Re: Odd reference to potatoes
- To:
- Subject: Re: Odd reference to potatoes
- From: M* T*
- Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2000 00:55:55 -0500
No, Bill, didn't find potatoes really heavy feeders. But, when
grown in rows in "hills" what you do is dig over the bed, then dig a
trench and plant your seed potatoes and as they grow, you hill soil
up over them from the sides of the trench. Then, when they're ready
to harvest, you fork them out - and some of the tubers can be at the
bottom of the original trench and some are closer to the top of the
soil and some are out of line with the others. So, in the course of
growing them (at least in the home garden), you are moving soil
around a good deal more than for a normal crop of, say, tomatoes or
lettuce or beans. In fact, I remember pretty well combing the entire
bed so as not to miss any tiny tubers...really churning it up at
harvest time. You always miss some little tuber so that, if you
rotate crops, the next year whatever you plant in that bed will have
a few potatoes coming up in it.
So, the only thing I could ever figure that was meant by potatoes as
a soil 'cleaning' crop was that the fairly continual mucking with the
soil in the bed disturbed seedling weeds and enabled you to remove
any perennial ones. Still, think it's an old wives tale because
annual weed seed germinate just fine in a potato bed:-)
Marge Talt, zone 7 Maryland
mtalt@clark.net
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----------
> From: Blee811@aol.com
> Date: Monday, January 31, 2000 8:52 AM
>
> In a message dated 1/31/00 1:03:22 AM Eastern Standard Time,
mtalt@clark.net
> writes:
>
> Thanks, Marge. I suspected it might be an "old wives tale" too. I
wondered
> if potatoes are such heavy feeders that they leave the soil too
poor to
> support even weeds. But then I know there are weeds that flourish
on poor
> soil. Lots of cultivation doesn't necessarily solve weed problems
either
> because it brings to the surface old weed seeds just waiting to
germinate.
>
> Bill Lee
>
> << Well, Bill, that's a phrase I've read many a time. I've grown
> potatoes, too, in the past. I've never noticed any magical
> properties there, as a potato bed will get weeds growing in it.
The
> only thing I've thought is that potato beds tend to get very well
> turned over in the process of hilling for them and then digging
out
> the tubers and, perhaps, it is this that "cleans" the bed of weeds
> by disturbing the soil sufficiently to discourage most of them and
> bury the others.
>
> Rather think it's really one of those old wives tales of
> gardening...another gardening myth, tho'...
> >>
>
>
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