones I keep over the winter to eat and to plant the following year. Using this schedule, I don't have to buy potatoes from the store (unless I want an occasional deluxe baking potato.) I consider this to be quite an accomplishment, since I devote a total of 70 square feet in my small garden to growing potatoes. Of course we also eat a lot of rice and pasta, and I don't grow any of that :)

I've been buying seed potatoes as insurance; but next year I think I'll take a pass and wing it.

P.S., I have an amateur gardening friend who planted potatoes a couple of years ago, but gave up on them because he got tired of waiting for potatoes to form hanging from the branches. Just goes to show you how desperate things are going to be when everyone suddenly recognizes the need to grow their own food!

Re: Grow 100 lbs. Of Potatoes In 4 Square Feet: How To
 

Heard potatoes save well if wraped in newspaper and keep dry and in dark place. Started some plants from some grocery store potatoes that were sprouting. They just do not seem to want to grow much bigger though. Was kind of a let down. Where just plain white potatoes.

Re: Grow 100 lbs. Of Potatoes In 4 Square Feet: How To
 

The newspaper works well. Better yet, keep them in a tray in a single layer. You don't want them touching, giving them an excuse to rot. Excess moisture is the enemy.

As for light, absolutely none. Given light, stored potatoes green up and sprout -- not a good thing. I keep mine in a bathroom in the basement, interior space with no windows, and the door closed. Pitch black.

Grocery store potatoes I don't know much about. But, this past winter I bought a 5-pound bag of red potatoes that I stored in the basement and forgot about. Suddenly, out of nowhere they were sprouting like crazy and I had to throw them away. I had intended to eat them. But my poor memory got in the way of that. Yukon Golds are great; but every once in a while the red skinned variety is a pleasant change of pace.

Re: Grow 100 lbs. Of Potatoes In 4 Square Feet: How To
 

I remember as a kid my grandmother putting toothpicks in the middle of a potatoes, and sticking them in a glass of water with the four toothpicks holding them 1/2 way about the water, and setting them in a sunny spot. She'd put the toothpicks in about middle of tater (so 1/2 tater in water, other half in air). They would sprout.

Don't know what yeah do with them after that, I suppose plant 'em? Never did potatoes, don't have a clue. Just remember seeing Gramma do it at her house, wasn't around to see what she did with them after they sprouted.