tveguy3 said:Good to know Sandy, but I usually get new seed potatoes each year. I've found that the ones I save work for another year, but after that they haven't been so good. Don't know why that is, but it's happened a few times now, so I don't save them any more. The last time I used them I had gotten new ones and had room for 6 more hills, so I used 6 of my left over ones, They were in the same row, and got the same treatment, and were the same cultivar. The 6 turned out having really small and poor quality potatoes, while all the others were great. I can't explain it, it shouldn't do that.
I always plant my left-overs as I hate to throw them away, this year that is all I planted.
Yield will depend on the size of the left-over potato and variety, although there is no sure fire thing.
With left overs I never cut the potato, just put the whole thing into the ground. (With purchased seed I now keep the cut pieces far larger than I used to and often put whole potatoes in depending on strength of sprouts showing.)
If I have small ones, size of a ping-pong ball or smaller I sometime put two or three in the same hole.
As I said in another thread I have found planting deep gives the greatest yield.
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Oberon46
Mine went into the dirt late but still early enough that I had to drag the pots out the garage door to the sun on the driveway and then put them back at night. Not that they would freeze, but I wanted to soil to stay as warm as possible. So I would say 4 weeks from last frost. May 31 is the date we use, although I haven't seen a frost that last in as far as I can remember.
Potatoes like warm soil for planting but need cool, moist soil for producing tubers.
IF the soil gets too warm you will get healthy plants and few, small or zero tubers.
If you have black pots that suck up heat, soil will get too warm too easily.
For large potatoes there should me a minimum of 14 inches between the plants and the wall of the container.
For long term keeping potatoes the old standard is let them sit in the ground for two weeks after plants die off, break off large chunks of dirt but DO NOT WASH.
I leave my potatoes lie in the grass over-night after digging depending on how many I dig that day.
My dad used to put them in an old wash tub filled DRY sand in out cellar, and it was a true cellar not a basement where on occasion the pipes would freeze if the cellar vent was not closed tight enough.
At mid forties temp. they kept very well.
You can eat the green ones, unless you snack on raw potatoes, which actually taste quite good, just peel them in the normal manner or it you bake them scrub them with a coarse scrubbing pad.
Same for those with scab, just give them a good scrubbing and bake away but potatoes bake far, far better in a standard oven than a micro-wave.
Do not wrap them in aluminum foil, if you like tasty potato skins, and bake them hot and hard but use a pointed knife to test.
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I have heard of people using old tires and planting the potato, and then adding a tire, and filling with soil as the potato vine grows, and keep adding tires and soil. The idea is to have lots of potatoes from one plant. I never tried this, so I don't know if it really works. I do know that what sandy says works, as that's why I hill mine. I think the trench idea is good too, will have to try that. I have an attachment (looks like a V plow) for the back of my tiller that digs a trench.
