Sunday, September 26, 2010

Potato Update

An update on the potatoes:

Today I had to go out and add some more stuff to the box as a few of the vines are about a foot tall. I made a mix of compost and mulch to add and then I hilled it around the taller vines. I guess that's a problem I hadn't thought of - if you plant different types in the same spot, they may not grow at the same rate. not a problem, I'll just have to check on them and add mulch/compost as necessary.

showing the potatoes growing, and after adding mulch--they're all growing toward the north (I think it's because I have an ash tree to the south so it seems, to the plants, that the strongest light is north). Please disregard my giant bucket of stuff that needs to go in the compost bin that's in the background.



looking down on the 'tatoes. This is the same angle as when I planted them. For a comparison, see below. You can't see it in the picture, but the red lasoda potato vines have reddish veins, and the purple vikings are yellow, the all blues are TINY, but their veins are a dark purple color...which I didn't realize it before, but the eyes of the potatoes below show the same type of thing.



5 comments:

Iris said...

They look great! Mine vary from 3" to 7" so far. I didn't know about the red vein--will look for it on mine, too.

Caroline said...

Yours look great! Only my Yellow Finns came up, and I broke one of the vines hilling it. Oops! At least there will be a few potatoes.

ConsciousGardener said...

That's awesome, I've not tried growing potatos yet...Where do you get the starts?

katina said...

Cheryl,

Caroline and I both ordered potatoes for fall planting from Ronnigers in Colorado. Spring seed potatoes can probably be found at most of the local garden centers

mss @ Zanthan Gardens said...

We tried this method of growing potatoes last spring. Unfortunately all we got was vines and no potatoes. Maybe the new soil was too rich. Or we planted too late and it was too hot.

I'd like to try again this fall but I never get my seed potato order in at the right time.