The More I Learn

[big rockpile]

I didn’t know if volunteer Potatoes would make coming up in my Straw.

So I checked it took me back to Ruth Stout method.

According to what I was reading you lay your Potatoes down and cover them. Comes time to Harvest you get all you can. Cover the area again. They figure you shouldn’t get all the Potatoes and they will come up that is your next crop.

So you only plant Potatoes one time.

I’m thinking it’s the same with Garlic.

big rockpile

 

[Meadowlark]

So you only plant Potatoes one time.

Only problem with that is it does not work...at least here in zone 9a. My potatoes need at least a 90-day growing season to produce viable spuds. The spring growing season here ends usually about mid-May when the combo of high temps and heavy rainfall events spell the end of potato growing until fall.

Back up 90 days on the calendar and you see mid-Feb. There-in lies the problem. The soil is too cold then for those leftover spuds to do anything. They never sprout here as volunteers until about the first of April sometimes later. That is too late. It does not work.

By chitting seed potatoes and planting before last frost date, I get at least 90 days of good growing weather. That can't be done with volunteers left in the cold soil.

 

[big rockpile]

We shall see I don’t plant Potatoes until the last of March first of April.

Their still calling for possible frost this week.

I’m gambling set Tomatoes out today and taking most the stuff out of the Greenhouse.

big rockpile