I had high hopes for our potatoes this year. I purchased 10 pounds of German Butterball seed potatoes last spring and added them to a few random (sprouting) potatoes we had laying around (a few red and a few purple). We had new beds and old beds to plant them in as well as a few garbage cans for the extras. We hooked them up to drip, hilled them up when their foliage got tall enough and watched over them with hopeful eyes.
In the end, we wound up with almost 6 pounds of potatoes. Total. Yes, less than we even started out with. And, really, about 1/3 of the total harvest were the random purple potatoes I threw in at the last minute! Ugh.
We figure that one of the beds didn’t get enough sun, though we’re not sure about the other bed. We also figure that it’s not worth using up valuable bed space for potatoes anymore. The past two years have given us low yields (although last year was definitely better than this year) and it’s become rather frustrating. We will, however, try to grow them again in containers since most of this and last years harvests were from containers and not actual bed space.
On a bright note, while digging through the beds to find our few potatoes, we did come across several worms which promptly went to our Ladies for a bit of extra added protein. They were all quite excited about it 🙂
I do wonder if our poor potato harvests have anything to do with our climate and/or soil and would love to hear about your experiences with growing your own potatoes. What kind do you grow? Have you learned any tricks to growing a successful harvest? Please feel free to share away, I really would love to have a successful harvest someday 😉
xoxo,
M
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I agree with Andrea and would add that I struggle to get mine to produce many tubers at all during our summers. For me the best times to grow them seem to be when the daytime temperatures are around the 20C/68F mark and nighttime temps are between 8C/46F and 15C/60F, for most of their growing period.
Thanks for the temps! I might have to try some spring or fall planted spuds and see how they turn out. We’re so high in elevation that our temps fluctuate a lot, but it’s worth a shot to have some homegrown potatoes feed us for more than a meal or two 😉
Sorry you didn’t have much luck. I hope to try them next year, so I might be right there with you. I would love to have lots of potatoes. Have you ever tried sweet potatoes? I would SO love to grow those, not sure how easy it will be or if it’s the same.
We have not yet tried sweet potatoes, but they are on our ever-expanding list of Must Try Someday! Oh…I can’t wait to see how your planning and planting and harvesting all pans out!
I wonder whether something ate the seed potatoes before they had a chance to grow? I have found that potatoes grow well in fresh soil which hasn’t had a previous crop for sometime, I pile up lots of straw on top so the soil stays cool and moist and they seem to do best with at least 1/2 full sun and lots of water.
Thanks for the tips, Andrea! I think we’ll try them only in containers next year and see how they do…not only will they take up less space, but we can control the soil, sun and water!
oh no! that is so frustrating! I dont really have any helpful advice since growing spuds in ireland is literally the easiest thing to do and unless you get blight your pretty much guaranteed a good harvest lol it is far wetter and colder here but im guessing your variety would have accounted for that already… ps i love your blog revamp, really nice and simple 🙂 xx
Ah yes…potatoes in Ireland! I’d love it…but I might miss my super hot chiles! Although maybe Al could help me with that 😉
Great to hear about growing potatoes! I’ve been wanting to try some too, but haven’t got around to it yet. However now that I’m well into the process of completely restrategizing the Panache Garden, maybe it will happen this year. Have you had your soil tested? Wishing you better luck with the next lot 🙂
We have not had our soil tested as we have had to haul it all in form a couple of different places. If we continue to have issues we just might have to test it and see what’s up. Thanks for the idea! Good luck planning the Panache Garden! Can’t wait to see how it all turns out!