GOT POTATOES!

[Lazy Gardener]

I just LOVE growing potatoes. I think they are my favorite vegetable to grow. And a freshly scrabbled potato does not at all resemble the pathetic specimens found at the grocery store.

I've been wandering down the google bunny trails about all things pertaining to potatoes, and have found some interesting trivia:

While potatoes from the grocery store may sprout, chances of them actually producing a decent crop of spuds are poor at best. Reason being: Market potatoes have been treated with an herbicide to keep them from sprouting. So, even if they do sprout, there's enough latent poison to keep them from producing tubers.

Organic potatoes bought at the grocer are NOT SUPPOSED to have been treated with this herbicide. So, you are likely to get a crop, but there is no guarantee that the grocer potatoes is not carrying a disease.

Certified seed potatoes are SUPPOSED to be disease free. But... are they really? Often, when I look at the seed potatoes, they appear to be a pretty sorry looking lot! But, I buy them anyways.
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My own potatoes always look much better than the Certified seed potatoes, and I've been planting my own spuds for years without issue.

So, lets hear it for potatoes: What are your favorite varieties? Do you plant grocer spuds, Certified, or your own? Do you plant in the traditional hilled rows, under mulch (and what do you use for mulch), or in containers? Do you chit them first? When do you plant your potatoes in relation to your last expected frost?

By far, my favorite variety is All Red, or Adirondack Red (red skin, dark pink flesh). I also enjoy Yukon Gold, and Kennebec.

This year, ever experimenting in my garden, I'm pushing the season as well as trying new varieties. I'm chitting some of my own AR spuds, and plan to put them in the greenhouse next week. Our last frost date is typically May 10.

Today, I bought Kennebec, Superior, Yukon Gold, and Norland. Just for funsies, I swung by the health food store, and bought some organic Magic Molly (fingerling):

and Pinto Gold:

I typically dig a shallow trench, lay in my seed potatoes, cover with soil, then mulch in ever heavier layers as the plants get taller. I hand pick CPB and larvae, and eventually resort to Permethrin or Sevin.

 

[wyoDreamer]

I grow potatoes in bags that I made from landscape fabric. I started that when I was in Wyoming and had no top-soil to grow in. They do great in bags, but it is hard to control the moisture level.
I had 18" diameter bags that I planted 3 seed potatoes in, then placed a milk jug in the center of it for watering. The whole thing then got wrapped in a piece of fencing to keep the antelope from eating it down and a piece of plastic sheeting to keep the wind from whipping it to shreds. For watering, I poked about 3 small holes in the bottom of the milk jug and every morning, I fill the jug up with water. It took about 2 hours for the water to leak out. The water would leak out slow enough that the soil would stay moist, but not get waterlogged.
My Grandpa always said "Potatoes do not like wet feet".

 

[R2elk]

And tell me, please???? What was your impression of the sweetness, texture and carrottiness of the different colored ones???? Is carrottiness really a word?

Atomic Red are the best pull and eat right now carrot. Mild with no bitterness at all in the skin.

Whites are bland and not particularly good for eating raw but are a wonderful additional to bean or potato soups.

Purple Dragon are unbelievably sweet with their purple flesh and orange core.

Deep Purple can be solid purple the whole way through. Not sweet and not particularly carroty but good boiled or fried. Will turn anything you cook them in purple.

Most of the yellows are a nice mild carrot flavor.

 

[Britesea]

The orange carrot was created to honor William of Orange, just so ya know, lol

 

[wyoDreamer]

When I lived in Wyoming there is no way to garden in the ground where I lived - it was rotten granite, pebbles, sand, rocks, clay and very alkaline. So , I made some potato bags from landscape fabric to grow my potatoes in. it worked great!
They were 18' in diameter and 18" tall. I rolled the top down to abut 12" and filled that up and put my starts in there. As the plants grew, I unrolled the bag a little and added more growing mix. Repeat as the plants grow until the bag was full. I did have to add a piece of fencing wrapped around the bag to hold the plants upright so the wind didn't rip them apart, and I wrapped the bag in clear plastic to help hold in the moisture.
When it was harvest time, I just slid the bag into the tractor bucket and dumped it over. I lifted the tractor bucket to a comfortable height and sifted through with my fingers. the dirt went into a garbage can till next year and the potatoes were very easy to pick out.
I made a growing mix of manure compost, mushroom compost, topsoil, and peat moss - everything I bought by the bag from the store.

 

[baymule]

The prettiest, biggest red potatoes I ever grew was in a big pile of leaves, mixed with horse manure and lime.

 

[baymule]

Haha, I read in more than one place that manure causes scab, so lime the potatoes to keep the scab away!

It must work, just look!

 

[Lazy Gardener]

I havested some of my fingerling potatoes a couple days ago. AND, I'm impressed. First time I've grown fingerlings, and they've made a believer out of me! Magic Molly, picked up at health food store. Many of them were at least 5 oz. in size. (about the size of 2 large chicken eggs laid end to end) The hills produced MANY tubers. And these little buggers are TASTY.

 

[CrealCritter]

Many years ago when my Father in Law was still alive. He loved growing potatoes. We would dig deep and hill the wide rows high.

I helped him one year and bought 2 sacks of seed potatoes from rural king. One red and one white. We planted a row of each. When we harvested, the small ones went back in the sacks. Red in the red and white in the white sacks. He stored the sacks all winter, under his house in the crawlspace.

The next year we pulled the sacks out from under the house and planted the non rotten seed potatoes again. One row of red and one row of white. However what we harvested, on the same tomato plant was both red and white potatoes. Those crossed potatoes were the best tasting potatoes, I think I ever had.

We planted them 3 more seasons. But when my father in law came down with ALZ, the two sacks of seed potatoes wound up missing. I have no idea what he did with them but whatever happened to the sacks of seed potatoes, is perfectly OK with me.

 

[R2elk]