Potatoes

They were sure a lot of fun to grow. My farmer friend knew a guy who just spread the potatoes out on his lawn, and covered them with straw. Then he just harvested them in the fall. I am going to try this next spring. If it is true, then potatoes are the ultimate solar collector.

Offered by Gus.

Potatoes can be grown on top of the ground if covered by straw. You need to keep an eye for the green tint that the skin might get, that's a sign the potatoes are getting too much sun; this green tint is an alkaloid poison and shouldn't be eaten. If you dig around your potatoes every so often, when the plants have nice size spuds, and pick the nicest tubers the others will get larger. Also potatoes don't like wet soil it will cause them to rot in the ground. Get a copy of Rodale's Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening to help you with pests (a great book I can't recommend it enough).

Offered by Mike G.

Another way to increase your yield and ease the harvest is to plant the seed potato in a tire filled with soil. As the plant grows, add another tire and surround the plant with dirt. It will grow taller and form tubers in both the original tire and the new one. You can continue to add tires and dirt until you can't reach the top. Of course watering then becomes a burden, but most people can manage 4 or 5 tires. Harvesting is a cinch as you just knock off a tire and let the dirt fall out with your tubers as you need them. In really cold climates, you would want to go ahead and harvest all of the potatoes before the real freeze sets in, but you could harvest only what you need until that time and it makes good use of old tires! I harvested a quarter of my red potatoes yesterday (three plants) and got 7 pounds (one of them was a pound by itself!).

Potatoes don't like light or heat. Light is what makes them turn green, heat makes them sprout. They also need air to stay alive, so the best thing to do is to put them in flats or short, long boxes of some sort. Don't stack them, just one layer in the box. Next you need to find a cool, dark place to store them. If you have a basement that is dry, doesn't flood, you can put them down there. If you don't have a basement, put them on the floor of the closet in your coldest room in the house. If this is impractical, the refrigerator will work, but be sure they don't get so cold that they freeze, as this will kill them and they will rot quickly in there.

Offered by Roger.

Potatoes contain almost all the amino acids, many minerals, co-enzymes Q10, Folic acid, vitamins B1, B3, B6, C, and K. To grow potatoes in small spaces try growing them in old used tires. you'll need about 4 tires per stack. Stack 2 tires, fill to halfway up 2nd tire with rich composted soil place 2 seed potatoes on top of soil then cover with more soil (about 2-4") then add fertilizer around the edge of the tire and water well. As your plants grow add another tire, add more soil up to the bottom of the leaves. You can use straw or hay at this stage instead of soil (or if you have access to well washed seaweed even better). Keep repeating this process until the foliage starts to yellow, you can now start to (carefully) remove the spuds or leave till the plants wilt completely and cut stems to about 2", leaving the spuds in the ground for another 2 weeks. To harvest, lift off the tires one by one and carefully remove the spuds. Undamaged potatoes keep better so use damaged ones immediately. Wash and dry potatoes thoroughly, and store in a dark place.

Offered by Janar.

Potatoes are ready to be dug up after the plants die off.

Offered by Clipper.