Potato update: curious. May 17, 2009
Posted by ourfriendben in gardening, homesteading, wit and wisdom.Tags: growing potatoes, growing potatoes in bins, Wood Prairie Farm, Yukon Gold potatoes
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In my previous post, “Tower of (potato) power,” our friend Ben described how I was growing ‘Yukon Gold’ potatoes in a cylindrical bin to save precious bed space for other crops. I’d alternated layers of straw and soil in the bin, and planned to continue piling up alternating layers as the potato shoots grew to make sure I got the biggest possible potato harvest once the tops die down in fall. (Potato plants will form tubers all along their buried stems, so it pays bigtime to keep burying the stems as they grow. My plan is to keep adding layers of straw and soil until the shoots reach the top of the bin, then allow them to sprawl at will until they die back.)
This is, of course, something of an experiment. I figured we had nothing to lose, since our CSA will provide us with plenty of potatoes if ours don’t produce a crop. Still, our friend Ben was as nervous as a new father, checking the bin every day to see if there were any signs of the much-anticipated shoots. Had I put too much straw on top of the seed potatoes? Could the shoots push through? I began fluffing up the straw at the top of the pile, surreptitiously checking for any signs of life. Finally, this past week, I saw shoots stretching up through the straw. And then, yesterday, green leaves poking up through the top layer. Hallelujah!!! They’re alive. Now I just need to keep adding layers of straw and soil to keep up with the leafy shoots as they continue to grow.
Our friend Ben is greatly relieved that our ‘Yukon Gold’ crop is doing its stuff and I didn’t screw everything up. But this isn’t the curious part. What’s curious is this: Last year, our friend Ben planted some wonderful seed potato collections from Wood Prairie Farm (www.woodprairie.com), a family-run organic seed and potato company in Maine, in one of our veggie beds. I’d chosen the Wood Prairie Farm Experimenter’s Special and The Organic Potato Blossom Festival, which includes six varieties noted for their blossom beauty and fragrance as well as for producing wonderful potatoes. How could I resist?
Now, here’s the curious part. It’s not easy to harvest every last potato in your bed unless you’re really thorough or you’re growing them in a bin (as we are this year). Doubtless, I left a few in the ground last year. This is not a good thing, since winter turns in-ground potatoes to soggy mush. So you can imagine our friend Ben’s astonishment as our puppy Shiloh and I were inspecting the bed to check on the progress of the lettuces and mesclun mixes, strawberries, sugar snap peas, radishes, onions, bell pepper, pickling cuke, and summer squash plants, and I saw that some very vigorous potato plants were coming up!
The thought that seed potatoes could survive a Pennsylvania winter was news to me. (It’s never happened before through many years of potato-growing.) Now I can’t wait to see which potatoes they are! Guess I’ll have to be patient ’til harvest time, though. And then I’ll have another experiment on my hands: Comparing the yields of the in-ground potatoes to the ones in the bin. Stay tuned!
I’ve been trying to decide whether or not to put in some vegetables, but this post made me decide yes, at least potatoes. But not Yukon Gold ((I like them but they’re easy to get here). Instead, I’ll put in the last of the Tancook Blues (all blue) and see what happens. Of course, I’m waiting for the soil to dry up around here a little, plus for it to get a bit warmer before I think about planting out any vegetables. I’m a sook that way.
Good for you, Jodi! And that early-planting stuff is a myth anyway. Trials have shown again and again that plants set out after the soil has warmed quickly catch up to, and usually surpass, the ones in cold, wet soil. So think of yourself as savvy, not as a sook!
That sounds like a fun experiment to try. I’ve heard of people using their old tires to grow potatoes in. I guess I don’t have any extra tires laying around to try that with though.
We’ve heard of that, too, Cinj, but if the tires are used, we’d worry about heavy metal contamination that they’d picked up in their life on the road. And if they’re new, you certainly don’t want to use them to grow potatoes! We think a big hardware-cloth cylinder filled with soil and straw would be a better, cheaper, and safer option if you don’t want to buy a bin.
What ever they are, you will now know which potato is winter hardy and you can do it again and again. Or just let it happen. I am hoping some of my yukon gold will come back next year. I left the little bitty baby potatoes in. If they come back, cool. Good luck.
Thanks, Deb! And good luck with your Yukon Golds!
It is so thrilling to see those leaves pop up! I’ve heard rumors about potatoes coming back, it’s never happened to me though. Congratulations! It will be exciting to see what kind they are!
I agree, lzyjo! Maybe if their flowers are distinctive colors it will give me a preview!
Hi OFB, that sounds like an ideal way to get every last potato and easy to add soil and straw also. Looking forward to hearing the results. We are growing potatoes for the first time here, little red ones from our neighbor. We have mounded twice and the beginnings of flower buds are forming. I like the cylinder idea, space is at a premium here and we can’t plant them in the same place the next year, correct?
Frances
I like the cylinder for all kinds of reasons, assuming it works. Space-saving is one, of course, and as you say, ease of harvest is another. You also have a sort of in-situ composter for the soil and straw, which should also break down as the season progresses, so that after harvest you could add it to your compost pile and it would already have a head start. But if your potatoes are diseased, it would be easy to bag it up and haul it off. You’re right, you shouldn’t grow potatoes in the same bed year after year, but that’s the other beauty of the bin: Since you’re starting with new soil/straw each year, you should be able to put the bin back up in the same spot without worrying about it. Sounds like a good deal!
I love experiments like this. It is always fun to see how well mother nature does without us. We try so hard to get our gardens just right and sometimes the self sown plants work out better.
That certainly happened with the butternut squash that volunteered in one of our compost bins last year, Daphne! You never saw such a healthy vine or so many squash on one plant!
I think it’s safe to say that is somewhat of a miracle! And I love your strategy for growing ‘tatters this year.
Thanks, Laurel! Let’s just hope we get some! I’ll keep you posted.
My son and I were out looking at our Yukon Gold potatoes. They are growing great but we noticed that one group of them had little round fruits growing where the flowers had been. He thought they were tomatoes. I assured him they were not tomatoes. They definitely are potatoes because I planted them and the leaves are potato leaves. I have never seen such a strange thing on potatoes. Has anyone else? No I am not on drugs
You’re definitely not on drugs, Juanita! And your son has the right idea, too. Tomatoes and potatoes are both in the nightshade family, so they’re cousins. Some of your potato blossoms set fruit, and there are potato seeds in there! We grow potatoes from tubers rather than seed because, if you plant a ‘Yukon Gold’ tuber (seed potato), you know you’ll get a crop of ‘Yukon Gold’ potatoes. With potato seeds, who knows what you’d get! But when a plant breeder crosses strains to make a new potato, he or she will cross-pollinate the flowers and plant out the seeds, then grow the seedling plants on to see what kind of potatoes they make. It might make a fun home experiment, as long as you don’t count on eating what you grow! But don’t try to eat those little potato fruits—like most nightshades (some exceptions are tomatoes, tomatillos, peppers, and eggplants), they’re probably poisonous!