potatoes

larry@stinescorner · Oct 17, 2010

I harvested most of the potatoes in the garden in pa about 3 to 4 weeks ago , we have been eating them and gave some away, Ileft about 5 hills of them in the garden to see how well they keep in the ground after the tops died. Today Iam going to dig them to see.

John Harmon · Oct 17, 2010

We never dug Potatoes to keep until the tops all died and turned brown. Just the way we did it in ILL.They keep better in the ground right up until freezing time than in a bin.Had a ventilated bin,12" off the floor and made of 1x6 planks with 1" vent cracks between the boards,in the basement in a cool cornor and the potatoes still sprouted. Us kids would desprout all those that had sprouts during the winter.Basement was too warm maybe.

chevytaHOE5674 · Oct 17, 2010

All of our tops are dead and we started digging yesterday. So far have a few hundred pounds and still a couple rows left to dig up. Have a nice cold root cellar to store them in and they generally keep until next May/June or so before they start to sprout and rot.

tjdub · Oct 17, 2010

I had some blight this year so I gathered all the tops and burned them in Sept. Potatoes are all still in the ground. I leave them in until the ground temperature stays below 60F all day. They seem to keep a lot better if I leave them in the ground until then. Been grabbing enough to eat since the end of June, but still hoping for about 1000 pounds for my "root cellar" (which is actually just an box insulating to the floor of my basement).

36 Coupe · Oct 18, 2010

Ive been told that the tops are not the problem when you have blight/Potatoes that are left in the ground over winter spread the blight.I had blight last year and made sure blighted potatoes went on the brush pile and got burned.A 10 foot row of Geen Mountain potatoes were all blighted while Satinas a few rows away had zero blight.Some potatoes are blight resistant.Kennebecs and Katahdins had a little blight problem last year.

tjdub · Oct 18, 2010

> Ive been told that the tops are not the problem when you have blight/Potatoes that are left in the ground over winter spread the blight.

I think this is true about potatoes in the ground. However, I've read that the fungus can survive over-winter in the tops so they either need to be buried deep or burned. These were almost all Kennebecs and they did well at producing despite the blight, but it did end up killing every plant except for about 3 plants which seemed immune. The tomatoes are what got hit the hardest. I only managed to put about 12 qt in the freezer. After I burn my tomato plants and get the potatoes out of the ground, I'm going to till the whole garden too. Not sure if that will do any good, but anything I can do to reduce the chance of carry-over, I'll do. I sure don't want to stop growing potatoes and tomatoes to get rid of it.

36 Coupe · Oct 18, 2010

Some potatoes will survive the winter here.My son and I found the ground unfrozen on dec 25 last year,There were earthworms alive at the 4 inch level.Big tillers can drag potatoes 100 feet and have them come up the next year.No sign of blight this year in my garden.

potatoes

larry@stinescorner

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John Harmon

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chevytaHOE5674

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tjdub

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36 Coupe

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tjdub

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36 Coupe

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