No Dig Potatoes - How're They Growing!?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 ส.ค. 2024
- www.edibleacres...
Update to our first video documenting an experiment with 3 different planting methods for potatoes. We want to understand no/low dig methods of growing a lot more, and so this year we're trying a few different styles to understand what works best for our context.
So far, it seems that putting down a deep deep mulch in the spring and then simply pulling it aside a bit here or there, dropping a potato on the ground and covering it with compost a bit seems to produce some incredibly robust, disease free and happy potato plants. The true test is in the fall when we harvest :)
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Happy growing!
You and Sasha have such a lovely life flowing along. Thanks for sharing all of your knowledge and “experiments” with us. Many continued blessings to you both.
Our pleasure! We're learning as we go and sharing what feels promising too!
It would be nice to see them in their own rows. I'm totally on the no dig with compost bandwagon, but since potatoes would prefer about 3 feet between rows for optimal root development, I suspect that most of the poor performance from the outside rows has to do with the intense competition from the grass.
That makes a lot of sense good point
I also wondered about grass competition. Though I still think no dig compost would win
I’ve grown potatoes under straw for two seasons now. I will be adding some compost next for sure! Thank you from Zone 3 Saskatchewan Canada 🇨🇦
Thank you for this upload and your inquisitive approach to growing, truly infectious and inspiring stuff. Liz Zorab and Charles Dowding are also documenting some great no dig stuff too here in the UK. Many thanks and keep up the great work. 👍
my wife and I just finished planting a 50' row of red and white potatoes using hay, composted potting soil and a tbsp of azomite and tbsp of worm castings on each potato. we pulled back the hay, laid down a row of potatoes then covered each one with potting soil and sprinkled the worm castings and azomite. we plan to mulch with more hay as the vines grow. we have a 3 ft wide deep buffer of hay on each side to the row of taters to keep grass and weeds down. we have high hopes for a bountiful harvest in about 2 1/2 mos. In winter we grow taters in our greenhouse in 15 gallon plastic pots that that works well for us.
Potato pros over here! I can imagine them thriving with this level of care, wow!
wow, that tip about laying the grass and weeds down and mulching over them was fantastic! I never thought of doing that and it's genius! Thank you!
WAY less work...
Wow!!! That’s amazing. I’m so pumped that I will have compost to do that kind of thing next year due to you sharing your chicken compost methods!
We are doing the same thing. The chickens do an amazing job.
So psyched to read this!
I've been growing potatoes similar to this for the last couple years I will definitely have to try putting some compost down! Thank you so much for this information
I love your experiments. After watching you for a while I've been doing the same here in southwest. I'm amazed at the results. Thank you, Sean.
Yes! I've been waiting for this update! Thanks for this and all your videos.
Definitely going to try that second method
Feels very promising so far.
@@edibleacres I once grew potatoes just sitting then on the dirt, and covering with sawdust several times as they grew, I'm going to try it here, with some of the truckload of sawdust, I bought after watching your vids last week. Hi from New Zealand
My own no dig potato bed was done in a very similar way as your 2nd method. I've had good results too. I did build a small bed around them using logs and then filled that with fall leaves as I hilled the potatoes up. I plan to harvest the fall leaves later to use as leaf mold in my main gardens.
Sounds like a really nice approach.
But it's the middle row and I find spuds on the edge always suffer. (I put mine on the surface and cover with deep compost, the subsoil is clay) so far this year, the voles don't seem to have taken many.
Volunteer squash have always thrived in the compost heap. Can't say I'm surprised at all by the middle row of spuds. :) Now we know for next year.
Lets see how it all shakes out at the end of the season :) Still lots of time for amazing things to go wrong!
@@edibleacres Of course as long as the girls are keeping busy you can boost the whole works. Rain rain here thankfully. Hope you're getting some too. :)
Wait for results of this experiment so excited thank you so much 🙏👍
Thanks for this information
I am pretty sure I selected #1, my reasoning was contact with the soil. But I am okay with that. I have saved these vids, marked my garden journal and can't wait to try option B next season in my yard. I have an area in my yard that is difficult to mow. I think I will opt for growing some spuds instead. Thank you so much for expanding my horizons.
Could still very well be that in the fall we learn that option 1 is the best. #2 is looking the best right now, but we'll have to see what the yields, damage, size, etc. have to say about it all... Definitely less work to get things going for #2, I can say that for sure :)
I said it would be fine :) I'm surprised at the lack of growth on the other no dig method but I suspect it will catch up, it's just the boost from the compost I'm guessing. All ours doing well with just the greens/hay harvested from around us. The heaping with compost later is interesting and especially that method of bending over and heaping, I will try that and try to compare yields on a row. We do enjoy your vids, your laid back yet pragmatic approach is refreshing and inspiring, thank you.
I am rather dense so bear with me. Bending the tallest potato plants over accomplishes what exactly? Do you cover them completely with compost or only partially? Is the goal to have them root again and produce more potatoes or simply to spread the upper growth out? Sorry for being so slow. Love what you do.
Really I should have shown the process... Yes, bending them over, and then hilling the stem most of the way will help 1) promote a lot more formation of potatoes and 2) help spread the canopy out to broaden the plant and cover more ground. I will definitely show it in future videos :)
You might try the lomgest old lady hairpins you can find to help the pinning process. Works well for strawberry runners...or try long landscape fabric staples.
I'm definitely excited to see how this works out. Maybe I'll give it a go next season when I have the compost (starting the new kitchen garden this year without any compost was roooouuugh...)
Nice job.
My problem was getting seed potatoes this year! I checked everywhere local to me and was able to only get one bag. But my sweet potatoes are finally starting to take off.👍
Same. With the pandemic, everything sold out so quickly. By the time I had the funds for seed potatoes they were sold out. Luckily a friend had a sprouted spuds from the store and they're at least growing well enough to get me through this season.
top video great information thank you !
Fantastic result! thank you for the research piece, this is so helpful.
Really happy to share notes on our experiments.
i did similar thing last year, but i also put some compost on the straw, and added more straw... It was a miracle for me ... we will see if i will be able to repeat the result this year...
Yes tried some mini reds and they got to hot in the sun but going to try to grow them in my greenhouse. CA heat is no joke when it comes down to planting.
I’ve used method similar to #2 with Jerusalem artichokes and got good results.
Awesome my one garden became a field after like 8 years no till and not much mulch
Anyway we cut the hay for the rabbits
Lined with cardboard and planted potatoes right on top
Mulched pretty thick with rabbit bedding
We should have potatoes in the fall... our early potatoes this year are growing slow
I did my potatoes in the way of the middle and mine are growing the same way in Illinois zone 7a!!!! So that tells us that it's viable across zones too
thanks for share your experience!
Good video, keep in mind that what you did was super feed the center row.
So it was not a fair trial.
Try it again but first pull off all the mulch in the fall after harvest.
Lever the bed and evenly add the same amount of compost over the whole bed.
Then cover the entire bed in 12" of old hay or straw.
Let that cover winter over and compost.
In the spring, pull back the much only where you want to plant a potato and with a spade, lever intoer the soil just deep enough to insert your potato.
That is still No-Till.
The pull all the mulch back over it.
You will be amazed how this process if done year after year will build soil fertility and at some point, you will not need to add any more compost.
ALSO...
Do a test this fall at harvest time.
After you get all the harvest out, take a the best potato from a plant and put it right back in the soil to winter over under the 6-12" of mulch.
They should all make it brilliantly.
Thanks for these notes here, much appreciated!
Your girls in the chicken yard definitely produce beautiful "gold" for growing anything ! Have some similiar potato experiments going on myself....time will tell....we are still terribly dry up here...... Necessary for mulch......
Informative as always, thanks!
Hi Sean, will you be offering plants for sale on your site soon?
Blessings Abound!
Thank you for sharing
Very practical advice on growing potatoes along with a nicely composed comparison of different methods of growing using a scientific methodology. By the way have you ever tried growing sweet potatoes.
Happy to share notes. I like that you call it scientific methodology... I definitely wouldn't go that far!
We have tried sweet potatoes, but our site is pretty cool, moist, etc and they don't grow incredibly well for us.
I live in Karachi
I keep looking to see how many potatoes you harvested. When will you be doing that? Am really curious about the 3 methods you used.
Good reminder here. I started doing a little bit of harvesting last night, and am keeping it separated by rows. Not amazing harvest right now because mainly the drought we had suppressed everything, but there are potatoes coming out so thats exciting. I will definitely plan to make update videos on all this. Glad you are interested!
Is the pond for irrigation ? What about a solar pump and drip tubing to water thos beds?
Good info thanks.
Fantastic!! Very helpful.... Thank you!!! :)
As always, your videos are great. Will you hill them further? Do you think proximity effects this at all, IE would results be different if they were different beds with each technique?
Yes this is something to consider and a bunch of folks are mentioning the same
Last year we hilled our potatoes with hay. It made harvesting extremely easy, but we had at least five mice families take up residence in our 30’ potato bed so they could live and raise babies right next to an all-you-can-eat buffet. This year, I laid out some old plywood/sheet metal leaned up against a rock, and dug out a space to sink in a broken kiddie pool (to retain some water). Hopefully that will attract enough snakes and birds of prey to keep the mice out of the garden.
Nice design idea and solution here. We have a huge number of snakes in our gardens now, and I think they are in part there to balance the vole and mouse population. We love their presence (although I can get a tiny bit squeemish sometimes around them!)
Awsome! Thank you!
Awesome!
I wonder what would have happened to "row 4" if you had done one where you had also dug the spuds in a bit and added compost and covered with mulch?
Seeming like all the options are evening out to one basic level at this point.
I was trying the same not with potato's but just with te sqash some tomatoes and mellon's...
That was fun for about 2 weeks and all my plants are eaten 😓😓
This would be the first yar of planting anual's but 90% of the plants did not get past 10 cm of growth..😭😭😭
how do you determine when it's time to pull your potatoes? I never know exactly the right time..
I can't say I know the perfect time at all... Some folks harvest a little early for 'new' potatoes that have a very thin skin, cook quickly, etc., but those don't store. I think ideal is to wait as long as you can so the potatoes can set strong skins and store longest. For our area we hope to harvest later September when we can...
What do you think of the Biochar? Do you think its worth the trouble?
It is if you are doing other things with it while making it, like heating your home or avoiding the use of a wood chipper for sure!
At the site where my Dad, sister and I live, we have an super abundance of woodchips. I wonder how the potatoes will do with compost on top, covered by woodchips as a mulch?
After potatoes will probably plant beings such as chestnuts, hazelnuts, peaches, persimmons, currants and seaberry, so the decomposing woodchips, in my mind, will help them along. Does anyone agree/disagree?
I have doubts about using woodchips, however, so luckily we are friends with someone who grows and bales hay. Maybe we’ll use hay this spring and woodchips this fall.
I think when you plant the potatoes in the spring you would do very well to make sure they are well covered in compost and maybe your first healing is with a soil and compost mix. I suspect you can add wood chips on top Midsummer to hold in the moisture and cover your healed material while the potatoes develop. Really it's when you plant the trees that you want to go crazy with the wood chips
More potato plant doesn't necessarily mean more potatoes. I'll be interested to see how the harvest reflects the different methods.
I hear you, not counting the eggs yet for sure...
What your not accounting for is that the middle row has no grass on either side and is getting more water and mulch. The side rows are competing with he grass. Not a fair comparison.
Yes someone else said the same, a good point for sure
2 gallons of compost per potato?! Or did you mean per row?
Per potato.
Hi
first!
Are you concerned about the weed killer found in hay?
Deep South Homestead on youtube has a video on this...
I mean, all you've really shown here is compost works.
The 👎 must be on the Keto diet