I dug up 47.5 lbs of potatoes, 18.5 lbs of Kennecbec, 19 lbs of Russets.

[gary350]

 

[headfullofbees]

That's 37.5ibs of potatoes, excellent potatoes.
I've just started taking my first early potatoes here in the UK.
Foremost they are, my favourite, & have never let me down.
I took four plants & got five & a half pounds, (two & a half kg,) not the biggest return, but they will continue to bulk up in the ground, which is why I didn't dig more.
Last year's main crop potatoes can still be bought, but they're well past their best, whilst "new potatoes" cost £4.75/kg at the village shop, so that makes them worth just under £12 (US$15)
Of course, I gave approx 1/3 of them to my elderly neighbour, who was absolutely delighted, as she cannot afford to pay that for potatoes!
Had just a plate of potatoes for dinner last night, & they were delicious!
They are very different, it seems, to N.American potatoes, as we enjoy them with extremely thin transparent skins, which you can rub off with your thumb print, & cook in approx 10 mins. whereas yours look as if the skin is cured.

 

[gary350]

I only get 1 lb of white color potatoes per plant. I get 4 lbs of red color potatoes per plant but we don't like red potatoes as much as white so I don't grow red anymore. Red Pontiac potatoes are hot weather potatoes they grow good in our 100° hot & dry as desert summer weather. I use to live 240 miles north of here potatoes were very easy to grow in cooler weather with summer rain every day.

I see a typing error, subject line says 47.5 lbs it should 37.5 lbs forum does not let correct the error.

 

[Mr_Yan]

nice @gary350

1 lb white or 4 lb pontiac red per plant? Did the Kennebec and the Russets preform the same?

I'm evaluating growing potatoes in my garden next year (space vs work vs yeild). I know my family can easily go through 5 lb of potatoes a week during the winters and almost that much in the summers.

 

[gary350]

nice @gary350

1 lb white or 4 lb pontiac red per plant? Did the Kennebec and the Russets preform the same?

I'm evaluating growing potatoes in my garden next year (space vs work vs yeild). I know my family can easily go through 5 lb of potatoes a week during the winters and almost that much in the summers.

I only get 1 lb of Russets and 1 lb of Kennebec potatoes per plant here in TN 98 degrees June to Sept. Relatives in Illinois & Michigan get 4 lbs of Russets & 4 lbs of Kennebecs per plant. IL is cooler 90° during the hottest summer and a 10 to 15 minute thunder storm every day about 5 pm. Relatives in Michigan have a shorter growing season & better soil.

 

[YumYum]

Looks like a nice harvest. My kennebecs taters died on me before they got finished growing but I still got a few medium to small taters.

@gary350 when did you set your potatoes out? Whereabouts do you live in TN?

 

[headfullofbees]

I took out the rest of that row of "Foremost" 16 plants= 17.5 kg.
Still not the best harvest, but the other two rows there will continue to bulk up, as I said in my earlier post, but I realised that if I took them now. then I could just manage to replace them with a crop for October.
I also have a few rows in my other plot.

So 20kg from 20 plants = 1kg per plant, @ £4.75 per kg = £95 worth of potatoes. That's just under $120!!!

 

[Meadowlark]

It's a bad year for me and potatoes if I don't exceed 10 pounds of new potatoes harvested per pound of seed potato. This year my ratio was 11.7. That's 234 pounds of new potatoes from 20 pounds of seed potatoes as measured by the weight of 5-gallon buckets full of new potatoes.

Every nook and cranny of storage space is stuffed with new potatoes, and we canned about 25 jars as well.

p.s. my red new potatoes have thin skins and a taste unequalled by any other that I have tasted. I often eat them raw with a little salt...delicious.

 

[gary350]

Looks like a nice harvest. My kennebecs taters died on me before they got finished growing but I still got a few medium to small taters.

@gary350 when did you set your potatoes out? Whereabouts do you live in TN?

I have struggled to grow potatoes in TN for 44 years we have rain 6 days every week Jan to May then no rain & desert June to Oct. If soil is too wet potatoes rot. If soil is too dry new potatoes are very small if there are any at all. I use to plant seed potatoes March 1st but freezing temperatures potatoes just set there waiting for warmer weather about April 20 and 50% of the seed potatoes rot in the mud. I learned to hill soil 3" above the swamp so potatoes don't rot then when we have 100° weather in June plants need lots of water EVERY day. Last year I planted 5 rows of potatoes last year, April 1st., May 1st, June 1st, Sept 1st, Nov 1st. I am lucky to get 1 lb of new white color potatoes per plant but red Pontiac potatoes are hot weather potatoes they grow good in 100° and produce 4 lbs new potatoes per plant, very easy to grow in TN but we like white potatoes best.

 

[YumYum]

I had set mine out March 15.

 

[headfullofbees]

It's a bad year for me and potatoes if I don't exceed 10 pounds of new potatoes harvested per pound of seed potato. This year my ratio was 11.7. That's 234 pounds of new potatoes from 20 pounds of seed potatoes as measured by the weight of 5-gallon buckets full of new potatoes.

Every nook and cranny of storage space is stuffed with new potatoes, and we canned about 25 jars as well.

View attachment 90722

View attachment 90723


p.s. my red new potatoes have thin skins and a taste unequalled by any other that I have tasted. I often eat them raw with a little salt...delicious.

Certainly, your harvest is fine, but I'm not sure we're comparing apples with apples.
2kg of new potato seed is usually approx 25 seed, so at 20 per 16ft row, we are talking a return of 12.5, both in potato weight & in kg/ft.
New potatoes tend to be small in the UK, & have skins which rub off with your thumbprint when just out of the ground.
They are a particular type of potato, which crop early, rather than a potato harvested midway through growth
We have two further main summer crops of potatoes, 2nd earlies & main crop, (we do have salad potatoes, like Maris Peer or Charlotte, but they are more like deferred new potatoes).
Yours are peeled and look more like our second earlies.
This was the only link I could find where potato numbers were named, but as I said, approx 25 per 2kg pack is typical.

Potato Foremost (First Early Seed Potato) From D.T. Brown

Potato-Foremost (First Early Seed Potato) is a great British favourite, Foremost produces plenty of firm, white fleshed tubers which show good resistance to scab and have a very good flavour. The legendary Epicure is one of its parents.

www.dtbrownseeds.co.uk

 

[gary350]

When I lived in Phoenix AZ it is 65° all winter its easy to grow 10 lbs of potatoes from 1 potato plant Nov 1st. Few people grow a garden they claim it can't be done they are from back EAST where everyone plants in Spring so they think they should plant a garden in AZ spring too. Only thing I could grow in AZ in summer was, melons, sweet potatoes, okra, they like 114° hot blistering sun. I grew 18 lb cabbage in AZ did you ever see an 18 lb cabbage. AZ full sun no clouds all winter 65° everything grows giant size, garlic the size of a tennis ball & onions big as grapefruits. Corn is the only crop that grows but produces nothing humidity is too low for corn to pollinate. I had 1 water melon plant in AZ it grew 28 melons. LOL

 

[Durgan]

Measuring weight of potatoes per plant, yield is 2 to about 8 pounds. Closer to 2 pounds is typical. To get a high yield closer to 8 pounds watering is critical, and weather must be ideal.
Comparing yield to the weight of seed planted is misleading IMO.
Also quality meaning no hollows, firm and size should be considered.
Durgan

 

[gary350]

Measuring weight of potatoes per plant, yield is 2 to about 8 pounds. Closer to 2 pounds is typical. To get a high yield closer to 8 pounds watering is critical, and weather must be ideal.
Comparing yield to the weight of seed planted is misleading IMO.
Also quality meaning no hollows, firm and size should be considered.
Durgan

I like to measure lbs per plant. A 1 eye cutting & 2 eye cutting & 3 eye cutting will all grow 1 lb of new potatoes here in TN. They all grow like they are 1 single potato plant. The 1 eye cutting grows the largest new potatoes, the 3 eye cutting grows several smaller new potatoes. I get to choose what size new potatoes I want, 1 eye is best for us TN is too hot & too dry for a good crop of potatoes. If I have 50 plants the best I can hope for is 50 lbs of new potatoes.

 

[Meadowlark]

That's the thing about gardening...local conditions are very often determinative of success/failure. Learning what works and does not work in your local conditions is so important. However, I've found that often one can "push the envelope" on local conditions with certain practices. It's those practices that really distinguish some gardeners.

Metrics based on your local conditions are a key management tool for gardeners who wish to raise a large part of their annual food supply.

For example, by using a metric of the ratio of new potatoes to seed potatoes, I have an accurate way to produce the amount of new potatoes needed each year. I like to target a production amount of 200 pounds of new potatoes and I know for certain, as certain as anything in gardening gets, that 20 pounds of seed potatoes, regardless of number of eyes will yield over 200 pounds of new potatoes in my local environment.

Similarly on onions, I use a metric which is determinative of amount of onions desired. For that, I know it takes on average one onion set per pound of bulbs produced. Like potatoes, I target over 200 pounds of onions each year and know again for almost certainty that 200 sets will yield at least 200 pounds of useable onions while providing ample green onions during the growing season while I await the big bulbs.

For corn it gets a little more complex. I use number of seeds as the key metric to determine plantings and use production amount needed to determine the number of plantings. For example, I know from experience that about 300 ears of corn (some eaten fresh, some given away, and some frozen) is my annual target production amount. I can reasonably expect to be able to process about 100 ears of corn maturing at the same time...more than that and much is wasted.

Hence, three plantings are required to achieve the production target of 300 ears. I know that I get about one ear of usable corn for every two seeds planted in my local environment....recognizing that plants must be thinned and some losses will always happen along the way. Hence to get my annual target of 300 ears of corn, I need three plantings spaced a couple of weeks apart, each of 200 seeds. That will generally yield 100 ears of usable corn per each planting. Yes, I actually divide my corn seed out into three 200 seed plantings counting them out .

Similarly for beans, tomatoes, and other veggies we grow. Metrics tailored to local conditions are integral part of it.