Growing Potatoes

Saturday June 28, 2008

Growing Potatoes

This year we planted 15 lbs of potatoes. Our plan is to grow
enough potatoes to get us through till next season. I figured
every one loves potatoes, so why not grow them. All summer
my family loves eating potato salad. It is one of those staple
foods I grew up with and my children also have grown up with.

I started out by placing an order with Seed Savers Exchange.
The potatoes arrived at my door right on time to plant. We set
the potato seeds out in the sunlight for the eyes to form. After the
eyes formed I cut them up as you only need two or three eyes per
potato seed. Then, we began marking our rows with a stake and
string. I then took a bulb planter and marked my holes and plop
the potato went in. Cover with a soil.

My husband and have read Elliot Colemans books for many years.
First, The New Organic Grower and then Four Season Harvest. In
his books he talks about adding soil amendments or feeding the soil.
This year we took his advice and added peatmoss, bloodmeal and
bonemeal to the potato bed. The last step to our potato planting is
putting down mulch to keep in the moisture. This is where the reading
of these books came in handy. For the past two years we would take
our leaves from our yard and composted them. This year we had all
the mulch we wanted. Piling the mulch on the potato rows as they grow.
Now stand back and let God do the rest.