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I was a little lax this summer when it came to fertilizing my potatoes. I usually add a spoon of Miracle Grow to the watering can once a week but didn't do it this season. The two hills that I picked for a feed had mostly small sized potatoes. Now that the tops have turned yellow and stopped growing, is it too late to fertilize in the hopes of seeing my spuds get any larger?
The plant turns yellow at the end of the growing season. I’d say the spuds are done !!
I would be scared if you fertilize now you promote disease scab or rot
Tubers will size up some
I have a lot of potatoes in the ground right now - the tops are still green - the one thing though there are a lot of weeds growing along side them - I couldn't do much weeding in the garden over the past several weeks because I had cataract surgery and could't bend over for a long time - because of all the appointments I had and the restrictions after surgery I lost a month of working in the garden - I should be back to normal by the end of August - at that point I gotta get busy building up my firewood pile - there is a lot of good information on growing potatoes on the internet - but yes I agree with the others - too late to do anything with them this year -
As above , be a waste of fertilizer at this point. Go dig up a plant and see what get ? I planted two rows approx. 100 feet long , a mix of Reds, Goldfingers and Russets but unfortunately the slope of my garden allowed all the rain I had here flooded out about 20 feet of them. Some I dug up had white spots ( lenticels) on them caused by too much water but are totally safe to eat they just don't store as well.
I have 7 X 33ft rows and all my tops and most stems are dead. I use dehydrated sheep manure for fertilizer and did 2 applications one in June and the other in July. 2 weeks ago I dug up 2 plants (Russets) that had all leaf dead and the skins were very thin, and good sized potatoes hardball size. Since this is first large ploy I have grown, I have been following my MIL advice the whole time. My goal is to grow enough to store all winter. She told me to dig some up 2 weeks ago. She also has advised me to keep digging up a plant every 2 weeks to check skin thickness (better for storage) and if there is pest problems, leave them in the ground until fall or as late as possible. I don't think the will grow any bigger, but the ground is better storage conditions then my basement (at least it makes sense).
So I will be digging up another batch tonight to check progress of skins.
She also explained the difference between a "new" potatoe and storage potato skins
You're going to have a whack of potatoes Mark..feeding the village ? HaHa..
Have you been battling Potatoe Bugs this year, used to be bad here. ?
We only did potatoes one year. Too much a PIA. The storage requirement (cool root cellar) did extend the lifespan of some, but still had a lot of waste after the winter. Picking up a bag of fresh ones at the grocery store for $3 was economically the better route for us.
Leaving them in the ground till the fall won't hurt unless you have wet soil and they rot.
The $3 bag of potatoes I picked up at last week at the grocery store cost me 6.99.Quote:
Originally Posted by MikePal
Planning on growing some next summer.
I'm really not buying into the 5% inflation BS.
yea that be true....the prices have sure gone up in the past few years. Now I only buy them individually by the lb...4-5 at a time for a meal I'm making. A whole bag tends to go bad before I use the.Quote:
Originally Posted by werner.reiche
Here is why you want to grow your own potatoes - years ago I was in a barber shop waiting for a hair cut - the guy in the chair was a potato farmer - we got talking about raising potatoes and the bugs that attack them - he tells us he uses systemic type sprays to kill the bugs - in case you don't know systemic type sprays actually get into the plant structure and kills any bugs that eat the plant - we told him that the poison got into the plant and the potatoes - he shrugged his shoulders and said that this type of spray was the best that he ever used - after he left the barber and I talked about how we eat stuff that we have no idea what chemicals are in our food
I live in the country - my place is surrounded by fields - the farmers generally grow either corn, soybeans, potatoes or wheat - when they plant potatoes I watch how much they spray - first before they plant the potatoes to kill all the weeds - then a couple times during the growing season - then at the end to kill all the foliage so that it all dies at the same time - then when the potatoes go to the processing plant they are spray again to keep them from sprouting - when you sit down to have a big dish of mashed potatoes your also eating a pile of chemicals
Same reason i stopped eating ginger. I liked it a lot.Ginger being bi annual plant,and prone to fungus.......they spray it more then a dozen time with fungicide in 2 years...........alas i can get by without ginger,but not without potatoes.Quote:
Originally Posted by JoePa
Its interesting to hear that I'm not the only one who's potato plants are yellowing up and dying. This is the first time I've ever tried growing them and I did so in buckets and half barrels. I was under the belief that they would last until early fall as opposed to mid August? I've emptied 4 buckets and one half barrel so far and ended up with 22# of spuds. Nothing significant in size, but man o man, are they tasty! It was just a fun type experiment on my part and I'm satisfied so far. I did have 2 buckets that the potatoes were covered in the white spots longpointer mentioned. They cleaned up well and tasted just fine.
It doesn't surprise me that they've started yellowing already since we had an early spring. One thing I did find interesting....usually when digging up my potatoes in the fall I always seem to miss a few. Two years ago in the spring when I first tilled my garden I found one potatoe that I had missed the previous fall. It looked OK after being frozen all winter so I tossed it into the microwave for a bit. That thing was as white and fluffy as any potatoe that I had ever eaten.
Anyway, thanks guys for all the replies. Guess I'll pass on any more fertilizer and wait for the skins to thicken up.
For the best potatoes I have grown in the fall I dig a deep big hole, fill it with leaves, the old potato plant and anything that would make a good compost then pile the dirt back on top, makes quite the mound but if I do it early enough in the spring most of the mound is composted down. No need for fertilizer and a good soilQuote:
Originally Posted by sawbill