The Potato Hill is Working!
April 7th, 2010 · 1 Comment · Posted in garden
Potatoes will obviously grow anywhere
All I wanted was a bit of compost. Instead, this truck backed up to our driveway and dumped a huge pile. I had to get creative, so I built a long hill for potatoes that I had never intended to plant.
I formed a trench down the middle of the hill, then planted it with a bag of spuds that were sprouting in our pantry. No fancy seed potatoes for us this year, just these old store-bought things.
But wouldn’t you know it? They’ve leafed out and are growing like crazy. Well, we’ll see if they actually grow potatoes. Say, remind me: What’s the difference between potatoes you buy in the store, and the seed potatoes you buy out of a catalogue?
Potatoes are not a true root vegetable, but rather a stem growth. If you cover the tomatoes with soil as they grow, they’ll produce more spuds along the stem that is covered. That’s the reason for the trench: As these potatoes grow tall, I’ll pull dirt over them from the sides of the hill. I should be able to harvet the potatoes from the side.
Won’t this be fun?
Potatoes from the store may be sprayed to retard sprouting (yours obviously weren’t). They are also not certified free of blight, which expensive seed potatoes are.
If those stems start turning black and smelly, pull them out right away and burn them. But otherwise, enjoy your potato harvest! (Or watch your family enjoy it…)