Potatoes 2017

[RpR]

In the past two weeks I put in a bit over 100 hills of potatoes.
Up north they are all carry overs and I have no idea what variety they actually are.
Down south I put another fifty some in and I think most of the carry over are Victoria but I gave in and went to Menards and bought some Mega Chip and Goldrush.
Despite of the fact I had only half the yield last year I had the year before I still had a full tote box carry over potatoes.
I even ate a goodly number of them, in the past two weeks, because I hate waste but while I may put in one more 13 hill row as my family that ate has been greatly reduced it seems like a waste of time.

It has rained repeatedly for the past seven days so the semi-dry ground is now wet but temps. have dropped forty degrees also.

[RpR]

Do any of you with connections to seed farms know what parameters sellers use for their choices.
This year again many that were around two to three years ago are no longer for sale , in the U.S. anyway.
I finally found that most of my carry-overs were Victoria, as that was the only white potato with yellow flesh I planted recently but I like Victoria and for a second year, not available as were also several I put in three to four years ago.
I did get some Mega-Chip as I walked through a Menard's, saw them and thought I think I never had those before.
Well I checked on-line and Menard's was the only place selling them I could find.
As far as that goes, in middle Minnesota anyway, the variety of tomatoes was also way down from past years.
I thought it might be my imagination but persons I talked to at nursery stores said that variety available was way down this year.

[steev]

Well, that's scarey[ It may be an effect of "commercialization" of product availability; no small problem, for years. That only commercial varieties are offered has been increasingly the case; "I don't want your commercial varieties" hasn't been popular with large-scale growers for many years (ever?).

Stick around here; people are mostly not "big-ag", so not into the whole commercial mind-set.

[paquebot]

Mega Chip is an improved Kennebec developed in Wisconsin. This will be my 5th year growing that one. It is primarily grown for the chip industry and is noted for consistent large size and good storage. You won't be disappointed. That's one of 13 varieties that I'm growing this year, 219 hills total. Locally, there were at least 15 varieties available. If there's no market for certain varieties, they won't be available.

Martin

[RpR]

Well while my corn was a failure, my potatoes, at least at this point are doing very well indeed.
The ones down south where I planted them weeks after the ones up north are coming out of the ground; I put down four bails of hay and straw to keep the ground moist and control weeds.

Up north they are now up out of the heavy leaf mulch I put up there and both gardens seem to be at near the same point of growth.
If there yield is as good as the plants look, I will once again have pounds more than I can use or would ever need.
Up north they are all left overs and in many holes are two to three pigeon egg sized potatoes for seed. I am curios as to what they will produce as some are not the same variety in the same hole.

At the same time my chiles and tomatoes all look good but time will tell how they produce.
I bought some dirt called Just Natural, I used for seed beds for lettuce, mustard and carrots plus I put some in rose holes.
Roses are acting like they are not sure they want to live and the veggies are coming up very , very thin.
Stay away from Just Natural raised bed dirt.

[RpR]

Potatoes and tomatoes are looking good.
Even one tomato plant from Burgess that looked like it wanted to fall over an play dead, it actually just laid on the ground, is now growing.
I could write to Burgess and get another one, as one arrived doa, but I have more than I will use anyway.

An odd thing is a small about three foot circle of the garden, where I put lawn grass soil I dug out, and used old weed killer to kill thistles that came up there three years ago, seems to be actually dead.
Nothing growing then not even purslane that is all over the rest of he garden.
The soil did smell odd when roto-tilled but I did not put any more weed killer there than I did in some areas where the potatoes are doing well.
One area the potatoes are in was blasted with vegetation killer, heavy with quackgrass, not long before I roto-tilled and planted potatoes. Potatoes doing fine there.
I may just dig it out and put it in the city garden waste bin and let them haul it away.

[steev]

They generally don't want soil in the green waste; tough on the grinding machines; put it in colorful little bags; Halloween is coming.

[philagardener]

Best to keep any and all herbicides from the compost path - some of those chemicals have long half-lives and can are causing all sorts of downstream problems for unsuspecting gardeners. Many of us have had to stop using municipal and commercial composts because of it.

[mskrieger]

My potato patch has just demonstrated a textbook case of disease resistance in action. I planted several pounds each of Blue Gold and German Butterball. Coincidentally, some Blue Golds from last year survived the winter and sprouted alongside the new patch; I did not weed them out.

The holdovers from last year promptly began to yellow and die, suffering from some disease they caught the prior year. It spread to the adjacent line of Blue Golds and now all the plants have fallen over, mostly dead. But the death stops at the first German Butterball and those plants continue on, as robust and green as one could hope.

Lessons learned:
1. It is really important to weed out volunteer potato plants lest they infect your patch with some disease
2. Blue Golds, as tasty as they are, are also vulnerable to some disease in my garden. German Butterball, not so much.

In this case, in my climate, the standard advice from the experts really does hold true. (Cheapest advice comes second hand. If you'll buy it.)

[RpR]

Well up here in Minnesota, the only problem I have ever really had was Colorado Beetles from Hell.
I have had not great yields on occasion but no disease.
My volunteers from previous years have never been a problem.

This year, at least from the size of the foliage, they are doing very, very well.
So far no CPB problem but as I had two years ago, a lot of Lady Bug Larvae may be one reason.

One odd thing. I have two volunteer potato plants this year, they look real healthy BUT each one is a good deal from anything, including each other, except purslane, well on side of the garden in the former rose bed I planted some squash. At least twelve feet from the volunteer potatoes.
As if they were homing torpedoes, two vines hunted down and engulfed the potato plants.
I had to go out , and untangle and move the vines so they would leave the potatoes alone.

[steev]

Everybody loves spuds.

[paquebot]

So far, 8 varieties have had a couple hills dug and no complaints. With the overly wet summer, it seems that most are remaining green longer than normal. None had totally died back yet so tuber growth is continuing. Purple Viking again looks like a winner for consistent size. Pinto Gold is a pleasant surprise as some tubers a lot bigger than last year. (That's sold as a fingerling but may have fist-size tubers.) Ozette with 15-20 large fingerlings under each hill. A new one this year, Gold Rush, turned out to be an excellent baker for an early maturity. We all agree that we'll be looking for a lot of friends to share with again.

Martin

[RpR]

The dead spot mentioned above ain't so dead anymore.
Purslane and a few other weeds, while not as thick as in the rest of the garden have decided to set up a squatters camp there also now.

[RpR]

I did a little potato digging in the past couple of days.
Though all had large foliage, some had a few goose egg potatoes and one had a large number of fist sized potatoes.
I almost missed the large ones as I dug down deep and popped out a couple but saw a gold spot in the bottom of he hole so I went deeper , thee they were but they had grown north of the actual plant.
As they were all carry over from last year, do not really know what they were but one that one had one fist sized potato waw a russet and I think the others are Victoria.

[meandtk]

I was blessed this year. We planted 100 pounds of Red Lasoda. Our yield was approximately 1,400 pounds.
My parents and my neighbor had about 400+ pounds, and I put up enough for 75 quart jars, sold about 175 pounds, and gave the rest away.
I've never had potatoes as pretty as I did this year, but I had little success with anything else due to the heavy rains that came through this summer.