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barrel potatoes

Square Foot Gardening List - http://www.flinet.com/~gallus/sqft.html

I am not growing in barrels, but I am doing above ground potatoes this 
year. I'm gardening in new soil and all the 'oldtimers' say potatoes won't 
do well in new garden soil, best to do them above it. (Cutworm problems, 
etc, and potatoes don't like a lot of new nitrogen sources.)
I have a 3 x 3 mesh compost bin that I dug the soil up a little and put the 
wire mesh 'box bin' on top of the soil. I put potatoes every 5 - 6" in 
rough diamond shapes around inside the wire bin and spread a light layer of 
straw and partially composted goat bedding over the top. I'd like this to 
have broken down more, but was all I had. I have a mound of old straw 
outside the bin, and as the potatoes break the surface, I'll continue to 
mound more straw over the bin. I think where a lot of folk go wrong in 
container planting is we tend to put too much material over the potatoes to 
begin with and they can't develop a healthy topgrowth due to the 
smothering. (We'll see!)
To comparison shop, I also planted the same potatoes in a small row 
situation in the soil alongside the bin. (Two short 5' rows.)
These are Kennebec white potatoes. Here, it's awkward to get the OG 
certified or specialty seed potatoes at the time we can plant them. By the 
time the Maine gardeners and catalog companies are sending out sets, it's 
past time for Texas to have them in the ground. (martha)


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