I'm extremely interested in this. Our local farm co-op has a whole
bin left over of certified seed potatoes that have shriveled and I figured they
were worthless. But the co-op is really trying to find a home for
them. If short-season, variety, shriveled potatoes can be planted in
August in a mild climate, I may just go ahead and experiment. Thanks for
the alternative. Should I soak them in water to restore some of their volume, or
just plant them as-is?
Kathryn Kerby
frogchorusfarm.com
Snohomish, WA
In a message dated 8/13/2010 11:52:43 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time,
ramoyer AT gmail.com writes:
Mike
wrote: "Planting potatoes now in VA? When do you harvest and how are the
yields, generally? Interesting to think of in N.
KY."
Mike, Others who plant potatoes in heat of summer please jump
in, here's how and why we do it: My great uncle Luther in Oley, PA sold
fall potatoes at market for years. He grew two crops of red potatoes
in the same piece of ground. When I asked how, was told that he saved the
very best potatoes in the spring for the second planting. In that
way, he selected for tubers that kept until July.
So, the testimony
of his fall-dug 'new' potatoes gave me permission. Wendell Berry
wrote: "If you had a settled, a really settled, thriving, locally
adapted community, which we don't have anywhere, you wouldn't just
be remembering the dead. You'd remember what they did and whether
it worked or not. And so you'd have a kind of lexicon of
possibilities that would tell you what you could do, what you could get
away with, and what penalty to expect from what you couldn't get away
with."
I fell into this a few years ago because seed potatoes can be
cheap to free for the asking in July, esp. if you're willing to remove
the good, bad and ugly. Yukon Golds tend to still be very sound, if
you have the pick of which bags have no rot, and if they have been
stored in conditions that favor shriveling over rotting. Don't plant
rotting potatoes, to avoid disease.
Think of summer planted
potatoes, following spring veggies, as a type of summer cover crop.
We plant three rows per bed, rows 18" apart, to get canopy
coverage.
I tend to plant deep, then use mulch or hill up a lot of
dirt, to control soil temps. Colorado potato beetles tend to be less
of a problem. Drip irrigate as needed. Yukon Golds are a short
season potato, so July-August plantings generally mature before
October frost. Can use row cover to get through an early frost.
Have not compared yields to spring planted, but they're not
paltry.
At market, I get a premium for 'new' potatoes, so this is one
way to sell such in the fall. Our soils rarely freeze, so have also
left them in the ground all winter, digging them as needed until they
start sprouting again in March. Keeps the neighbors talking.
For overwintering, need a well drained soil and mulch or good snow
cover during worst freezes.
Still exploring the fine line between
laziness and efficiency, still learning the penalties and rewards of
breaking accepted rules of growing. This list a big help along those
lines.
Richard Moyer SW VA Sigh, back out in the heat to trellis
late
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