How Not To Grow Potatoes - No Dig Method Using Wood Chips
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 8 มิ.ย. 2024
- In this video I with show you my worst potato harvest and share with you the mistakes that caused it.
A lot of times growing your own food is a rewarding experience, but sometimes it can feel like you’re chasing a fart in a fan factory. Our setbacks are opportunities to learn and grow. So in this video I’m gonna show you how not to grow potatoes so that you can learn from my mistakes and have a bountiful harvest.
Hi I’m Christina with Forever Food Forest. A channel where I explore ways of growing food without the use of pesticides, herbicides, or commercial fertilizers and instead I rely on permaculture principles and other natural farming techniques to grow food that’s good for the garden and good for the planet.
My first mistake was using fresh wood chips. Potatoes are not particularly picky about the type of soil they grow in. They can even grow in straw. I heard about the no-till Back to Eden method and I was eager to try it. All I had was fresh wood chips and realizing that the fresh wood chips would suck the nitrogen out of the soil and their surroundings, I decided to compensate for that by adding a source of nitrogen: rabbit manure. I mixed it all together and created a perfect environment for insects to live in. So the lesson is: use aged wood chips. The wood chips need to age for at least six months, maybe even longer and then you can use them to grow your potatoes. Lesson learned.
My second mistake was planting the potatoes too late in the season. Potatoes are a cool season crop and they set the most tubers when temperatures - when the soil temperature is 55 ° F or 12.8° C. I was hoping that we would get a late spring cold snap, but instead we got a heat wave and my plants were not able to set many tubers and my harvest suffered. So the lesson is: check your forecast.
My third mistake was not using any pest control. I didn’t even plant any companion plants or trap crops. What am I? Nuts?! Now I know, I know. At the beginning of the video I said that I didn’t wanna use any chemicals or pesticides, but there are some natural and biological options. I had a problem with cutworms. Ugh! They’re my nemesis. So I can’t help but wonder, had I used B t Thuricide and sprayed the potatoes earlier in the season, would I have been able to save more plants and maybe have a bigger harvest. Bt Thuricide is a bacteria that naturally occurs in the soil and it's an insecticide that only works on caterpillars, cutworms and horn worms and does not harm humans, bees or other beneficial insects. The lesson is, I can always try next year.
Gardening is an opportunity to grow, not just plants, but also as a person. You see, not every harvest is going to be a bountiful harvest. But every growing season has a lesson. And the more lessons we learn, the better we get along the way. So if you like this kind of content, make sure you “like” that button. And if you wanna see more content like this, make sure you’re subscribed. Hopefully this video was informative. If you have any tips for growing potatoes drop them in the comments below and until next time, grow with your garden! - แนวปฏิบัติและการใช้ชีวิต
"chasing a fart in a fan factory" 🤣
You have a sense of humor 😎
I like it. I grew potatoes before, they were all tiny. Very small.
That was better than my last attempt at growing potatoes. Thanks for brightening my day.
Any time!
We got 22 dump truck loads of wood chips.
We have a back neighbor with 80 acres lots of leaves for compost.
I just came across your channel. In love with the content and subscribed. I really like the honest and practical approach.
Thanks and welcome!
Hi am thanks for the video! I am subscribed !
The thing I see that from my experience is the mixing of mulch and manure . What works for me is to start with a bed of loose soil. If it is not that way naturally like my garden has become , it will need some tilling . On top of that I put the layer of horse manure say a foot deep. I poke the potatoes in just bearly covered. After that I cover the bed with hay , straw , leaves, wood chips or stuff raked from the forest floor around me. I put that mulch on say a foot or more deep. I have had great success doing it that way without chemicals. Thanks again for the video I am going off to watch more thank youuuu
Discovered this quirky young lady… love what your doing teaching how to do it the right way.😊
Nice. Lizard taters. Thanks for the ideas.I am using my arborist neighbors free hardwood chips to amend the soil.Seems to work well here in Florida.
I am starting to chit potatoes in the southern hemisphere and this was great to watch and learn from you, what not to do (iow not putting on fresh wood chips!)
This was fantastic. Humility can be "Fun"!
I suck at Potatoes. And I would starve if dependent on them.
An old farmer's trick against cutworms : drive a short round piece of a branch next to the base of your plant...when the cutworm approaches your plant's stem it will encounter the stick next to it and think it is too tough to eat and go look for something else.
Appreciate the content
Great video
Amazing technique 😊
Thank u beautiful ❤
Great video 👌👌🥰
I tried potatoes for my first time up in NW Florida. It went okay sweet potatoes are super easy in the warm season and the least are edible too. Just found your channel and am bingeing now. Turning sand to soil has been a challenge keep up the hard work
Thank you! Sweet potatoes grow so well here they are borderline invasive!
Hello from WV
I seen a video on growing potatoes from a box open on both ends then set directly on the ground. Build up the box foundation with mulch such as old leaves and straw put potatoe bulb in cover with dirt and more mulch on top of that seems to be working well will be harvesting soon plants are 2-4 feet tall. Following you now for no pesticides. Also I've used a castle soap, baking soda and water mixture for bug spray. Works well..
Great video - thanks! I don't ever use wood chips for annuals. I know that you can do that, but I prefer "lighter" mulches like hay, straw, or leaves. For potatoes, I prefer old hay because it seems to have more nutrients than straw and is less likely to blow away than leaves. When I have wood chips, I either compost them first (mixed with grass clippings and kitchen veggie scraps) or I use them in a perennial bed.
Thanks for the tip! Good reason to grow wheat and use the straw and hay for growing spuds.
Lol! This was funny. Did you plant again this year?
Hi, I saw you plant a seed potato with a bunch of sprouts on it. You will do better to cut the seed potato into two or even three pieces so you get two or three different plants. Sandy soil works good. Plant one row each week. That way if there is a frost, you wont have as much damage. Plant them flat, then hill them up with dirt when they are a foot high. Wood chips are fine along your garden pathways, they keep the ground cool and damp. There are organic methods of fertilizing and pest control, maybe you would like the JADAM system of creating your own home made garden inputs. Garden Like a Viking used some plastic trash bags , and Hollis and Nancy do a lot of planting in containers. Best wishes.
Thanks for the tips! I don't think I'll be using the wood chip method again. One of the biggest problems we have here in Florida is that in some spots you can't dig more than 2 feet without hitting water, so when it rains the soil just stays waterlogged for days - and it rains here almost every day. I'll try planting them flat in a higher area on the property and hillling them with native sandy soil, and if that doesn't work, then containers.
I agree… I use this method and my last red potatoe crop was the largest yet. They had a sweet flavor…. I only planted 2 cut red potatoes and got about 2 pounds of large red potatoes
I also live in Florida…. Moving south soon to where sugar sand rules the yard. I loved your video on building the soil. I’ll be starting on that day 1 at the new place.
Hey Cristina. Loving your content. I'm in Vero Beach. Working on establishing good soil and putting in a food forest. What annuals are you planting this month?
Hello and Thank you! Hopefully it cools for for us here soon. I'm planting a row of corn every week in August, and just started peppers, tomatoes and beans!
@@foreverfoodforest What varieties of corn?
I'm fixing to get Tomato starts in the ground.
I found out this the hard way as well a few yrs back. Tree company offered a free truckload of free wood chips.. covered my whole garden 🤦♀️. Oops 😬 ☠️
I too live in 9b and have struggled big time with growing potatoes. They always sprout up and start growing nicely, but after a week or so of a nice plant above the ground, they just die off. The best I get is some potatoes with the diameter of a quarter. I've tried in a potato box, bucket and in the ground. Maybe its just too hot most of the year here.
Never tried this method before. I've just stuck to basic things like soil and compost and straw mulch. Each to their own I say.
My father used lime, his potatoes always came out good.
It is true that we learn something every season about our garden, and ourselves, and how we did things last season, But it is for our garden, not every one elses.I'm sure you have subscribers from around the world as I currently reside in the South Island of New Zealand. No, that is NOT Australia but near by.. When growing up in the North Island of New Zealand you could just about grow anything, However now residing in the South Island of New Zealand that is a way different story, but I'm learning more every year.. I hope you stick to your intro of not using pesticides, insecticides etc etc.
Thanks! New Zealand looks lush and seems more green than Australia. My climate here is similar to Cairns, but in northern hemisphere. It’s amazing how much changing geography can affects our techniques. I used to live in Hawaii where you can just throw seeds on the ground and stuff grows. Then I came to Florida and it’s a huge learning curve. I plan on sticking with no pesticides but it’s hard when everyone around us uses them and the bugs migrate to our property!
Just because you said we should comment below, concerning the problem with your potatoes: I am growing potatoes since years and never had any big problems. But I would never use those products you are thinking at! When you read more about it, it's said to be "just minimal toxic to humans and animals", and to be sure it will also kill insects you don't need to kill. I don't think, that this is what you want to do. Because otherwise its better in your setting and intention, to buy organic potatoes than using pesticides, if you don't want to eat that chemical stuff. You could also try the irish method and plant your potatoes in fall for late spring harvest (depending on your climate). That could also help against too much insect pressure. Fingers crossed, good luck!
Thanks! We live in a subtropical climate and had a very mild winter so all the bugs survived 🙃
Regarding the pesticide I mentioned in the video, it is one of the few approved for organic gardening. Bt is a bacterium that is found naturally in soils throughout the world and poses minimal risk to humans.
@@foreverfoodforestMinimal toxic to humans and other animals would although be too much for me, also "organic" to me means to use no pesticides, but every country has other definitions for that. If this certain bacteria doesn't make any difference between the species, you can also do much damage with using bacteria. I just want to point that out, because beginners often just look on the point, if something is allowed in organic context. That point, depending on the country-laws, sometimes doesn't mean very much.
😂😂If your net was -3lbs how can you teach me ???!! Maybe I can help ! I’ve only been growing them for about 60 years. My yields this years were abundant. Close to a 30X yield. What zone are you in ?
Lol! Florida zone 9b.
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