At the gardening lecture I went to in January they said that the perfect time to plant potatoes is on St. Patrick’s day. Fitting, right? Unfortunately, since I just got around to planting my seed potatoes today, my potatoes are almost a month late. Whoops!
I’m going to blame my tater tardiness on the fact that we took forever to decide where and how to plant them. To get the most food out of your potato plant, you’re supposed to cover the green plant that grows out through the dirt with more dirt on a regular basis. So it was necessary to plant the potatoes in a way so that we could mound several more inches of dirt on them throughout the growing season. Many resources recommend planting in trashcans, but to be honest, spending $10+ on each trashcan seemed unappealing when you can buy a bag of potatoes at the supermarket for dirt cheap.
Instead, we picked up a roll of burlap from the local feed and seed store for eight bucks. I spent today sewing it into individual bags, filling them with dirt and planting the potatoes. As they are, each bag is only filled to about a fifth of their capacity. The idea is that as the potato plants grow, I can unfold the bags and fill them with more dirt, covering the plants. Hopefully it turns out to be as easy as that. I’m a little concerned that the bags may deteriorate or become unsteady as we go along. But I’m trying not to fret about it; only time will tell.
As for what kind of potatoes we’re growing, I thought it would be fun to be a little adventurous and get some varieties that we can’t often find at the grocery store. I picked up one bag of “Russian Banana” seed potatoes and a bag of “All Blue”, which should be a little more exciting than your everyday Russet or Yukon gold.
Even after sewing six burlap sacks and planting 15+ potatoes, there are still a few more to be planted. They’ll have to wait, though. It’s Friday and I’m done shoveling dirt for the day!
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