Digging all the red potatoes
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8 years ago in #gardening by amberyooper (69)
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Digging all the red potatoes
View this post on Hive: Digging all the red potatoes
giddy up !!!! gotta love some fresh taters !!!!
I love it -thanks for explain g the process. I was wondering about them getting soft and sprouting - then you explained it. Sometimes I wish I was not living in the city but I once planted potators in a large flower pot. 😀 I would prefer a backyard though.
Thanks for the in-depth writing on your process of harvesting your potatoes.
They are the one vegetable I have not been successful in growing thus far - I live on a slate-filled mountain with very poor soil. I am considering attempting to grow some in buckets of composted soil to see if I yield a better result!
I think the soil conditions are always important for potatoes. The like to grow in a loose soil, but compost works really well also. I've had them growing in my compost pile in the past.
Raised beds work well for potatoes if you have any of them. Also, if you're going to raise them in buckets, try to use the biggest buckets that you can get to give the potatoes room to grow. Also make sure that the buckets have good drainage. Potatoes like a lot of water, but do poorly in mud.
I do have a couple of raised beds/boxes that I think might be perfect for the job, once I remove the last of the watermelon plants I have in there from the summer. They are still growing new baby melons!
These boxes were built without a bottom/floor so good for drainage as you've mentioned. Thank you for suggesting that, I think they will work better in those than in buckets after all! I just need to find some good quality seed potatoes now...
Yes, good seed potatoes do help because they're usually certified disease free. I have planted potatoes that I had from the previous year, but they tend to get scab easier than the certified seed potatoes.
That's good to know, thanks for the heads up. If I find some nice ones I shall post about my growing process too!
Trying to figure out how to store my potato harvest this year. A fridge in the garage might work for me. What's the temp of your fridge set at? I've got purple potatoes and yukon golds... since this is the first year I've had a decent harvest I want to be sure I can keep them into the winter for as long as I can.
I set the temperature in the storage fridge to as close to 38 degrees as I can get it. If it's much colder, the potatoes start to convert the starches to sugars and that can give a weird taste to the potatoes. Too much warmer and the potatoes don't last as long before they start to sprout. I would say that somewhere between 38 and 40 would be good.
The Yukon Gold potatoes are about the best keeping potatoes that I've grown so far. They'll keep most of the winter at 45 degrees, which was as cold as I could get the insulated corner of the basement that I used for storage in the past.
great advice! I'll have to figure out how to keep the fridge in the garage at that temp... does the humidity matter a huge deal?
I'm not real sure about the humidity. I usually don't worry about it. I think you probably don't want it too humid because that might encourage mold to grow.