161 potato plants & 500 onions

[gary350]

I planted potatoes cuttings April 5th 161 potatoes plants have come up. I planted, yellow, red & white potatoes. 500 candy onions are doing good. Plants need sun, it has been over cast and cold for 3 weeks. TV weather report says we are having below average temperatures. I only covered potato cuttings with 1/2" of soil so plants will come up very quick. When potato plants get taller I will mulch them with what I have, dry pine needles and dead leaves. TN summer is desert 1" of rain per month and 100°f temperatures. The wooden rectangle box frame will hold in water like a levee. Potatoes will need about 25 gallons of water every time soil gets dry = about every 3 days. Red potatoes often produces 4 lbs of new potatoes per plant. White potatoes produce 1 lb of new potatoes per plant. I think I have about 60% red potato plants and 40% white potatoes plants. We hope to get 380 lbs of red potatoes and 64 lbs of white potatoes. I only have 3 yellow potato plants not sure what to expect I only grew yellow potatoes 1 time before. Feb wife said, I like red potatoes best. After sprouting and planting red potatoes wife said, plant lots of yellow potatoes I like them best. Too late now.

 

[Mr_Yan]

Now that is a nice onion bed.

 

[gary350]

Now that is a nice onion bed.

Onions and potatoes are doing much better now. 32' long rows 32" wide. Red potatoes out produce White 4 to 1. What about 100 Red potato plants I hope to have about 400 lbs of new Red potatoes and about 100 lbs of new white potatoes. I lost count on the onions about 450 to 500. Corn & beans are coming up today. Melons still struggle to germinate. 1 pepper plant died garden was under water 3 week with all this rain.

 

[YumYum]

Looking good to me.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

That is a lot of onions, when we had two kids at home and I ran an allotment I used to plant 350 , roughly one a day, and 50 red onions, roughly one a week, and that would about see us through.

 

[gary350]

Red onions don't store very well we need to eat them quick. I was not able to buy red onions March 1st this year. I planted red onions April 5th. We are having 14 hours or sunlight already red onions are too small. Oh well, next year. Yellow/brown candy onions are starting to bulb with 14 hours of sunlight plants have 10 to 11 leaves. Onion harvest is about June 15 to 20 every year. We eat all we can in everything we cook then freeze the rest.

 

[Meadowlark]

Your onion harvest is exactly one month later than mine here a little farther south. This was a tough year here for onions here with hard freeze of two days at 11 deg. lows. Red and Yellow both suffered.

We did get several yellows at 5 inches in diameter, but overall crop was down about 50% I'd guess.... more room for potatoes in storage.

 

[gary350]

Your onion harvest is exactly one month later than mine here a little farther south. This was a tough year here for onions here with hard freeze of two days at 11 deg. lows. Red and Yellow both suffered.

We did get several yellows at 5 inches in diameter, but overall crop was down about 50% I'd guess.... more room for potatoes in storage.

I grew some large onions last year that were 5" but like red onions they had a short shelf life. We are in TN we have too much rain 47" Jan to May then desert June to Sept. We eat all we can until they start going bad then we freeze the rest. This is enough onions for a whole year.

 

[Meadowlark]

The thing that drives shelf life here is not size or color but how much water content they go into storage with. I always withdraw water (as much as I can) a week before harvest and dry them well in full sun for one or two days after harvest before putting them in storage where on a good year the ones that don't get consumed will last until next April.

 

[gary350]

The thing that drives shelf life here is not size or color but how much water content they go into storage with. I always withdraw water (as much as I can) a week before harvest and dry them well in full sun for one or two days after harvest before putting them in storage where on a good year the ones that don't get consumed will last until next April.

Last year I pulled up all of our onions then left them lay in the sun for 1 week to dry out. Our weather becomes desert June to Sept maybe I need to keep onions out side all summer.