Market Farming

[Road's End Farm <organic87 AT frontiernet.net>]

On Mar 28, 2008, at 1:33 PM, pwors AT svn.net wrote:

> I've been following this thread for a few days. There are 30" between my
> tires. I have a 3x3 toolbar, on which I have a 6" wide shovel, centered.
> This is what I make my potato furrow with. I plant the spuds by hand, then
> make a pass with 2 hilling disks, one on each side, facing in, at about a
> 30 degree angle to the direction of travel, with their inside edges about
> 24 inches apart. This pretty well buries the potatoes under 3-6" of soil,
> in a 30" bed which is slightly domed. Sometimes I rake by hand afterwards.
> The next furrow is made with the tire at the edge the previous bed, so if
> you assume a 10" wide tire tread, my furrows are centered at 40" from each
> other. When the plants are 6" or so high, I hill them the same way I
> planted them- One pass with the discs. For the second hilling, I move the
> discs outwards and run them deeper, so as to make use of the full 30" of
> soil to hill the plants nice & high.
>
> Am I missing something, or is this pretty much the way others without a
> planter do it?

I make the planting furrows and hill the potatoes with a hilling/furrowmaking attachment on a Troybuilt rototiller (one of the last ones made before the company was sold). Rows 36" on center to allow room between rows for the tiller by the second hilling when the plants are getting large, I also plant by hand.

But then, I don't grow a lot of potatoes (usually no more than 1,000 row feet). If you're planting multiple acres of them, I wouldn't recommend this method.

-- Rivka; Finger Lakes NY, Zone 5 mostly
Fresh-market organic produce, small scale