Yeah Im getting the itch, I am so over winter cold and snow. Have any of you guys ever planted taters on the surface of the ground and then covered them with straw or hay? I have tried several time and the results were to say the least, dismal . I have watched beau coupe videos and they show super recovery. So what am I doing wrong?
Taters in the garden
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I hear about the itch. Started celery, spinach, beets, onions, broccoli, cabbage and a few others in the greenhouse this past couple weeks. Will start some potatoes in containers later today.
When they pop through the hay, you add more hay and keep doing that. potatoes grow from the bottom up.
When they pop through the hay, you add more hay and keep doing that. potatoes grow from the bottom up.
Yep thats just how I did it, I dont know what I did/do wrong. I have tried it in buckets and stacked tires garbage cans you name it, and the results are never impressive if any at all. I mean who the hell ever heard of an Irishman that couldnt grow taters?
Here our soil is very sandy and light which potatoes love the drainage but sure takes alot of fertilzer to get big yields. 5 to 7 pounds per hill is about our avg. yield
I planted some yesterday in feed containers in the greenhouse. 2 of purple potatoes and one Yukon bucket. Bark mulch at the bottom, paper feed bag, layer of compost, put the tatoes on then covered them with wood chips. once they pop through I'll add more chips and repeat until I hit the top. I didn't let them heal after cutting them, so I hope they don't rot. Trying to get a head start on everything this year. (Good) food is expensive. We'll see how this goes.
I have mulched them with straw but not simply covered with straw…I don’t see why it would not work. I plant lots of things in bales of straw. (Decomposed straw would work better than a bale I would think?
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my understanding of taters is as @Scm shared diagram…so long as keep covering potatoes branch out as the plant grows up…so keep covering with soil. I know people that lay on ground, put tire around and fill with soul. As play grows, add another tire on top and fill again with soul and so on…when time for harvest they knock the tires over and don’t dig.
I hill my taters with a garden bedder. I have a walk behind manual push as well as a bedder for the tractor. The manual push version doesn’t make very tall hills and I don’t think that would get you much…it’s fine for beans and such but only hills a couple inches high. The bedder on the tractor makes a much larger hill and when need to add more soil just run back over your row of taters and pull the soil in and up. It works pretty well IMO.
I’ve only used straw over taters to suppress weeds and hold moisture. I would think you could try a bale of straw easy enough…here is the recipe I have been using with straw for several years with success(for other plants - not taters)…
hgic.clemson.edu
if only want a couple plants, I think the old tire method would be the way to go.
)my understanding of taters is as @Scm shared diagram…so long as keep covering potatoes branch out as the plant grows up…so keep covering with soil. I know people that lay on ground, put tire around and fill with soul. As play grows, add another tire on top and fill again with soul and so on…when time for harvest they knock the tires over and don’t dig.
I hill my taters with a garden bedder. I have a walk behind manual push as well as a bedder for the tractor. The manual push version doesn’t make very tall hills and I don’t think that would get you much…it’s fine for beans and such but only hills a couple inches high. The bedder on the tractor makes a much larger hill and when need to add more soil just run back over your row of taters and pull the soil in and up. It works pretty well IMO.
I’ve only used straw over taters to suppress weeds and hold moisture. I would think you could try a bale of straw easy enough…here is the recipe I have been using with straw for several years with success(for other plants - not taters)…
Straw Bale Gardening
Find out how to grow vegetables in straw bales, an innovative gardening method that’s ideal for poor soil conditions.
hgic.clemson.edu
if only want a couple plants, I think the old tire method would be the way to go.
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