Need Potatoe Help

[Texan]

I am growing russet potatoes and blue potatoes. I just aint getting it. I am not understanding when to "hill" them or what exzactly what that means. Any ideas? One of my russet plants bloomed the other day.

Mjd

 

[Ridgerunner]

These types of potatoes form potatoes above the seed potato. There are a lot of different techniques, but the old standard method to account for this is to drag dirt to the plant, forming a hill around the plant. I drag it from both sides as it is easier to keep it balanced. New roots will grow from the part of the potato stem that is buried, plus the plant has good soft ground to develp tubers in. This also makes it easier to dig the potatoes. As long as you don't cover the top four to six leaves, the plant will continue to grow and send out new leaves. Once it has started to flower, the plant is pretty much finished growing and is preparing to set potatoes.

I usually hill a potato plant two times, maybe three, during a growing season. My hills wind up about a foot high. Some people hill them by adding straw mulch, sometimes covering that with dirt, sometimes not. Somebody, I think it is Davaroo, grows theirs in tires, just stacking a tire on top of the other and filling it with dirt when it is time to hill. Makes it real easy to "dig" the potatoes. As I said, different techniques.

Hope this helps.

 

[digitS']

Without hilling, potato tubers may show up above the soil surface. These will turn green because of exposure to sunlight. They will be useless for you.

The potato puts up a good fight with the weeds but some plants like corn don't. Small weeds get to be more and more of a problem as the season progresses. You can "bury" the weeds by hilling around your corn and other veggies.

Many plants seem to really benefit from hilling - especially if you apply a good organic fertilizer near the base of the plant and then pull loose soil over it. Water a time or two and the plant really takes off. Broccoli is like that.

I know that you have a large garden, Texan, but hilling is easy if you just have a few plants. Easy, that is, if you can get down on your knees in the garden. (Could be a problem for me right now with this bad right knee .)

Loosen the soil between your plants with a rototiller (or a 4-prong cultivator works well) . Then get down on your knees and give your plant a hug . Reaching around the plant and pulling soil back towards you goes fairly quickly. When you've got things hilled up on one side, go over to the other side of the plant and pull soil towards you while hugging your plant from that side.

Now that I've said it's easy - I'd better get out there this week and start doing it !

Steve

 

[obsessed]

This is my two cents on potatoes. I don't cover the entire plant or the plant won't come back (duhhh!!) and I think they are heat sensitive. For me (in coastal Louisiana) I read I should have planted them in early Feb but didn't get my shipment until end of March. It just got way too hot way too soon. And my plants got like two feet of stalk and not one potato. They never really flowered either. I have read that a fall planting will work for me. Hope this helps.

 

[herbsherbsflowers]

I grew up near Alexandria, LA and my dad always planted potatoes on Valentines Day. You could probably do it at the beginning of February. He never planted them in the fall, but I would try it.

 

[vfem]

Ok, I'm NOT sure what is going on either.

Today, my potatoes which bloomed WEEKS ago and are kinda yellowing and wilting... are now... BOUNCING back!? I don't get it!? They got all nice and green again, and are FLOWERING AGAIN!!?!?!? So, yeah... I'm of no help with potatoes at all.

 

[Texan]

Thank Yall for the information on potatoes. I do believe I get it now.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Loosen the soil between your plants with a rototiller (or a 4-prong cultivator works well). Then get down on your knees and give your plant a hug . Reaching around the plant and pulling soil back towards you goes fairly quickly. When you've got things hilled up on one side, go over to the other side of the plant and pull soil towards you while hugging your plant from that side.

The different techniques people use is interesting. I agree that rototilling between the rows helps provide loosened soil, but I don't always do that. A lot depends on if I can keep out of my clay garden when it is wet. I grew up using a standard garden hoe, so I use a garden hoe to hill. I just use the hoe to pull dirt to the plant from one side, then after I finish the row, come back down the other side, pulling dirt toward me and putting it around the plant. I admit, I sometimes break a sweat when doing this, but I seem to often break a sweat in the garden. It does take practice to use a hoe properly, but Dad saw to it that I had plenty of practice growing up.