Sunday, February 9, 2025

The "Eyes" Have It

I normally try to plant Irish Potatoes around Valentine's Day.  Tricia picked up a planting guide from the feed store that states for our gardening zone that the 1st planting date in Spring is Feb 10 - Feb 29.  I jumped the gun by two days and planted them on Feb 8th.  I mean, it was 81 degrees!  Time to get going.  But potatoes require a little preparing before you put them in the ground. 

We picked up some Red LaSoda seed potatoes from our local feed store.  I got 15 pounds of seed potatoes this year and it cost me a hair over $10.  This variety does really well for our area.  The first hurdle you must jump over is deciding to plant these rather than splitting them in half and cooking them in butter and adding some fresh parsley and green onions on top.

Delayed gratification is the name of the game here.  Sometimes that gamble doesn't work out.  This year is going to be a bumper crop for spuds, though.  Last year was not.  I figured out my problem, though.  My soil test showed that I was low on sulfur.  Wouldn't you know that potatoes need sulfur, so I purchased a bag and broadcast the fast-acting sulfur and watered it in.

Then Benjamin began helping me cut up the seed potatoes.  The planting guide calls for cutting the potatoes into 'egg-sized' pieces, ensuring that there is at least one eye on each piece.  I'll generally cut the smaller potatoes in half and the larger ones in quarters.  We cut them up and laid them in trays for good air circulation.

Here is what it looked like when we were done.  I counted 163 pieces, but my count may be off by 10 or 20.  I set these aside for a couple of days.  We'll come back and check on them.

Here's what we're looking for.  We want the potatoes to 'scab' over where they were cut.  Can you see what I'm talking about?  We don't want the potato to be moist.  If you don't allow them time to cure and put them directly in the ground, there is a chance that they might just rot on you.  These are in good shape and ready to be planted.

I got my nifty planting knife that Russ bought me.  It has measurements scored along the blade that make it real helpful.  The planting guide suggests that you plant the potatoes 4-6 inches deep and 12 inches apart from the others.  Digging the hole, it was evident that the soil was in good shape, loose and not compacted.

I dropped the potato in the hole and covered with soil, adding some composted chicken litter to give the young potatoes a turbo boost.  You can see the eyes on the potato in the above photo.  Potatoes are generally slow to come up.  I'll be watching closely.  When they pop up, I'll put a layer of mulch around them to crowd out any weed pressure.  We'll report our yield when we harvest in mid-May.

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