A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2006 Grow your own potatoes?

I have never grown potatoes, and am curious-do home grown ones taste MUCH better, like home grown tomatoes?
Also, what's that about potato bugs? I always heard that they come out of the dirt as the potatoes are being dug. True or false?

Deborah...I don't know about the bugs, but there are 2 great reasons to grow your own potatoes...yes, they taste GREAT! You can't quite compare the difference to tomatoes, though. You can't get a good tomato from a store, the potatoes you grow at home just have more taste, better taste. AND...new potatoes cost a fortune, so if you only harvest new potatoes, and nothing else, you really save lots. New potatoes can be dug when the plants are blossoming...and there will still be potatoes at the end of the season, they produce a lot.

I always plant my beans next to my potatoes....The beans keep the potato bugs off and the potatoes keep the bean bugs away, So can't help you about the bug thing, But like Dave said nothing beats having that first pot of new potatoes each year...If you consider how much potatoes cost at the store, you can grow more for less money and yes the taste is alot better then store bought ones. Plus since I don't have to deal bugs, mine are chemical free which you can't say that for the store bought ones.

You can grow potatoes under straw and not have to turn any soil either to plant them or dig them. (You can actually lift the straw up and pinch a few as they are developing or just to show the kids.)

Thanks to both of you for your comments.
I saw in a gardening catalog that potatoes can be grown in a pot, and it showed how to plant the seed potatoes, and how to tip the soil out to get the new potatoes. I think it said something about
filling the pot only halfway with soil. I'll hafta look it up. It would be such a hoot to taste a "real" potato !
I can only grow in containers, I have no yard.

Thanks,too Longy.... we must have been posting at the same time.

I planted 10 lbs of spuds last year, and dug up over 30 lbs.

I took some of the small ones and canned them with green beans, they were good!!! I had beans and new potatoes during the winter.

I covered my taters with dirt then straw when they were 3" tall. There 5" now. Do I cover the entire plant with dirt or leave any showing??

Bill...what I gather is that you add leaves or straw but leave some foliage showing...and keep adding until you've got a nice deep pile. I'm trying this for the first time this year, but I've heard MANY references to this method, so it must work.

Yes you need to leave some foliage above ground, just keep raking dirt or adding straw as they get taller.

Thank you thank you.

I have a bale of hay that I am going to give this a try.

The hay is really a great way, really it should be straw, but I am sure hay will work, you may end up with all kinds of things growing in that area afterwards though using Hay. The thing I like most about the Hay method is that you can move the hay and find those new potatoes just the right size instead of digging around in the dirt hoping to find enough for a nice pot full, and when harvest time comes, no dirty potatoes, no digging, just push the hay back and pick up the taters.

To Deborah: I get potato bugs on the foliage and put Sevin dust on them, or spray. The post above from comfrey is interesting, maybe I'll try that this year, and put my beans next to the potatoes.

You said you could only grow in containers...I read that growing potatoes in tires yielded big crops. I've already planted mine in the ground, but I have a few more that I'm going to experiment with in a tire. From what I remember, fill one tire with dirt, plant a few seed potatoes in it. After the foliage is a few inches tall, stack another tire one top of the first one and put more dirt in, covering some of the foliage, but leaving a couple of inches showing. Continue stacking new tires and filling with dirt until you have three to four tires (?) high. The article said that method produced larger yields than in the ground. I'll let you know how it turns out!

As far as the ones in the ground, I plant them about three inches deep, and when the foliage is a few inches high, I "hill" them up with more dirt on each side of the row, leaving some foliage showing. I do this about three times as the foliage grows. This is to prevent "sunburned" potatoes, which produces green peels that I've read are toxic.

This sounds good, BabyRose !
You know another idea that I like, is to plant one tomato plant right in a bag of potting soil.
I saw this at the local nursery and copied the idea.
You slit the top off of a 2 cubic foot bag of potting soil, and plant the tomato plant in the top of the soil. No stakes are needed, you just lean the bag against a fence in the sun.
I like to buy a bag that has pictures of plants on it, just because it looks prettier. Miracle Gro soil has a pretty bag.

Deborah are you going to try the bag idea this year? I would like to know if it turns out!

Yummy home grown taters! This post makes me remember the time my brother in law came to help plant our garden. he was put in charge of planting taters.. he got the directions mixed up and planted them 3 inches apart and 1 foot deep. we never did get any that year...

We plant potatoes every year. Nothing tastes better than a potato you go out and dig up for supper! We grow Kennebec potatoes here. They are a very nice yeilding crops. Speaking of which I need to check out the seed potatoes that we wintered. We didn't have any potato bugs last year. But they say you typically don't the first year you plant them. I will find out this year as it will be the 2nd year planting them here. They kinda look like ladybugs only they are brown in color. If you find them on the plants you need to pick them off and I suffocate them in a jar. I try not to treat my garden with any pesticides.

Not this year, my tomatoes are already about 3 feet tall in their pots.
But I have grown a tomato in a bag of potting soil before, they do well and they always get people noticing. It's a fun thing to do. No need for a pot either, if you're a container gardener.
I can't take credit for the idea, as I saw a bag planted that way in a nursery years ago and borrowed their idea.

Comfrey, I never knew that about potatos (beans\potatos keeps the bugs away). I grew both last year and I NEVER saw any potato bugs. Only a few bugs in the beans and that was at the end of the beans life cycle. Of course I had dug up the potatos by then. Glad I planted them early as the drought was getting bad the potatos were done.

I try to plan my garden with companion planting in mind, when you know what grows best next to each other, you are more likely to get good production from your plants and also make less work for your self in pest control.