Fall potatoes

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With the fall season upon us soon the colder weather will keep us indoor more and that means less time outdoors in our gardens, which I will truly miss.

Fall means yielding your final vegetation and collecting next years seedlings.  Whether it be the last of the tomatoes, herbs, chili peppers, squashes or potatoes.

 I decided to plant potatoes in the middle of summer.  It was very late in the season because I had a hard time trying to get my potatoes to sprout long enough to plant.  It's ironic when you don't want your potatoes to sprout, they sprout like crazy and when you want them to sprout, they just don't.  I think next year with planning a few months ahead, I will get my potatoes into the soil earlier for longer and larger yield.  I was surprisingly happy with assortment fingerlings in different sizes. I cannot wait to cook them up!

I thought I took pictures with the planting process.  Because I did not, I tried to recreate the process after everything had been dug up. 

Here we go...to begin you will need two large planters.  Make sure one of the planter is a size down from the largest planter.  You want the slightly smaller one to fit into the largest planter.  Makes sure the slightly smaller planter is of a softer material so you able to cut the sides with an x-acto knife.

I made three cut outs on the sides of the slightly smaller planter.  I cut three inches from the top and the bottom of the planter. I call these cuts, windows.  The reasoning behind the cut outs is that once the potatoes are in full growth, you will be able to lift the slightly smaller planter straight out of the larger planter and dig out the potato yields in the windows cuts on the planter. 





Now you are ready to plant.  Place the window cut planter into the larger planter.  Place some rocks on the bottom of the planter for drainage.  Potatoes do not like a lot of water.

On top of the rocks, pour about 3 inches of soil into the planter.  Now place your spouted spuds on top of the soil in each of the window cut outs.  Now cover the potatoes with enough soil to cover up any of the sprouts.









Once the potato sprouts begin to peek through the soil, keep covering the sprouts day after day until the sprouts reach to the top of the planter.  This is a long process but the results are rewarding.

Soon the shoots will turn into green shrubbery.  Keep on watering and make sure the plant gets a lot of sunlight.

After 30 days, you could lift up the window planter and see if there are any fingerling potatoes to pick.  Leave some small potatoes for picking when the green shrubbery starts to die down as the summer turns into fall.
 




This is all I yield this year from two potato.  A variation of different sizes of fingerlings. There is nothing fresher than potatoes grown organically by moi!

P.S. They were delicious! 

Next year, I will start my sprouting potatoes earlier and maybe try to grow them in a larger bin.










                                                                  ENJOY!