The Spring Potato Crop is in the Ground

I like to research interesting facts about different crops we plant in the garden.  For potatoes, I learned the following from www.Potatogoodness.com:

In October 1995, the potato became the first vegetable to be grown in space. NASA and the University of Wisconsin, Madison, created the technology with the goal of feeding astronauts on long space voyages, and eventually, feeding future space colonies.

I don't know about growing potatoes in space, but we have always grown them in our garden.  Potatoes are an easy crop to grow if the weather is somewhat agreeable.  They don't like wet soil, however, and we've had times in which they rotted in the ground.  We usually try to plant them around Valentine's Day.  This year we actually got them in the ground on February 16th.

I got the weed eater and trimmed all the winter grass growing in the potato bed down to the ground.  There were a few turnips in the bed that were about the size of a baseball that we harvested and cut up and fed to the cows.  When the cows see us working, they always come near the fence knowing they'll be recipients of something to eat!

Beginning to work up the potato bed

The potato, from the perennial Solanum tuberosum, is the world’s fourth largest food crop, following rice, wheat, and maize. The Inca Indians in Peru were the first to cultivate potatoes around 8,000 BC to 5,000 B.C.

Last week we cut up our seed potatoes to let them scab over.  We also had some potatoes left over from the spring crop that we'll plant.  We turned the soil over with shovels, digging deep and then we used a hoe to chop the soil.  Finally, we used a rock rake to smooth out the seed bed.  The soil was perfect and easy to work.  The composted leaves and hay we've been amending is helping out.

Russ dropping seed potatoes into the holes

The LSU planting guide calls for planting seed potatoes 4 inches deep and 12 inches apart.  For the size of our potato bed, this gives us perfect room for three potato plants wide.  I dug the holes, and Russ and Tricia helped me plant by dropping the potatoes in the holes.  Before covering them up, Tricia dropped a tablespoon of organic fertilizer in each hole with the potatoes.  This will give them a little boost to get them growing.

Plant with the eyes facing upward

The potato bed is about four feet wide by 45 feet long.  With two of us digging and Tricia planting and applying fertilizer, the work went quickly on Saturday afternoon.  If you look down the row, you can see a stick in the middle.  This marks the spot where we switched from cut up seed potatoes to whole potatoes planted left over from the Spring 2018 crop.  I want to do a field trial to see which ones are more productive.  The cut up potatoes are LaSoda variety, while the ones north of the stick are the Pontiac variety.

Benjamin was working, so he couldn't take part in the potato planting, but Tricia, Russ, and I felt good about getting the potatoes planted.  It is nice when the family can work together on a task.  It is a rewarding experience when you can lean on your shovel at the end of the day and look over the work you accomplished.  Satisfying.  Gratifying.

When the potatoes pop up out of the ground, I'll add some chicken litter from our hen house.  Then I will mulch around each plant with hay to discourage weed growth and to also preserve soil moisture.  One day in May we'll hopefully harvest and enjoy the fruits of our labors.