POTATO GROWING

[Lissa]

25.04.15 POTATO GROWING WITH LYLE AT SANDGATE COMMUNITY GARDEN

Big thank you to Lyle (Betts) from the SCG for providing a potato growing workshop for our members, though we did have a couple of ring in's from BOGI in the form of Ed and Louise. Always good when other groups can join us.

What an excellent, no nonsense approach Lyle has to growing spuds.

Below Lyle is discussing the properties of certified and regular store bought spuds.

MAIN POINTS:

• Plant from April-onwards for three months.
• April plantings will be ready for cropping after 60 to 90 days, or around July.
• Potato plants DO NOT LIKE/NEED TOO MUCH WATER. Water fortnightly if it doesn't rain.
• Certified seed potato is best because it is disease resistant. But! any regular spud can be used - avoid those that are damaged/cut or show any sign of disease.
• Buy planting spuds with soil on them - NOT washed.
• Larger spuds can be cut into pieces with at least one eye per piece.
• Pieces can be planted immediately after cutting but DO NOT water these at planting time. Alternatively pieces can be left to scab up (dry) naturally or be dusted with sulfur. Leave about three days.
• Do not cut seed potato. They should be planted as is.
• Soil should be slightly acidic, friable and contain lots of compost. Clay or limey soil is not suitable.
• Plant in full sun.
• Plant your pieces between 10cm and 20cm deep - 15cm is good. About 20cm apart.
• As the plants grow mound soil, compost or straw leaving about 10cm of plant exposed. This is to stop the sun getting at the potato crop and turning them green (toxic).
• When the plant reaches about 20cm tall they will flower. This indicates that the plant is now producing tubers. This is the point at which the plant needs water.
• Spuds can be bandicooted once the plants start producing.
• Leave the crop in the soil for storage for as long as possible rather than picking and putting in a cupboard.
• Expect about 8 potatoes per piece/seed potato planted.

POINTS OF INTEREST:

• Basil makes a good companion plant for spuds.
• Lyle often replants in the same spot in his home garden, something we are told repeatedly not to do. He makes sure he uses healthy spuds for growing and adds lots of compost to replenish the bed.
• Wanting a good crop during the growing period, Lyle also grows spuds in buckets hanging off his fence. He puts some holes in the bottom and mounds them as well as he can inside the bucket.
• Lyle grows all sorts of potatoes at the SCG including Dutch Cream, Sebago, Pontiac and is about to try Kiphler. He feels we should be trying to grow as many varieties as possible.

Below: Some of the group taking a tour through the refugee gardens.

Below: Lyle cutting up some of the Potkin (Kabocha) pumpkin that grows in the garden for sharing and seed.

Thank you to everyone who turned up, including Mark and Katrina who came quite some distance from the south side. Good turn out for a very useable workshop. I hope you all came away with some usable hints and we now all have tremendous success growing spuds. I know now I was watering mine too often for starters!

If anyone has other information or photos that can be added please add below or message me and I'll add it to the main body of the report so it doesn't get separated and overlooked.

June 2015

So grateful to Lyle for running the workshop for us I had high hopes of some success but things aren't going that well.

I had limited space to plant the potatos but did manage to put them in spots that wouldn't get the same amount of watering as the balance of the beds (full of salad and brassicas).

Plants came up. Yay. I mounded them as directed. They grew well and tall but then a couple of them started dying off.

This morning I have "cropped" the tubers for these plants to see what the problem is and this is what I found - something has been chewing on them. The soil was full of little earth worms - would they do this? I'm thinking the answer to that is yes.

GROWING POTATOES IN GROW BAGS:

There is an interesting website called KENOSHA POTATO PROJECT in America which gives good information about soils and planting etc.

YOU TUBE VIDEO

09.08.16

Success at last! This season I stuck with store bought chitted potatoes - bought with soil on, not washed, healthy and whole - planted them out in the decomposing compost pile, mulched some weeks back with composted horse poo and topped with lucerne.

Many plants came up. Most are in the process of producing flowers at the moment so will wait until they have finished as per HOLLIS' INSTRUCTIONS IN HIS VIDEO.

Noticed yesterday that one of the plants was dying so dug around and came up with these below. The biggest is palm sized.

 

[Elaine de Saxe]

And fresh young cooked spuds are *great* cold.

[Andrew Cumberland]

Things that I learned from my first crop this year.  Once the vine is dead, the tubers stop growing. No sense waiting longer to see if you get more spuds.  Oh, and tiny tubers taste great steamed and then with a bit of added butter.  

[Lissa]

We never see the cut worm either do we but their work is evident in the morning with a ring barked plant.

[Lissa]

Have a read of the article attached to the photo comment Elaine. Apparently they do go underground, something I didn't know.

I'd be lucky to find one slug per month in the entire yard though. And there are no curl grubs in this patch of ground that I see, though they also move around per the blurb.

[Elaine de Saxe]

I see similar damage sometimes too. Yet I have never seen either a snail or a slug. Both slugs and snails have sharp rasps with which they get their food. But it implies that slugs eat underground. Do they?

[Lissa]

Someone in another forum has suggested slug damage and the pic does look similar to my spuds. I have a problem accepting this though as there is no sign of slugs and my soil is light and friable, no weeds.

LINK TO THE FULL ARTICLE

[Lissa]

I've added some information about a potato growing project and their video at the bottom of the blog.

[Elaine de Saxe]

Afaik the technical term is 'chit'. Not that the word conveys anything of what is happening. 'Developing eyes' is at least clear if not correct.

[Lissa]

Peggy - I've tried them in grow bags with little success, but I didn't know about not over watering then either. The ground these came out of was moist but not wet. They are at the end of one of the beds and I just don't water there. I need to dedicate an entire bed to spuds, garlic and onions so I can control the watering better.

Elaine - no idea of variety. Store bought spuds. Those little scrubbed jobs you buy in plastic bags. Lyle recommended not using the scrubbed sort but I had them and they were sprouting so in they went. I have some seed potatoes but still waiting for them to shoot (technical term?).

Perhaps I should take them and show them to Lyle. Lyle doesn't seem to be on the net so a personal visit is needed.

[Andrew Cumberland]

I reckon it's the same as happened to mine.  Either a borer or some kind of rot.  Elaine, the bad news is mine were in the wicking bed.  

On a brighter note:  my sweet potatoes did very well both above the ground for slaw and pesto and below for tubers.  They are in the same wicking bed.