Potatoes grown organically

[pepe2000]

Well, getting back to potatoes,
I found a source for Green Mountain potatoes, yippie! Picked up some Kennebecks and Red Norlands today. Tilled up the potato patch today (raspberry patch to on the left of potato patch) and picked up 2 pickup loads of leaves and pine needles for mulch to add to my treasure chest. I could have filled a tractor trailer today with yard cleanup. Gold all over the curbs. My sandy soil is starting to look really good now from years of compost and cover crops. The new bees were really active today. Gorgeous day, but raining now and tomorrow will be wet, too.
Pepe

The long term compost bin. I'll wrap it in black plastic to keep it from drying out too much from wind and sunlight. I also keep it watered.

[pepe2000]

Hey All,
Now for another (distantly related) potato, the sweet potato. I'm pretty far north, but I'm giving sweet potatoes a try. Here's a short vid of growing slips. Cut slips off at 6" or so and put them in water to root before planting out. I'll keep you posted. If you want to try this, now is the time up north. It's almost too late considering the long (100 days) growing season. You can still do it but yields will be small taters. Further south you can start much earlier.
Pepe

[rustyold36]

I never knew you could grow sweet potatoes in the be North until last year. I had no luck starting my own slips last year but I did find some starts at the garden center. I grew the biggest sweet potatoes I had ever seen.

[DanNH]

Glad to hear you had success with then. I tried then a couple of years ago all I got was small to the point of useless or way to hard to dig. They just didn't work well in my garden. But they are soo good.

[rustyold36]

The reason for the lack of success be with the slips be was I couldn't be find organic sweet potatoes. I am sure the potatoes I used to were treated to not sprout. I have been adding organic matter to my Sandy soil for years. I can now push me arm down to my elbow. Potatoes do am amazing in it but will moved to a new garden this year.

[pepe2000]

Hi All,
I thought I'd do an update on my sweet potato quest.

Hang them in containers of water, let them root and produce shoots. There is a top and bottom so look for evidence of growth of either buds (top) or root nodes (bottom). If nothing is evident, leave them out in a sunny warm spot until something develops. This is one of the reasons for getting a real early start. If the slips get too long, cut them back and use the cutting to start another slip by sticking it in water to root.

They'll look like this after a few weeks or so.

Cut or break the shoots off below a leaf node and root in water.

Looking pretty good. They should be about a foot long when you set them out. Note the stem on the right is red not green. It's a different variety of sweet potato. These were generic SPs so I have no variety names, sorry.

Here's some pieces I threw in water just to see what happens.

I can't believe how fast and sure these things root.

Here's a piece of stem I threw in some water for a week or so. Look at those roots! Starting at the right make your cuts on the stem section between leaf nodes

Each of these will grow more roots and the leaf node will grow into a stem and become a slip for planting out. Unbelievable!
I will plant these out around the first week of June. They need heat so I can't rush them now. I got a late start and the slips will be smaller than I would like. We'll see how it works. Small potatoes are better than no potatoes.
I'll keep you posted.
Pepe

[KristijanL]

Sir, you got me interasted for next years crop. Keep us posted!

[pepe2000]

Another method to initiate root growth on sweet potatoes. I saw this done on youtube.

Cut a sweet potato in half. Keep top piece (you have to learn how to identify them, see other vids on YouTube) and support in water as usual.

The roots at 1 month. Yeah, slow. We'll see what it does. I'm doing this to grow slips and this is way late for my planting weather, but I'll press on just for the experience. Adjust next year's time table now that I have some indications of rooting time. Earlier is better, you can root slips from slips easily enough. They root very quickly, usually 3-4 days gives good indications of root development.
I didn't sacrifice a whole potato, I had one with a rotted bottom (normal root development site), so I used the top for this experiment.

I found these old pics of my first sweet potato experiments.

I had 2 of these plants.

One potato.

Two potatoes. I don't know about you, but to me the potato seems to be growing up from the small roots at the bottom. I did plant them, already late. Harvested meager 1" to 1 1/4" potatoes 6" to 8" long.

[BillyAlabama]

Looks great. But what's that white stuff all over the ground in the first post? Sweet potatoes end up being our "survival" food here at our place. We grow them every 2-3 years and have them in case we don't have anything else. Down here it seems they like the weaker soils. Not sure why exactly but it seems that okra nd sweet potatoes always make it when nothing else does.

[pepe2000]

Edit for comments 46 and 50

Plants died shortly after potting up. Tops rotted on all five samples. Maybe need more stem nodes. I thought they had a chance, they looked strong.

[BillyAlabama]

I'm not a sweet potato expert, but maybe your soil is too good and too well watered. Looks like you take good care of things. In my experience they like poor soil and somewhat drier environment. The Peruvian Andes where they come from are very much dry and have an otherwise poor soil quality. When we grow them for market, we water them when we first set them out, but do very little irrigation when it is dry. Also, we do give them a lot of pot ash (K).

[pepe2000]

The spot I intend to put them in is the least built up section of garden I have, but the sunniest for the longest time. It heats up well. It also dries out fast without a mulch (comfrey of course). After 10" deep, it's sand 10 feet deep on a layer of blue/grey clay over the ledge rock. I had a thought to make a thick, semi solid slurry of ground comfrey leaves (for potash) and plant my slips in neck deep holes of this potting slurry. I'll give it a try and we'll see what happens.

[pepe2000]

Ha, ha, I had to scroll back to figure out what you meant.
Oh, I forgot to tell you, we call it northern spring dew

[SteveUnruh]

Good morning Mr Pepe,
Thanks for the comfery-as-an-intentional grown picture set on the other topic.
Wife planted some a few years ago. Now wind and birds have it popping up all over the place.

On this potatoes topic - successful growing past 2-3 years without having to fall back onto dusting/spraying every 7-8 days of then AG-Pharma poison for blights has been my agony.
A new to me current published book this year:
"GROWING VEGETABLES WEST of the CASCADES" by Steve Soloman and Marina McShane just may have the answer for me.
He explains in clear language just how "certified" seed potatoes are developed. First clean cell tips slices in sterile liquid media grown. Then. A long, long 2-3 generation's grow progressively larger in near sterile dirt conditions process.
I think my problem in the past was maybe not so much contaminated soil but my loose seed potato sources and using my own last years potatoes for seed.
Anyhow. This year certified Red Pontiac and Kennebec potato seeds into 32 gallon garbage cans to get them up, off my own foggy misty/dewy ground level.
A short row of the same seed in the ground as normal as a comparison point.
We will see, eh. One way or the 'tuther, I want my own spuds.

Practice. Patience. Persistence.
J-I-C Steve Unruh

[KristijanL]

A nother great use of comfrey. Dig out the roots, wash, dry, grind to a fine powder and you have a wund antiseptic/bleading stoper.
It contains a strong blood coagulant, stops bleeding imediatly.

[pepe2000]

Yes, Kristijan, that's a good idea. Comfrey has been used for first aid for centuries and was my original back to the land purpose for starting it. Never thought about powdering it. Thanks for the tip.

[BillyAlabama]

A nother great use of comfrey. Dig out the roots, wash, dry, grind to a fine powder and you have a wund antiseptic/bleading stoper.
It contains a strong blood coagulant, stops bleeding imediatly.

We use pulverized (powder) cayenne pepper. works great.. and no, It doesn't burn....

[pepe2000]

The rain finally came and it's time to hill and mulch my potato patch now that the ground is thoroughly moist and cool.

Hilled up the rows and filled the center in with comfrey plants just laid in enough to well cover the bare soil.

Now I'll take that rotted leaf pile and mulch the hottest (west) side.

I'll run soaker hose along the top of the each row and try to never let the soil dry out. Yep, totally organic here for the last 44 years. That new greenery is winter rye that I plant on every open unused piece of my garden (s).
Reflecting on my good fortune as I sweat my ### off
Pepe

[BillyAlabama]

Do you use rye grass or cereal rye. We use cereal rye grain for cover. It's a lot easier to kill. Just have to weed eat it or mow it. The grass will get started here and live year round. Where are you? Those are your sweet potatoes?

I keep hearing about a plant called burdock??? How does that compare to this terrible yellow dock we have. ???? Anyone know anything about it?????

[pepe2000]

I would have to say it's cereal rye. Generally planted in the fall, it overwinters and goes to seed the following growing season and is harvested then. It has big seed like wheat. If I plant it in fall, the following spring I let it grow 5-7 inches, mow it short and till it under. This is my green manure crop. Then I plant whatever in that space.
These potatoes are Kennebec and Red Norlands, harvested in fall for winter storage and eating. My sweet potatoes are in another spot where they'll get the heat they need. The other potatoes need it cooler for the best yields. I'll post some pics as they vine out.
Burdock is a tall prickly son $%%^%$% about 3-4 feet tall growing in waste places. It has marble sized burrs that cling to anything that touches it, Hard to get out of you pet's hair! As I said $%%^%$%. I've never heard of yellow dock.
I am located on the Canadian border about 15 miles west of Lake Champlain. Lake Champlain is the border between New York and Vermont.
Pepe