I ordered some potatoes for fall planting today. I, like Caroline from the Shovel Ready Garden, ordered them from Ronnigers.com. Since I don't have a specified garden area for potatoes yet, I will likely be building a potato box as per my Mom's instructions.
[aside] My mom found an article in their newspaper about building a potato box in order to grow like 100 lbs of potatoes. She immediately ripped it out of the paper (so I could read it in person), and promptly called me to tell me about it and said that I just HAD to build the potato box and try it. See? Apparently I get this experiment thing from my mom. But the reason why I had to try it instead of her? Because I am the one who gardens. My mom was also the one that insisted I try the Earth Boxes of years past. And that experiment worked out well, so how badly can this one go? However, since she is the one who's so adamant about the potato box, what I should do is grow them and then pay to have them all shipped to her. I think my dad would get a kick out of that. [/aside]
The varieties I selected were a pound of Red LaSoda, 1/2 pound All Blue, and 1/2 pound Purple Viking. The LaSodas are a recommended variety for Travis County while All Blue and Purple Viking are recommended varieties for Texas by Howard Garrett. The other recommended varieties for Texas and/or Travis County were already sold out (except for the Russian Banana and Yellow Finn). I put that the ship date should be the middle of July, so we'll see how this works out.
I also ordered more garlic from Gourmet Garlic Gardens. I wish I would have been able to get the Creole varieties sampler, but they're already out of them so instead I got the Warm Winter Varieties again. They are automatically shipped just prior to the best time to plant in your specified area so they should be arriving in late-August or so.
8 comments:
I'm also interested in growing some potatoes. I didn't know we would be doing this in the fall. Need to know about the potato boxes. I was thinking of using 5 gallon planters. will that work? Did you give me the yellow pear transplant?
That's so cool! I'm interested in trying to grow garlic, too; what variety did you get?
I am now growing potatoes in a raised bed I did. The ones in pots are okay, but don't yield much becasue I think they don't get to spread out much, plus the pot dries out easily. I poured out a pot this morning becasue the leaves were looking dead and ratty and it yeiled one white potato, that had holes in it. So after the other 3 pots are empited I wont me doing them again in there. Thanks for the link on where to order potatoes, I have been leary about ordering them so I wait to get them at my feed and supply, but it is only once a year and you compete with people here for the limited amount.
Jenny-
Potatoes can be planted in the spring and the fall. According to Bob, he's always liked the fall potatoes better, the problem is finding seed potatoes down here at that time because the professionals say that potatoes don't have as good of a chance in the fall vs. the spring.
I would assume that the planters would work, you'd just do it like the potato bag--put dirt/mulch/compost in the planter as the potato grows as opposed to filling in the entire thing.
I wasn't at that blogger meet up, so it was not I who distributed the Yellow Pear Tomatoes. Maybe it was Jen from Rebar and Roses?
Caroline-
I got the Warm Winter variety pack. Last year that meant I got Korean Red, Shilla, Kettle River, California Early, and Burgundy. The Kettle River never even grew.
Cynthia-
Thanks for the tips! You might want to wait to order seed potatoes until after Caroline and I test the place out (Caroline--did you go through Ronnigers for your spring potatoes?), that way if something goes wrong, you're not out of money. (that being said, 2 pounds of potatoes (approx $15) was still cheaper than 1 pound of garlic ($28).)
Will do. Thanks.
Nope, I got my spring potatoes at Buck Moore -- Kennebec variety, which Ronniger's didn't have in stock for fall. Whew, didn't know garlic was that spendy!
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