Grow

Flowering Potatoes

As many of you know, we have struggled greatly with growing potatoes. We’ve tried a couple of different containers, a couple of different soil and straw combinations, and a couple of different spots in the garden (full sun, patrial shade, etc.) and have yet to perfect the perfect growing conditions in which to produce a significant potato harvest.

So, given that all of our past efforts haven’t paid off, we’re trying something a little different this year!  

I recently read here that pinching off the beautiful flowers that appear mid season can encourage further tuber development!  When I read that I thought, “Of course!  Flowers suck all the life out of lots of edibles! How have I not thought of this earlier?!”  Oh well…there’s no time like the present, right?  If we were growing gobs and gobs of potatoes, this wouldn’t really be feasible…but on a small scale operation like ours?  Totally doable!

Whether this helps or not will (unfortunately) not be told for a couple more months, but the promise of (more than a handful of) homegrown potatoes is more than worth the few minutes it took to pinch off a few flowers.
xoxo,
M

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9 Comments on “Flowering Potatoes

  1. Fingers crossed that it helps! Thanks for sharing on Tuesday Greens!

  2. Oh yes! I just planted potatoes this year… this is good to know. Thanks!
    xoxo

  3. That’s one I’ve never heard before. We have a big row of potatoes this year. Maybe I will take the flowers off on some and leave some on and compare the harvest!

    Our best success with potatoes has always come from planting them directly in the soil and then mounding around the plants as they grow. We never had much luck in containers.

    1. I’d love to have the space to devote a patch of dirt to potatoes each year! some day 🙂 I’d be curious to see what happens with yours if you decide to go ahead with your experiment!

  4. I agree–try anything you can to see what works. I’d do the same.

    Good luck to you. I always have problems with potatoes as well.

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