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Re: container potatoes

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

This is a repeat message of the one that I have sent several sqft gardeners...with one addition. 

This past Saturday, I watched Victory Garden on PBS. Recently, they have added a cool section to their show. Special guests take short video trips to places around the world to focus on some type of gardening.

This past week, the focus was on the Isle of Jersey, located in the English Channel. While the focus was on their early spring vegetables, their early potatoes were the star of the show. 

They plant the whole potato, just as I have for the past 8 years. These farmers also start their potatoes in containers with the bud up. They also use their own potatoes for next years seed crop.
 
A method was shown to do the same thing on a small scale...by using small, egg-size potatoes...placed in egg carton. Set the egg cartons with the potatoes in a window until they sprout...then plant.

I use potatoes that have already sprouted in my pantry. You can buy some new potatoes and use them. If you don't cut them, you don't need sulfur or any other fungicidal agents...just plant the potatoes!!

Loosen the top few inches of soil. Put the potato in the ground sprouts up. Cover with a bit of soil. As the potatoes grow a few inches put leaves or straw over them. Do this a few times or until they begin to bloom. Then they are ready to pick.

Last year, I threw out some potatoes and put some leaves on them once...let them grow...as they would... and collected 6-8 medium size potatoes from each. 

Don't make gardening harder than it is...in early times, potatoes were not hybridized, but were plants that were gathered like blackberries, tomatoes, or other native American plants. This is how gardening and farming started...by the gathering techniques.

Have fun,
Sheryl
---
"Nature uses only the longest threads to weave her
patterns, so that each small piece of her fabric
reveals the organization of the entire tapestry."
-Richard Feynman
















On Sat, 27 Mar 1999 16:47:25   Martha Wells wrote:
>Square Foot Gardening List - http://www.flinet.com/~gallus/sqft.html
>
>We're doing that here with spent straw and goat hay bedding over the 
>potatoes.
>I had a 3 X 3 wire frame I planted the potatoes in. I first scratched up 
>the soil and laid the cut pieces of (Kennebec) potatoes in a grid pattern 
>and covered them lightly with the soil a little. It was cool and they took 
>forever to come up. But they're about 2' tall, and I'm covering all but the 
>very tips of the greenery with the straw. I had to remove the frame (turned 
>it into a chicken tractor), but the potatoes still are orderly and growing 
>upward out of the straw ok. I planted some more out of the same seed in 
>orderly rows and hill them up like normal, but the plants aren't nearly as 
>big and healthy looking. Another benefit is we have Colo potato beetles hit 
>mid season really bad, and I'm hoping the potatoes that are mostly buried 
>won't be as affected as those in the soil rows.
>MAJOR GRIPE:  Here in the South, when it's time to plant potatoes, all the 
>'neat' companies that carry the heirlooms or other interesting types are 
>still snowed under in Maine or Idaho. Is anyone aware of a company that 
>sells seed potatoes to the South? I've tried ordering them in the fall and 
>chilling them and they turn into a soggy lump way before time to set them 
>out.
>We get the triad of Red Pontiac, Red Lasota, and Kennebec white, that's it 
>if you buy local. (martha)
>
>
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