Potatoes - first mounding

Of two potato boxes, only one has really taken off in any meaningful way; the other box does have some green finally coming up - so I'm hopeful it'll come around.

Mounding with Cedar Grove compost... I mounded when they were 4-5", and I've left about 1" of growth as per my Growing Potatoes in a Container Guide.

New Year! Try again...

Well last year the postings became few and far between as the weather turned nicer..... but it's a new year!

Other than a couple of weeks in the middle of December, our winter has been mild. We started planting about half way through February, and we have some lovely sprouts to show for it at the end of March.

Amber and the kids started the ball rolling in our 'triangle bed' with some radishes and carrots. I finished off the bed with some broccoli, bok choi, and salad greens. I also added some fennel and marigold seeds to the mix to see if we can do better work with complementary plantings that attract some beneficial insects.

We had some stuff planted in this area last year... but this year we built up the bed and amended the soil.

Amaya and Cyrus helped me plant some flowers, more carrots, swiss chard, and (I think) some romaine. We still have half the bed to amend and plant.

The potato boxes have been planted as well. Last year the potato crop was... unsatisfying. I've since learned that you really can't let the greens shoot up more than 3 inches before you mound up the dirt. The thing is- once potatoes start growing up, they grow super fast. I'm resolved to be much more attentive (and aggressive) with getting them mounded up this year. I'd really like the fingerling crop to be good....

Potato Planting

The potato bins went in this weekend. (A little late, but not too bad.) Thanks to Sinfonian's Square Foot Garden blog, I had solid specs for putting the bins together. I used their exact instructions, as it was ready to go design and simple construction I knew I could do quickly. I did see a picture of a variant on someone elses blog that I really liked- it was entirely screwless and didn't use the 2x2's to secure the sides; Instead it had a notch based design so that each 2x6 could slide in. I thought aesthetically it was more pleasing, and functionally it would be easier to take apart and put together over and over. However... I've built notch and groove systems before, and jig saw work is allot slower that some quick cuts with the circular saw and screwing it all together. I don't have time to do detail construction with the three kids around.

I included some landscape fabric at the bottom of each box, and used planting mix from Sky Nursery. So far to get each box going I've used a bag and a half for one 2x6 level. I'm still trying to figure out what to do with the dirt once this growing cycle is over. We'll still be bringing in fresh planting mix as we continue to expand the garden, so I could just shift this dirt this year to another part of the garden for next year, but ultimately I'd like a sustainable model so that dirt from potato bins in one year goes to... (?) for year 2 ... and then cycles back to being potato bin dirt on the third year. Or something like that.

Amaya helped me plant the potatoes... I accidentally left Cyrus out of the process (I didn't think he was interested... I was wrong.). I felt pretty bad about it. :(

The bin on the right has 1 lb. of mid season German butter potatoes planted in a pattern of three rows of three. The box on the left has 2lbs of mid season red potatoes, also planted in three rows of three. The seed potatoes on the red were just bigger... I read somewhere that you shouldn't cut the seed potato if it is the size of an egg or smaller, so I was operating under that guideline. We'll see!

Some final notes: Here's a great how-to for growing potatoes in containers. Reading it just now I found I should mixed fertilizer in the soil. I also learned that he recommends using compost for mounding up instead of planting mix.

I also found a link for potato research at WSU that includes lists of varieties and tons of databases. Good stuff.