This year I decided to try something very new a different for me. I have never ever tried to grow potatoes before and always figured it would cost me a lot more money to buy them then to grow them But! I have 3 motivations that really got me to finally try potatoes
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| Up close with the Potato stems. Look how tall they are! |
1. It could be fun!! I really want to dig them up at the end
2.I was kinda inspired by the movie "Faith Like Potatoes" (very good if you haven't seen it)
3. Healthy Choice: the potato is actually then most toxin filled vegetable in the grocery, unless you buy it organic the vitamin filled skin is actually bad for you! Healthy alternative...grow your own!
With that said, since I am a beginner with this whole potato thing, I looked up a bunch of information. Pretty much found that you could grow any old potato that sprouts, but that you really should buy seed potato kind basically to avoid decease and what not. So I bought some red potatoes from JonnySeeds.com and here I am several months later showing off my beautiful potato plants.
One important note about potato plants is you have to "hill" them. Basically you have to cover the plant seem up to the top of the leaves to avoid exposing the spuds to the light because if you let that happen your potatoes could turn green. That's bad! They are poisonous so stay away from those green ones.
For my particular situation I kinda realized to late that I need a lot more depth, so I made some kinda of make shift containment with wire mesh to hold in some of the extra soil when I mound it up. Here is the before and after pictures.
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| potatoes before they were "hilled" |
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| potatoes after "hilling' |
I got my extra "compost" from my compost heap that I pulled out from last year. I call it "compost" because it isn't really all that rich a really just seems like dirt, but I was desperate to get my potatoes covered. It could be a serious mistake, but only time will tell
The other interesting note about potatoes, is there turns out to be a lot of different ways to grow them. I am testing out two different ways. I didn't really mean it that way originally, but I planned for them to be in my square food garden and then after some research I came across what are know as "grow pots" or "smart pot", they have a few names. Basically they are a felt like material and are supposed to give the plant air circulation, which is particularly good for potatoes because they are roots. But, that isn't really why I wanted to try these out. I really like that it gives the potatoes room to grow up and it pretty much saves me a lot of space in the garden and if they grow better than well... that's just a bonus.
Here are some good sources of additional information about potatoes:
- There is a really good article on the organic gardening website that goes over 7 ways to plant potatoes.
- YouTube videos on planting potatoes:
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