Planting Potatoes

As you may remember, last year's potato crop was a disaster.  Ten pounds of potatoes from $56 worth of seed potatoes.  I was distraught.  Even worse, I had to give up my fantasy of presenting Mr. FC&G with a bushel of my homegrown potatoes as a tangible demonstration of my ability to feed our family.

This year, I'm trying a number of different approaches.  For one, my potatoes are starting in a trench.  Apparently, the little guys don't put out potatoes any lower in the ground than the seed potato, so you can either trench them or hill them or both to give them maximum under-ground space.  I am starting mine in a trench as you see here:  This trench goes about 12 inches down and is filled with my seed potatoes.  I covered them with a layer of sifted compost, a layer of the trench dirt, and some ground leaves for mulch, for a depth of about four inches.  As they show their little vines, I will add more dirt and more mulch and hopefully build a respectable hill.

Second, the Yukon Golds this year come from organic potatoes I bought at Trader Joe's for $3.69.  As you can see in this blurry iPhone photo, they were sprouting pretty well before I planted them.  All I did was purchase a bag of organic potatoes about three weeks ago, throw them in an Amazon box in a single layer, and put them in a sunny window in the dining room.  They quickly turned green and stared to sprout.  I feel pretty confident they will produce, based on the fact that last year's vines that came from store potatoes were my heaviest producers, but even if each one of these seed potatoes only gives me one potato, I'll break even.

I do have some blue potatoes on the way to supplement some blue potatoes from last year that started to sprout and went in another trench.  But at least I've succeeded in controlling my seed potato costs, and that is the first step to profitability.

Now, to get a bushel basket.....