Growing potatoes [General]

2015 Jul 23
These are purple caribes I harvested one morning this week.

I got the seed potatoes at Canadian Tire and used the pull start method to plant 20 containers or so. This is just one container.

All organic, no fertilizer, no pesticides, just compost.


2015 Jul 23
And this youtube guy is getting even more (but a high yielding species I think):


2015 Jul 23
This is how he does it:



2015 Jul 28
These look amazing. I wish I'd done potatoes this year, definitely on my list for next year.

2015 Jul 28
Perhaps it's placebo effect, but I think my potatoes taste better than store bought. They are organic at any rate, so I can leave the skin on. The purple color fades with cooking though. I'm going to grow them again (the purple caribe) next year. The come out amazing steamed in the Instant Pot for 8 minutes. Toum goes well with steamed potatoes. I think I got my wife hooked on toum. I will be going through it and making it more often now. :-)

2015 Jul 29
I don't think it's placebo effect at all. I'm swimming in Kale and Amish Snap Peas right now and they taste better than anything I've bought in any store. When my first batch of arugula was in full harvest my friends were blown away by the taste too.

Everything I've grown in my planters with good old soil and organic composted chicken fertilizer has been amazing and I am going to have a bumper crop of 42 day tomatoes which I am sure will be amazing too. Growing it at home makes a big difference.

2015 Jul 29
Mmmmm fresh veggies. My garden got off to a rough start. I think I should be less lazy and water it better. Anyways it is all caught up and growing well. Not sure if I will have any sort of a crop with cantaloupe given the late start but oh well. This year decided to try a couple oddities for me: brussel sprouts and okra. Both are doing OK it seems with the okra just flowering now. Will try and snap a pic as they are pretty.

2015 Jul 29
Sh*t whole point of my post was to comment on potatos....this year I also planted sweet potatos. Mostly at the neighbors as I ran out of space here. Any tips on what to do with them growing wise? Just leave them till frost?

2015 Jul 29
Sweet potatoes need a long growing season. But you can start them indoors in February in vermiculite, pull off the slips and pot them.

That is essentially the pull start method with potatoes. Start them in March indoors and pull off the plants when they are about 6" tall. The tuber will keep making more. The pull starts seem to reach maturity sooner and the potatoes are huge. Less chance of disease transmission too.

Sweet potatoes lise viability if they are exposed to cold, either in transport or storage. Then they won't sprout.

2015 Jul 29
Francis,

Got that part....just wondering what is happening to them underground :)

Do I leave them to frost? Normal spuds you can harvest early of course.

K,

2015 Jul 29
A pic of the okra finally flowering.


2015 Jul 29
Nice pic krusty. I hope the okra turns out for you.

Francis, I was wondering how the potatoes would taste grown in compost, no soil. Mine grown in soil are way tastier than the store potatoes that I have to buy once I've planted the last of my potatoes in the spring. I was also wondering if things grown in plastic can be considered organic. Did you use something other than plastic?

2015 Jul 29
I have some others growing in a raised bed made of 2x4's, but there is plastic underneath to create a wicking bed effect.

If you water with a plastic watering can or hose do you consider that non-organic?

We have plastic rain barrels.

How about the water in your house? If water passes through plastic is it non-organic ?

What about a greenhouse that uses plastic?

I planted the potatoes indoors in February in a plastic tray too. And I collected the potatoes in a plastic colander to rinse them.

Is maple syrup organic if it is tapped by plastic pipe? Alternatively is metal organic ?

Your question prompted me to google, and I found this:

www.organicagcentre.ca

I think it's almost impossible live without plastic in the modern world. It's a material with very desirable properties.

They even make hip replacements out of plastic these days instead of metal, because it's superior to metal. The pic attached is an ultra high density polyethylene hip replacement.

en.wikipedia.org


2015 Jul 30
You ask more good questions, Francis. Indeed, the ubiquitous use of plastics has gained acceptance in organic agriculture. The organics zealot might be the only one to not use plastic, and I am certainly no zealot.
Enjoy your potatoes. I will soon enjoy mine.
Two more questions, though, brought on by a reading of your experience and watching the videos. What will you now do with your used compost, and what did you use for compost?

2015 Jul 30
Plastics are used in both organic and conventional agriculture. Tanks, hoses, containers, you name it, are often plastic. As Francis says, hard to avoid in our world today. Where a person may observe a difference in the two types of agriculture is in 'plastic mulch'.

In a conventional field, crops might be planted in actual black plastic row cover, that has to be removed after the growing season, but often leaves behind a fair bit of non-biodegradable trash.

Most organic producers will use 100% biodegradable plant based mulch sheeting for ground covers that mostly breaks down by the end of the season, and doesn't litter as it eventually completely breaks down.

Certified organic producers have to use plant based mulch sheeting as mentioned above, but that is not made from GMO crops.

The other thing this thread made me think, is in certified organic agriculture, raised beds can be made from plastic or wood, but not pressure treated wood.

Krusty, I hope your sweet potatoes work out. We planted a bunch in our hot house last year and they were doing great until our marauding dairy cows broke in and destroyed the greenhouse plastic and many of the plants. We moved the sweet potatoes out, (we had them in black plastic pots to increase the heat) but it rained so much that they barely produced.

2015 Jul 30
I realized I posted an alternative to plastic containers earlier: straw bale gardening. But plastic tubs are tidier in a small space. I didn't get straw bales this year, but I do want to try it. Also my mushroom compost has a lot of straw in it, and it works great. Straw retains moisture.

I never have enough compost, so we need to buy it periodically. But it continues to break down and it's volume reduces. So I just top it up with more from our kitchen scraps and leaves bin. I could just spread it around if I wanted to dump it. I try to grow different crops in the same spot each year, to cut down on the risk of disease transmission. And I try to grow beans, as they put nitrogen into the soil.

2015 Jul 30
@organic, where do you get your sweet potato slips?

2015 Jul 30
I was thinking about this on my ride to work . . . plastic is quite innert at ambient temperatures. Well LDPE or HDPE or PP. But biodegradable plastic has metal impurities added to it to break it down with UV exposure.

If we are worried about plastic contaminating our food and water, the non-biodegradable plastic is safer. It doesn't break down.

2015 Aug 1
I get where you are coming from, Francis, and it's why in our house we avoid plastic for anything but dry goods. And because everyone in our house refuses to wash plastic containers!

But, I can't help but think that hard bio-degradable plastics (like bottles or bags perhaps) may differ from the black mulch made from non-GMO cornstarch.

The black bio-mulches may have transitional metals added, not the same as having metal impurities like mercury, arsenic or lead. As well, all the bio-mulches approved for certified organic agriculture have been tested to be well below levels of toxic anything.

In theory, wood chips or wood shavings used for mulch could have far more heavy metals in them due to acid rain than the bio or non-bio mulches.

Dammed if you do, dammed if you don't I suppose. ;-)

2015 Aug 3
Another technique for rapid multiplication of potato plants (potato starts from cuttings):

pdf.usaid.gov

I got the idea of searching it by seeing it done for tomatoes. Ppotatoes and tomatoes are derived from the same wild ancestor, so I thought it might work:

www.gardeningknowhow.com


2015 Aug 19
Brought in a few from my second crop for a friend to try. These are like a pound apiece, grown in mushroom compost.

2015 Aug 23
I could not wait any longer so I dug up one plant of sweet potatos. They could be bigger but still have a couple weeks of growing to do.


2015 Aug 24
That's great krusty, and we probably have 2 months of growing season left. Did you weigh them? I got another 20lbs of purple potatoes from 5 tubs Saturday morning.

2015 Aug 24
Francis

I did not weigh them. The big ones are a nice size but the small ones are only a couple fries big. They will go till frost and then that is it. Actually from what I have read if the soil cools too much before frost they will stop growing.

K

2015 Sep 26
Today dug up the sweet potatos. Some were in a rocky soil, some in a very light rock free soil. It was amazing on the difference in size between the two areas. This was by far the largest dug up out of the good soil. There were several like this which really surprised me. I did not think they would do so well but we got that good Sept heat to end things off.


2015 Sep 26
Nice, krusty! Looks like you'll be growing some special young 'uns with that giant sweet.
I'd like to know what you used for seed potatoes to start your crop. It'd be interesting to hear how long they keep. I might try growing some next year myself. Nice to see them work for you!

2015 Sep 26
Andy,

You are supposed to cure them at 90F and humid for storage. We will see how fast I get that done. Would need a special chamber to do it with a heat lamp and PID.

For 'seed' I used a sweet potato from Freshco bought late winter. I only got one plantlet off of it myself and the rest I bought from an organic greenhouse lady just south of the airport. Can look her up if needed.

After talking with her she said you need 25C+ and humid for the tubers to sprout plantlets. Which my house was not. She built a little shelter in her basement to do it. After she told me that in May I put my tubers I was trying to get sprouts from in my greenhouse and sure enough with the daytime sun and humidity they grew little plantlets like crazy. So I will do something similar to her in the basement hopefully late next winter. They were very easy to grow and will make an effort next year for a rock free area to put them in.

K,

2015 Sep 26
Sounds like sweet potatoes are more involved than spuds. The big question is do they taste better than store bought sweet potatoes? That might justify the extra effort. What do you think krusty?

2015 Sep 27
That's a huge sweet potato Krusty. Will be good at Thanksgiving. :-)

2015 Sep 27
I think there is a big difference from cukes and tomatos from the garden vs what you get in the store. So far I see no remarkable difference in the sweet potatos that would justify the effort aside from the fun growing them.

2015 Oct 3

2016 Jan 30
Well I was too busy/lazy to cure them and took a chance. I just stored them in my living room in a rubbermaid tote with no lid on it. Ironically this winter the house was warm! Maybe I should clarify....indoor temp of 80F+ as I installed an outdoor wood boiler but failed to install a thermostat on the wall to actually turn it off when it was warm enough inside. Anyways my dog helped herself to one on occasion. Now we are at the bottom of the tote with mostly fingerling ones left. They are starting to send up little shoots! Am going to make an effort to grow a minimum 3x the qty and they were delicious and cheaper, tastier, and more nutritous than cauliflower ;)


2016 Jan 30
Actually I doubt they were more nutritious than cauliflower. I looked it up just the other day and was blown away by just how nutritious cauliflower is. I used to think it was a dud.

Though it would be pretty difficult not to be tastier :-)

2016 Jan 31
Supposedly there is a cauliflower shortage, but I've been able to buy it on sale recently.

Perhaps it's from a greenhouse in Toronto.

qz.com

2016 Jan 31
So back to growing potatoes in buckets ... in the video posted above he puts 2 little seed potatoes into the bucket. Is that all there is to it for that massive harvest?

2016 Jan 31
@zym, pretty much. I was getting 1.5 lb potatoes (purple caribe from canadian tire) in mushroom compost in a bucket (or a thick plastic bag would work too).

You can get a lot of potato plants from a few seed potatoes by using the "pull start" method invented by Doug Strong. He calls it "The Strong Way".

What you do is get a plastic bin from the dollars store, or a couple of them, and fill with potting soil.

Plant your seed potatoes in them. When plants grow up about 6" tall with a few leaves, take the potato out and pull the plant and roots right off the spud with you fingers / nails. Replant the potato plant in another container, and replant the spud back in the plastic bin. The spud will continue to make plants for you to pull off. You can get 6-10 or more per spud.

When it's warm enough, take the plants outside and plant them in containers or grow bags. You can bury them deep with about 1/3 showing above the soil, like tomatoes (tomatoes and potatoes were developed from the same wild ancestor by the Inca and share maybe 95% of their genes).

This pull start method reduces the chance of transferring a disease on the spud to the next generation, because the spud stays behind. It also accelerates the growing season, because you are starting with plants as soon as it gets warm enough.

I'll probably start growing my potato starters end of February.


2016 Jan 31
francis, is there a huge difference in taste?

With Red skin potatoes on sale in Loblaw for $1.88 / 10 lb this week I have to ask..

2016 Feb 1
@Foodtravel, I never grew potatoes before because I figured they were so cheap in the store it wasn't worth it.

But, I tried Charlotte potatoes in France and they really taste good, deep fried whole.

I like the purple caribe. To me it's worth it.

If you grew the same potato as the one in the store would it taste bettter ? I think yes, because it's a fresh potato from the ground, not one that has been in storage. Something changes because you can't grow a fresh potato. It has to lie dormant for 8 months or so before it will even sprout. Enzymes in the potato change. They have been bred to have that dormancy period too, because a potato that won't store well over the winter is not a very useful potato.

Then there are pesticides. Unless marked organic, commercial potatoes are sprayed and the chemicals so penetrate the soil. My wife will peel store bought potatoes, but will eat the ones from our garden skin on.

If you are going for taste, select an uncommon variety to grow. It will be fun. The yields are great and it will be something you can't get at the store.

The attached pic is from the article below. The most common potato is the russet which came to dominance because it makes a good frozen french fry. But lots of different potato types and flavors and textures exist.

modernfarmer.com

2016 Feb 2
My Mom was growing tubers in the form of Jerusalem artichokes and they can be pretty invasive. She also tried growing yams one year but more for the leaves.

The blue potatoes looks interesting and there is also blue yams uhmm...

2017 Mar 30