Thursday, June 20, 2013

Gardening For Potatoes

By Arman Garcia


Potatoes are an easy to grow tubular that requires a little attention and can be grown in a small area. Many claim the harvest over 100 pound of potatoes from a 4 square foot gardening area. All the care required is to add soil to the mound as the plant grows.

Garden seed potatoes are simply potatoes that have sprouted. They shoot out sprouts from the potato eyes. Most likely you have seen that happen in your kitchen when the potato basket was ignored for too long.

Before you plant your 'seed" potatoes, you'll want activate their spouting. By simply keeping them in a warm place in bright sunlight, you'll activate this process. Some use egg cartons or baskets as temporary holders.

The day before you plant you potato garden, cut the seed potatoes into about 2 inch cubes with each cube having at least 2 eyes. Store them overnight in an egg carton exposed to the air. This will hasten a callous that prevents the seed potato from rotting in the ground.

Potatoes need full sun and loose, well-drained soil. If your soil is full of clay make sure to add compost and lots of peat moss so the vines can grow easily. Make sure they get about an inch of water a week.

Gardening accessories like a crib containers, used tires or just mounds allow for gardening to be done in a small space. Dig out a shallow circle 3 to 4 foot in diameter. Amend the soil with compost and peat moss as done in the trench method. Plant 6 to 8 seed potatoes evenly around the circle and cover with 4 inches of soil. Three weeks later cover the vines partially with soil or mulch; run mulch all the way to the leaves and allow it to actually touch the leaves . Continue until the vines bloom.

As your garden potatoes start to sprout (generally in about 2 week's time) add some soil to partially cover the sprouts. Every few weeks, add some soil to cover the spouting plants. Keep adding soil so the potatoes do not sick above the soil line and turn green.

Harvest carefully, by hand or with a shovel. Generally, you can harvest from 2 to 4 months after planting. Turn the soil over and search through for potatoes at the bottom of the mound. The tubers can branch out and gentle digging at the bottom layer of your container will yield a potato or two. You can harvest the entire crop when the tops die off. All the sprays and fertilizers to grow healthy potatoes: Garden Plant Store




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